Nathan demanded himself to do something. Speak, go to the locker, go to Fury, run for the hills,
something
, but the air weighed heavily upon him, and it took effort to stay upright. Just seeing Fury made Nathan feel drunk and undone, and the rhythmic rise and fall of Fury’s chest, the damp skin, the smell of shampoo and soap, were turning Nathan on. Beneath his shorts, Nathan’s cock came to life, and Fury broke away to watch Nathan harden and make fabric shift and tent. Nathan started to adjust himself, but Fury’s eyes flicked to Nathan’s, and there was warning there. Nathan’s hand froze halfway to its destination, and Fury licked his lips.
All thought and protest momentarily died, and Nathan jerkily got moving. He brushed Fury’s arm on the way, and Nathan paused in the wide doorway that separated the locker room from the restroom facilities. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Fury now faced him, head tilted as though considering. Nathan made himself look directly at Fury, and Fury’s poker face relaxed into something softer. No less hungry, no less aggressive, but…kinder, somehow. A thrill whirled through Nathan, stirred up the butterflies in his stomach. He knew he would count this second as worth more than ten promotions or a hundred meaningless encounters.
Nathan couldn’t catch his breath, but he nodded toward the showers and shoved himself off the wall. Want and need scorched Nathan. He didn’t think he’d ever craved something or somebody this badly. He didn’t know if it was Fury, the desire to mess around with someone whose face Nathan would know later, or the lack of escapism in Nathan’s life at present, but he staggered along the row of bathing stalls. He didn’t check to see if Fury had followed, because if Fury hadn’t, Nathan wasn’t sure how he’d handle the rejection. He knew this was nuts, he knew he should stop, he knew all sorts of reasons to flee for the car, but none of the pleading rationale could get through the drumbeat thrumming in his veins, demanding
more
and demanding it
now.
Each of Adrenaline Gym’s showers had swinging doors leading into small changing spaces. There was a bench for clothing and a hook for towels. Nathan shed his shorts, underwear, long-sleeved shirt, shoes, and socks. He left them in a scattered pile and lurched forward, yanking back the industrial, opaque shower curtain. The shower itself wasn’t large, maybe three-by-three, and its floor sloped toward a central drain. There was a tile shelf to hold personal toiletries, and Nathan grabbed the shelf for balance. He twisted the shower’s knob. Lukewarm water erupted from the showerhead and started to soak Nathan. He adjusted the temperature, and he shut his eyes under the spray.
Nathan waited, and when absolutely nothing happened for too many seconds too long, he started to tremble. He hated feeling this helpless, didn’t know why he did in the first place. Fury was just a man. This was just an invitation for some mutual relief. Wasn’t it?
Of course it was. It couldn’t be anything more. It didn’t make any sense to be so affected, but yet here Nathan was, at one a.m. in the gym showers, dying for Fury’s fucking company. Nathan was lost, out of his ever-loving mind, and he crossed one arm over his chest, hugging the opposite shoulder. His forehead met the wall, and when the curtain racked back, Nathan tensed so violently that his weight pitched onto the balls of his feet. The plastic rings clanked again along the overhead metal rod, and two fast thuds of pulse later, Fury’s hands landed lightly on Nathan’s hips.
“
Mmph
…” Nathan’s fingers slid with a wet squeak of protest on the shelf ledge. Fury drew closer, and warm, damp skin pressed against Nathan from ass to shoulder blades. Fury’s erection dug into Nathan’s lower back, and Nathan let go of a groan that told an entire story of denial and greed in its volume and in its echoes.
“Sh-sh-sh…” Fury shushed Nathan, his lips next to Nathan’s ear. Fury rubbed Nathan’s flank, smoothed a palm over Nathan’s belly. Normally, this was where Nathan told the other men to cut that shit out, to get on with it, but instead of the words, Nathan gritted a sound between his teeth that was part curse and part actual whimper.
Fury didn’t falter, hands still wandering. “Don’t wanna go, but you need me to, I will.” Fury’s gravel voice was little more than a rumble vibrating his chest.
Nathan shook his head in panicked desperation. “Stay. Fuck. Stay, plea—”
“Okay.”
“I’m…I…” Nathan snarled in frustration.
“It’s okay.” Fury wrapped his arms around Nathan and started planting little kisses along the tendons of Nathan’s throat. Up and down in a predictable pattern, and Nathan’s calves began to cramp. At long last, he set his heels down on the shower floor, and Fury tightened the embrace, as though afraid Nathan would fall. Nathan’s shoulders sagged, he relaxed into the sturdy security of the other man behind him, and Fury’s warm breath escaped in a long sigh.
“That’s it,” Fury murmured. He nudged Nathan’s arm out of the way and pressed a palm to Nathan’s chest over a nipple.
“Done this before,” Nathan said, and he didn’t recall giving himself permission to speak or to rest his head back and on Fury’s shoulder, but he did. And he gasped when Fury shifted and covered the front of Nathan’s neck with one hand. Not a squeeze, not a threat; merely a clasp.
“Yeah?” Fury asked, pinching Nathan’s nipple.
“Mmm-hmm,” Nathan hummed. He could see their distorted, blurred reflection in the metal of the showerhead.
“Thought maybe this was your first time”—Fury’s thumb petted Nathan’s Adam’s apple—“with a guy.”
Nathan’s hips rocked, his cock fully hard and dying for a touch. “No. I’m not a…not a goddamned…” Fury pinched Nathan’s nipple harder, and he thrust with Nathan this time. “Don’t get this enough,” Nathan said on a sharp exhale, and it was not what he’d meant to say at all. It was painfully honest. Nathan had no right to be this forthcoming with a near stranger.
The swell of panic subsided with Fury’s hitching sigh. “Me either,” he said. Fury let go of Nathan’s nipple and wrapped a fist around Nathan’s cock. Fury moaned, soft but definitely audible, and it and the pleasure igniting along his shaft and in his balls stunned Nathan into silence.
“I wanted to with you,” Fury said, speeding up, and he trapped Nathan’s cry with a palm that covered Nathan’s mouth. “Want the sounds, but you gotta be quiet.” Fury kept stroking Nathan, caressing the head of Nathan’s cock while Nathan squirmed and bucked and panted through his nose. He was going to lose it and lose it
fast.
“We’re not the only guys left here,” Fury continued, the mutter breathy. He nipped and licked Nathan’s ear, and Nathan reached back and grabbed Fury’s ass. God…firm, solid,
real.
“Yeah,” Fury encouraged, but he’d slowed down his stroking, ignoring Nathan’s snapping hips and muffled grunts. And just when Nathan was ready to scream in frustration, Fury squeezed Nathan’s balls, tugging them away from Nathan’s body. “Wanna suck you,” Fury said. “Want your cock in my mouth.”
“Oh God,” Nathan said into Fury’s hand.
“Think you can keep quiet for that?”
Nathan nodded, Fury kissed Nathan’s cheek with a soft laugh, and Fury spun Nathan around and pinned him to the wall. As Fury went to his knees, he licked down the center of Nathan’s body, and Nathan’s hands flew to Fury’s hair and shoulder. Dark eyes rolled to meet Nathan’s, and they went hazy the instant Fury took Nathan into his mouth. Fury sucked at the head, and Nathan gasped, trying not to pitch headlong into Fury’s throat, but Fury’s fingers dug into Nathan’s hip and leg. They urged Nathan into a thrust, and Fury took Nathan deeper with a choked grunt.
“Dear Christ,” Nathan whispered and let go of any last shreds of restraint. He wound Fury’s thick hair around his hand, gripping tightly enough to pull, and Fury groaned. Fury’s eyelids fluttered shut, and Nathan fucked Fury’s mouth. Fierce, heated suction slid slickly along Nathan’s cock, and Nathan spread his feet to keep from falling. Fury’s back hunched when Nathan triggered his gag reflex, but he kept at Nathan, plunging to meet Nathan’s drives. Nathan tightened his grip, memorizing the burr of Fury’s shaved scalp and the furrow of Fury’s brow. The pressure built within Nathan to breaking point with dizzying speed. Nathan clung to the edge between just enough and too much, but all too soon, Nathan’s muscles seized, the intensity of the orgasm doubled him over, and he rasped a weak cry as he spilled down Fury’s throat.
“Shit,” Nathan slurred, clinging to Fury. “Shit…
oooh
…” Nathan shuddered, and Fury buried his face in Nathan’s groin, working Nathan through the aftershocks. Nathan banged his head against the wall and ground it painfully side to side on the tile. Fury released him, and Nathan didn’t know what to feel or think when Fury placed a chaste kiss to Nathan’s base. Nathan blinked water out of his eyes. Fury got up, leaning into Nathan but hovering a scant few inches away from Nathan’s lips, heated breath circling between them. Kissing was usually off limits during Nathan’s trysts. That kind of intimacy was too close to what Nathan really wanted, and he kept it at bay.
So it was shocking to realize that it was, indeed, his own hand roving from the side of Fury’s neck to cradle Fury’s jaw. Nathan dragged a thumb across Fury’s bottom lip, and the bare, open hope that warmed Fury’s eyes and swept over his features tried to kill Nathan deader than dead. Understanding thundered through Nathan, and he got why this, why Fury, was so different.
It was that look. Nathan had gotten a glimpse of it the first time they’d spoken in the gym and another in the alleyway after the fights. There’d been a whole lot more than just a glimpse in the truck. And now, Nathan saw it again. Felt it again. The sensation was like the excitement of a crowd or the spark in a first touch, and it was terrifying. Nathan tried to put together a picture of a powerful man with an indomitable presence who made a living fighting others, who was also a gay man who didn’t indulge his needs very often. He could understand that sort of man. Oh, all too well. Nathan didn’t fight other men, but he fought himself all the time, and it occurred to Nathan why it was, exactly, that Fury simultaneously intrigued him and scared him shitless.
Looking at Fury’s naked need was like looking at Nathan’s own, and Nathan didn’t think the insight ran only one way. Fury had seen Nathan in the truck, even said as much. Fury had seen into him and done what Nathan was dying for someone to do: invite him closer.
Nathan didn’t know if Fury was hiding, but he didn’t act like a man out and proud. Reputation, history, or just living in the damned South, any of it could explain that situation. Bad breakup, a wife somewhere in freakin’ Arkansas… Who knew and who cared? Lost in the physical, Nathan and Fury were exactly themselves, both scrambling for acceptance, even if only for a few furtive moments. Those moments were more than Nathan usually allowed. Maybe more than he’d ever allowed. They threatened Nathan’s entire life, and Nathan knew exactly how ridiculous it was to risk so much on a long shot that was never going to be more than chance encounters.
As though listening to Nathan’s runaway train into Depression Town, Fury tensed. The water splashed, steam roiled, and Nathan realized he hadn’t made a move to return the favor Fury had paid him. Instead, Nathan had been leaning against the wall gripping Fury’s face and staring like some sort of head trauma victim. Fury started to pull away, but Nathan stopped him.
“No,” Nathan whispered, and Fury’s eyes widened. “Stay,” Nathan ordered, hoarsely. “Stay…and kiss me.”
With a sharp exhale, Fury crushed himself against Nathan, body to body and lips to lips. Nathan’s mind went white under the onslaught of tongue, taste, and teeth. Nathan didn’t know the last man he’d kissed. Hell, Nathan wasn’t sure of his last kiss with anyone. The base of his spine tingled, and kissing Fury was racing toward the top of the list of most erotic things he had ever experienced. Nathan moaned, and Fury answered it with one of his own. Nathan tipped to the side for a better angle, cupped the back of Fury’s head with one hand, and with the other, Nathan reached down and grasped Fury’s cock.
Immediately, Nathan had to reorder his top ten hottest moments, because Fury began making little whispery, almost musical noises. Nathan stopped breathing, straining to hear them, and each one slammed into Nathan’s body with more power than any fist. When the first helpless note grew into a full-on groan, Fury broke the kiss, whispering into Nathan’s mouth. “Mmm…
nngh
…yeah…”
Fury attacked Nathan’s lips again, but Nathan tore away, watching Fury’s face and exploring Fury’s body, trying to elicit more of those sounds. Fury’s dick was wider than Nathan’s, the skin tone entirely different—dusky olive against Nathan’s pale. The circumcised head was deep maroon, the curls at the base trimmed short, and Fury’s balls were drawn snug to Fury’s groin. Fucking perfect.
Nathan stroked firmer and faster, and a fresh spill of noises poured from Fury. They were almost inaudible, couldn’t be heard from the other side of the curtain. Nathan hugged Fury closer, needing somehow to…protect the man. Hold him. The need might be bizarre, but Nathan could no more refuse it than he could fly. Fury’s eyes were closed, his face lax, and when Fury shoved into Nathan’s hand but then seemed to check himself, Nathan started to experiment. Slower, and Fury’s face burrowed against Nathan’s neck. Slow but harder, and Fury drove his hips forward and the sounds, now muffled, grew louder. Still slow and hard but with attention at the head, and Fury shook and held on to Nathan with bruising force, the tone of the sounds pitching lower into growls.
“Like that?” Nathan murmured, shocking himself with speech. Fury’s heartfelt, affirmative moan made Nathan feel better about his choice to talk.
“Yeah?” Nathan asked in the rhetorical. Boldly, he traced the line of Fury’s back, squeezing Fury’s ass and shoving his fingers between Fury’s cheeks. Nathan added pressure without penetration, and Fury thrust himself against Nathan, his hand slapping the wall next to Nathan’s head. Fury smeared openmouthed kisses on Nathan’s neck and shoulder, and Nathan circled Fury’s entrance and stroked Fury faster. Fury bit Nathan, and Fury’s muscles went taut like high-tension wire.