From the Ashes (24 page)

“Yeah.” Unashamed, Jesse pushed his underwear down his legs and kicked them off. He was hard, the head of his prick damp and shiny. Tomas smelled him, his precome, his light, clean sweat. The tickle of his deodorant.

Tomas shoved off his own jeans.

Jesse was pale compared to him, soft and tender, with his lack of body hair and his slighter frame. His cock jutted strong, straight up between them, hard enough to be purple at the tip. Tomas got horny just looking at it.

He licked his palm and wrapped his grip around Jesse’s erection. Tomas watched Jesse’s face, loving the way his eyes closed and his mouth opened on a quivering breath.

“Yeah.” Jesse mimicked Tomas, taking Tomas’s dick in hand and stroking him in time. Shyly, he lifted his leg and bent his knee to plant his foot on the bed. Blush deepening, Jesse tucked his chin.

Tomas kissed him gently. If they were going to do this, he didn’t want it to be like last time, when he couldn’t even tell if he was doing it out of love or anger. He walked his touch around to Jesse’s back, sliding his fingers lightly up and down Jesse’s crease. He didn’t have to tease his cheeks apart. Jesse hooked his leg over Tomas’s hip, opening further, so that Tomas’s fingers slipped to the sweat-slick skin along his crack.

“Please.” Jesse humped forward, batting his cock against Tomas’s belly. Their dicks brushed together, their skin so tight they both gasped.

“Want you.” Tomas dragged Jesse so their bodies were flush together and their cocks ground into the space between them. He prodded Jesse’s opening, feeling the folded ridges of skin tense and relax under his fingertip.

“Lube,” Jesse gasped. He reached blindly over Tomas’s shoulder for the nightstand. The stuff must have been right on top because he managed to grab it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tomas filed the fact that he should never allow his mother into his apartment unless they’d put everything away first.

He slicked up his fingers, drizzling lubricant over both of them in the process, and went back to stroking Jesse’s hole again, up and down, back and forth. Teasing inside an inch.

Jesse gripped Tomas harder, humping into his belly and sucking at his neck. Arching like a cat, Jesse went loose, like he wanted to slide Tomas right into his body. “C’mon,” he whined.

Tomas smiled against Jesse’s lips. He lined two fingers close together and slid them inside—slowly, but all the way until Jesse was full.

“Oh God.” Jesse whimpered into Tomas’s shoulder. He was shaking and gasping, but every other breath he’d nod, like he wanted Tomas to keep going. When Tomas rolled between Jesse’s legs, sticky lube heated their bellies. He shifted lower so his cock slipped along Jesse’s crease.

“Yeah.” Jesse pulled his legs up, holding them under the knees. The shift put his opening right at the tip of Tomas’s cock.

Tomas didn’t what to push in. Not yet. He took Jesse’s face in his hand, savoring their hearts beating in time and their bodies straining. He kissed Jesse’s mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids. When Jesse opened those eyes and watched him, his pupils rimmed in a halo of blue-green gray, Tomas murmured, “Love you so much,” before pressing gently inward.

Jesse gasped, but Tomas could tell it didn’t hurt him as much as the first time. Even though he whimpered with every one of Tomas’s gentle thrusts, he never tried to pull away.

“Love you…too.” Jesse gave up on holding his knees and let go. His legs splayed wide, and he clutched Tomas’s neck like he needed something to hold on to.

Tomas tucked his hips back, drawing almost all the way out. Jesse panted the whole time, his breath coming in quiet, high-pitched moans. Tomas bore inside, slick on all the lube and deep as he could go.

“So fucking beautiful.” Tomas kissed him, thrusting a little faster. He felt every ridge and flex of Jesse’s body, the heat of his tender membranes.

Jesse lolled his head to the side, whispering meaningless words. He gave with his whole body, his muscles limp with total trust. Even his cock rested half-hard while Tomas took him.

Tomas could have fucked Jesse all night, then sucked him off and fucked him some more, but he remembered Jesse’s wince when he’d sat down after the last time.

“You ready, Jess?” He reached for Jesse’s cock. In a dozen smooth strokes, Tomas worked it fully hard. “You going to come for me?”

“Oh, oh, oh…” Jesse clutched Tomas’s arms. His forehead crumpled, and his mouth opened wide. Every part of him tightened—his arms, his face and even his ass—until Tomas was gripped so hard he could barely move.

“That’s right.” Tomas loved this power. He loved the feel of Jesse’s shaft growing harder in his hand. When he dragged back for a rougher thrust, he loved how Jesse whimpered. He pressed a thumb against Jesse’s cap, rubbing open the slippery slit. Then he slammed forward, watching in awe as Jesse shot a rope of come like Tomas had slingshot it from his balls.

“Jess.” Tomas fell on top of him. He wanted to come and his orgasm was so fucking close. Jesse’s contractions milked him, but not enough.

Jesse grabbed his ass in both hands. Dragging Tomas in, he clenched his muscles until Tomas’s climax ripped out of him. It gripped his cock and twisted his belly. With a growl, Tomas spilled deep and warm inside Jesse’s body.

“Oh God, Jess.” Aftershocks hit, and he could tell Jesse felt them too because Jesse squeezed Tomas’s dick some more. The spasms didn’t stop for a long while, dragging Tomas and Jesse again and again into a few more seconds of bliss.

After a while, they started doing it on purpose. Tomas would flex his muscles, making his dick bob, and Jesse would answer with a squeeze. Jesse giggled under him. Tomas wondered if he should just stay inside until he got hard again, or start tickling Jesse to get him to stop.

“Let’s take a break before round two.” Jesse lowered his legs slowly to the bed.

Tomas let his dick soften and slip out. “Sure thing.” He kissed Jesse’s temple and went to the bathroom to get a washcloth. His whole body buzzed—excited but sated. It was only then that he noticed he didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks.

“What’re you standing here for?” Jesse touched his back softly. “Freaking out or something?”

Tomas was too overwhelmed to answer, but he didn’t have time to because Jesse kept talking. “We don’t have to do that again. I mean, I like it.” Jesse huffed a breath of a laugh. “Well, yeah. I really like it. But I’m happy with what we do most of the time. I don’t want you to think—”

“I like it too.” Maybe on some level Tomas had hoped he wouldn’t. He’d hoped he’d find it gross or disturbing, but he didn’t. Being inside Jesse was like nothing he’d ever imagined.

“So what’s—?”

“Nothing.” Tomas turned around, facing Jesse. Jesse was mostly hard again, and he wasn’t far behind. Both their dicks were rising, pointing to each other as if to say,
Hey there. Nice seeing you again. Up for some fun?

“I’m just happy, that’s all.” Tomas rubbed Jesse’s cheek, which was still red and shiny from orgasm. Reaching behind him for the shower tap, he turned it on. “But I’m pretty starving. We should get cleaned up.”

It only took a couple minutes for them to wash up and for Jesse to pour bowls full of cereal. When Jesse sat on the couch to watch cartoons, he did it carefully, shifting to the side and pressing his lips together to hide his flinch.

Tomas should have felt guilty for making him sore, but he didn’t at all.

Chapter Twenty

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Michael maneuvered onto I-5 South.

“Buying a bigger bed?” Jesse checked his text messages to see if Tomas was at the store already. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t own any furniture, and I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried it, but two grown guys sleeping in a full is kind of tight.”

Easing to the right, Michael got in line at the turnoff. He scoffed at the traffic, as if Jesse was to blame for dragging him downtown at four forty-five. “This sucks. We should have gone to Northgate.” He inched forward, aggressive on the tail of the Mazda in front of him.

“They’ve got a sale on at this Macy’s.” Jesse rolled down his window a couple inches. Michael’s Mustang was old and smelled like gasoline. He didn’t understand why he held on to the thing. He knew for a fact that Michael had spent over a grand in the past six months getting it fixed. For that kind of money he could have leased something new.

Like he could barely resist honking, Michael hovered his palm over the horn.

Tomas was right. Michael really needed to get laid. “So, you seeing anyone?”

“No,” Michael snapped. “Unless you count that guy who sucked me off at the park on my way home last night.”

“You planning to see him again?” Jesse crossed his arms. Michael hooked up with strangers all the time, and Jesse didn’t want to judge, but it seemed like a bad idea. Not because of AIDS or anything, but because Seattle wasn’t that big of a city. Michael already ducked around corners to avoid guys he’d hooked up with. A few more years and he’d be hiding from everyone.

“Of course not.” Michael pulled onto the ramp and started the slow-as-a-turtle descent into downtown.

“Why ‘of course’? Maybe he was a nice guy.” Jesse was starting to think some guys just weren’t relationship material, and other guys were. Jesse had gotten a boyfriend almost as soon as he admitted to himself he was gay. He’d never done anything before Bobby, and he’d only hooked up in Seattle a handful of times before finding a boyfriend all over again. “Y’know, sometimes you need to give guys a chance. Let them grow on you.”

Michael gave him a disbelieving look, lip curled up in a snarl. “I did that once. Never again.”

“Fine, fine.”

The surface streets flowed faster than the ramps and highway, and they parked at Pacific Place a few minutes later.

When they got up to street level, Jesse checked his phone. Tomas had messaged that he was inside looking at mattresses. “You want to hang? You’re picking up pillows, right? They’re probably on the same floor.”

Jesse had never been to Macy’s before. He’d purchased his first bed at IKEA.

“Well, I’ll walk in with you, I guess.” Michael pulled up the hood on his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets. It was cold and drizzling. Halfway through December, so the sun had set by three.

Shoppers filled the streets in dark, shifting mobs of black, gray and nameless earth colors, but lights hung along awnings and zigzagged through trees. Streetlights cast a warm shine on roads slick with rain. In the plaza, a carousel spun, playing “Jingle Bells” for all of downtown.

“Hey, we should go to the merry-go-round some time. Maybe this weekend.” Jesse would have suggested they go that night, except Tomas was hoping to strap their new mattress to the roof of his truck.

Jesse doubted that would work, but he planned to keep quiet and allow Tomas his delusions.

“Michael?” Jesse realized that Michael was a few feet behind him and had stopped in his tracks.

His friend stood there, mouth open, staring. Jesse followed Michael’s line of sight to a man in front of one of the store windows.

The guy was red-haired, but in a handsome, auburn way, and he stood with a woman and a couple of kids. The smaller of the two—a boy—sat on his shoulders while a little girl in a Christmas dress held her mother’s hand. They must have been on their way to take a picture with Santa.

Turning, the man saw Michael.

He and Michael watched one another for what felt like a long time. Jesse wished he could tear his attention away or pretend not to notice, but he couldn’t stop looking.

Michael’s bottom lip, the one Jesse had always seen tucked into an angry pinch, quivered.

The guy, Michael’s ex, Jesse figured, looked at him with something that might have been regret. It might have been, if it wasn’t laced with disgust. He grabbed his wife’s arm. Jesse heard the girl yelp as she was dragged off her feet.

“Oh jeez.” Jesse went to his friend. He took Michael’s arm and led him to the crosswalk so they could get to the other side of the street. “It’s okay. C’mon.”

Michael trudged at his side like a zombie.

“I take it that was him?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah. His name is Grant.” Michael lifted his chin, and his walk became more purposeful. He looked more like the guy Jesse knew from Speedy Coffee—militant attitude and chip on his shoulder. “I think he lives in Bellevue now.” He puffed out his chest, regaining the
fuck all y’all
posture he normally wore. “Don’t know why all these East Siders come into Seattle to shop around Christmas. What, doesn’t Bell Square have its own Santa Claus and merry-go-round?”

He treated Jesse to a nonstop string of grumpiness about how people poured in from the suburbs at Christmastime, clogging traffic and being annoying in general. Michael seemed to gather strength from his complaining. By the time they walked through Macy’s sliding doors, he was back to his regular self. “So where’s your non-boyfriend?”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “He’s my real boyfriend. Tomas is upstairs already.” He led the way to the first round of escalators and climbed on, with Michael following. “Be nice,” he hissed when they got to the top floor. Sure, Michael had the right to be pissy after seeing his ex, but there was a limit to what Jesse was going to put up with.