Authors: K.A. Mitchell
Evan grabbed Jonah’s head, hands sliding up through his hair and held him for a kiss. Jonah sucked in a quick breath and Evan’s tongue came with it. Jonah’s trip to Fantasyland had already left him hard, and now Evan was going to make him have to miss breakfast in favor of a shower. As Evan’s grip moved from Jonah’s head to his hips, dragging him closer, Evan’s hard length pressed into Jonah’s hip, a sensation guaranteed to have Jonah’s mouth watering in a nanosecond. Evan cupped Jonah’s ass through his jeans and lifted his head to mutter, “I’ll take you out for breakfast.”
In the middle of the sudden fuck-yeah elation of Evan breaking his rule about not fucking at his parents’ house came a nasty wave of guilt. Evan could get Jonah’s engines revved pretty damned fast, but his head was still playing over scenes from that list, a list of things he’d been doing with other faceless guys, not Evan. It didn’t matter that Jonah hadn’t actually done anything wrong, he still felt like shit—with aching balls—because he stepped back.
“I’m starving.” Jonah licked his lips and tried to think of that craggy-faced bastard from the math department to get his dick to go down. “Uh—catch you later?”
A deep furrow cut into Evan’s brow. “Yeah.” Then he smiled. “Hurry back. Before the house fills up.”
“Sure.”
Chapter Four
Jonah turning down sex once could have been a momentary aberration. A product of holiday stress. But twice? And with the memory of Jonah’s interest still a tingling pressure against Evan’s belly, it obviously wasn’t an equipment problem.
Evan had seen Jonah freaked out before, usually when he was looking for something he needed and was already late, which made it a fairly frequent occurrence. This was more akin to panic. Jonah wasn’t exactly the type to keep things to himself either. Evan’s own erection wilted at the idea he might be dealing with something big. There were always threats of cuts at Jonah’s job, but the budget crisis usually hit around June.
Evan started to go back downstairs when his foot skidded on a folded sheet of paper. He scooped it up and unfolded it.
His brain processed the content in confused fragments. Doodles. Scribbles. A list in Jonah’s handwriting:
Heat flashed under Evan’s skin, tingling, prickling, then pooling in his balls as his dick went from hard to impossible to manage. He kicked the door shut and unzipped his jeans, leaning back as he fought for control, picturing vulnerable skin stretched on a cross. His to mark, to take, to own. Before he could touch it, his cock jerked, precome pearling at the tip. He’d thought he had that part of him locked down, put away. Safe from ever hitting that line again where he wasn’t sure he was playing by the rules and not by his emotions.
He smoothed the slick drops from the tip down his shaft, and his body shuddered and convulsed like he’d just buried himself in a darkly bruised ass. Heat and sweat was what he remembered most. The heat pouring off a sub’s skin, both of them dripping with sweat.
He gave into it, started a steady pace, grip tight and burning with friction barely eased by a little precome. He clenched his teeth as his head fell back against the door, eyes squeezed tightly shut. In the middle of the blood pounding through him, the lust that roared in and made his legs shake, he remembered that the list was Jonah’s, a shopping list to be ticked off. Jonah had never given the slightest sign of being bent toward kink. With that wannabe-rebel look and determinedly independent focus, Jonah was the last person Evan could imagine wanting to be on his knees, wrists bound, dragged mouth-first onto a cock with a riding crop held at his neck to keep him there.
But now that Evan had that image in his head, he couldn’t let it go. He heard the whimpers in Jonah’s throat, felt them vibrated onto wet skin. The power of knowing Jonah was there because Evan put him there set off a bomb in Evan’s spine, and the orgasm rushed through him, electric sparks chasing each other around his nerves until the tension burst out of him in shuddering arcs.
Jonah’s mouth wasn’t really there to catch it, so as soon as Evan’s legs stopped shaking, he cleaned up with the extra pair of socks he’d brought.
Evan knelt to blot at the carpet. He couldn’t think of any scenario that started with Jonah as jumpy as a death row inmate waiting on the call from the governor and ended with a secret list of kinks. But one thing Evan did know. Sex stripped what little brain-to-mouth filter Jonah possessed and left him mellow and malleable. After fishing a condom out of his toiletry bag, Evan went looking for his boyfriend.
He found him in the breakfast nook, the table covered with newspapers, which Evan’s mother leafed through while Jonah scanned his phone, only a hint of a smile on his face and a half eaten bagel on the plate in front of him. So much for Jonah being starving.
Jonah glanced up as Evan entered, and what little smile there was faded. Jonah’s eyes were unusually wide and dark, and in the winter light from the bay window, his skin was washed out to pallor above the V-neck of his gray T-shirt.
A dizzy rush of fear made Evan have to grab the counter for support. There was something that could explain his behavior. Waiting for some kind of bad news, pale and sick-looking, making a bucket list. Christ. Jonah would have told him if he was sick, if—
Evan tried to remember when Jonah’s last trip to the doctor had been and could only remember hauling him there with the bout of strep throat. But if Jonah were going to keep something secret, it would be like him to hide some kind of...mortal...diagnosis. He would try to keep Evan from worrying.
“Jonah” was all he could get out.
“Morning again, dear.” His mother glanced up from the paper, then went back to the Arts section. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. There’s a few things I’d like you to pick up for me at the store.”
Evan’s mouth was dry. Swallowing wasn’t much help but he managed to sound fairly normal as he said, “Sure, Mom. Jonah and I will head out in a little while.” But the grocery store wasn’t any place for the conversation he wanted to have. Nor was the breakfast table with his cousin’s kids twenty feet away, an overly cheerful cartoon blaring while they hunched over their handheld games.
“Jonah, want to take a walk first?”
Jonah turned to look at the frost covering the edges of the windows, grass barely dusted with snow. “Outside?”
Evan nodded.
“Let me grab a sweater.”
That was more ominous. Jonah was never cold. Evan followed Jonah’s bare footsteps up the stairs. As Jonah bent over his bag, Evan blocked the door, hands gripping the frame, elbows locked.
“Are you all right?”
Jonah jumped as he turned around, clutching a sweater to his chest like a petrified virgin circa 1830.
“Are
you
? I mean, what’s with the walk in twenty-degree weather with a windchill of my balls are gonna permanently shrivel up?”
Evan let out a deep breath. “Are. You. Sick?”
“Of what?” Jonah looked confused now.
“Medically. When’s the last time you went to the doctor?”
“October. Have to get a physical and one of those TB things every year for work.” Jonah’s confusion faded, replaced by that anxious, waiting-for-a-death-knell expression he’d been wearing since yesterday.
“And everything was fine?”
“Yeah, everything was fine.” Jonah stuffed his hands in his back pockets and his chin came up, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. “Are you asking like STD-wise? Because I got the HIV test and they ran a full screen the year before, and I’m telling you if you’ve got something you didn’t get it from me.”
Evan felt his mouth hang open and closed it. An STD had been the furthest thing from his mind. He’d been imagining cells mutating out of control in Jonah’s body, poisoning him from the inside out. Cancer, the fucking plague that had taken his father’s sister and Evan’s grandparents far too soon.
“No. That’s not what I was asking.”
“Then what?” Jonah folded his arms.
In the face of that righteous indignation, admitting to having read something Jonah had intended to keep private was impossible. Evan let go of the door frame. “I guess my ego’s a little wounded. You turned me down twice.”
Jonah’s rigid posture relaxed and half of his smile appeared, with a hint of one of those deep dimples. The heat in his gaze made a liar out of the casual shrug of his shoulders. “Oh. Well, you’re the one who’s always said not here.”
“Changed my mind.” Evan stepped forward.
“In here?” Jonah jerked his thumb at the bed.
Feet thundered up the stairs, and his cousin’s oldest son Matt stuck his head in the open door. “Mom says we’re leaving to pick up Uncle Kelly and Uncle Paul at the airport as soon as she finishes her coffee. You want to come?”
“I think the van will be full enough with the five of you. But thanks,” Evan said.
Matt had barely turned away from the door before he screeched. “They’re not coming.”
Evan shut the door. “That’s three hours minimum.”
Jonah licked his lips and looked past Evan to the door. “It doesn’t have a lock. What if your mom decides she needs you to leave for the store right away?”
Jonah’s list had been pretty focused, but failed to indicate which side of that game he wanted to play. Time to find out.
Evan reached out and latched on to Jonah’s upper arm, fingers biting into his muscles. “Then get across the hall into the bathroom and turn on the shower.”
Jonah held Evan’s gaze for a second, then blinked, tongue flicking over his lips again. That’s what Evan had been hoping. The flush of power under his skin electrified him, then terrified him. There was a reason he’d locked this part of himself away. He loosened his grip on Jonah’s arm. “Go on. I’ll be right there.”
Chapter Five
Mine.
That possessive need thrummed inside him, way deeper than the hunger that had his cock rising as if it had been days instead of minutes since he’d drained it. He gripped the door handle.
The shower was running behind the curtain, splatting against the vinyl. As Evan popped open the bathroom door, a breath of humid air escaped and he caught Jonah twisting in front of the mirror, glancing over his shoulder to get a look at his upper arm. The spot where Evan’s hand had gripped was red. Jonah spun to face him, his cheeks darker than the mark on his arm.
Evan turned and hid his smile as he locked the door. When he was able to keep his face blank, he put his back to the door and crossed his arms.
Beneath the lean muscled chest, those sexy, threadbare jeans hung low on Jonah’s hips, revealing the waistband of his briefs and the silky trail of hair below his navel.
“Still have your pants on.” Evan pitched his voice low.
Jonah’s cocky grin was at full power. “So do you.”
“Why don’t you do something about that, then?”
There was a definite swagger in Jonah’s step forward. “Like what?”
Fingers hooked in the sagging denim, Evan yanked Jonah off-balance, then pushed him toward the floor. “Like this.”
Jonah let the shove put him on his knees, the grin never fading. After sitting back on his heels, he unfastened Evan’s jeans and yanked them to his thighs. With a smirk, Jonah leaned in and rubbed his face in the crotch of Evan’s boxer-briefs, making one long stroke up with his cheek.
It was good pressure, comfortable, but that wasn’t what this was about. And Evan sure as hell didn’t need any help staying hard. He slid his fingers through Jonah’s thick hair and gripped tight, forcing his head back. “I was thinking you’d do that with your teeth.”
Jonah blinked, and his smile faltered for a second before blazing back. “You want me to use my teeth on your dick?”
Evan tugged harder at the roots of Jonah’s hair. “Stop screwing around and get your mouth on my cock.”
Jonah swallowed, his throat working like he already had a mouthful. Evan relaxed his hold enough that Jonah could move his head. Jonah swallowed again and looked down, wiping his hands on his jeans before carefully pulling the elastic and cotton down to meet Evan’s jeans.
Evan tugged a little on Jonah’s hair again, pulling him forward. Jonah licked his lips and the sudden softness in his eyes had Evan’s dick jerking as if it would find its own way into that wide, wet mouth.
God, to think he could have this and Jonah too?
A long swipe of Jonah’s tongue made Evan shudder, then Jonah’s laugh huffed first warm, then cold, on the damp skin.
“Mmm. Tastes like you already had fun without me. That date with Mr. Righty wasn’t enough, huh?”
Evan was about to say screw finding out where Jonah’s hot buttons were and stop his smart mouth with a washcloth while Evan fucked the shit out of him on the bath rug, when Jonah finally opened his mouth and sucked in the tip.
Evan sucked in his breath at the quick flutter of Jonah’s tongue. “This is much better.”
The bathroom filled with a foggy chill as the hot air from the vents battled the cold water streaming in the shower. The dual sensations of cool dampness and wet heat from Jonah’s mouth made Evan’s skin prickle. He wanted in deeper, knew Jonah was still teasing him.
He used Jonah’s hair to drag him forward and hold himself against the convulsive press of soft throat, saliva trickling down to Evan’s balls, Jonah started to resist and Evan held him for another heartbeat before he relaxed his grip, letting Jonah breathe and rocking the crown back and forth over Jonah’s lips.
Evan glanced down, but Jonah wouldn’t meet Evan’s gaze, lips screwed tighter as Jonah took Evan deep again, a hard wet bob almost distracting enough to not notice that Jonah was sliding a finger back to press and rub on Evan’s hole.
It took both hands to get Jonah to back off. Evan dragged his control back in gulps of cold air, then tipped Jonah’s head back again.