“Nothing.Can you try a little lower?”
Tean brought his touch down.Discomfort and release.Discomfort and release.
“I miss this,” Jem said.He probably shouldn’t have, but he was definitely hard by that point, and he was tired.“Miss you touching me.”
Tean’s hands kept moving, but the silence between them began to tense.It felt like glass shattering when Tean finally said, “I know we haven’t been…romantic in a while.”
“It’s okay,” Jem said.
Tean let out a funny laugh.“Is it?”
“Yeah, of course.Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.”Jem tried propping himself up to look back over his shoulder, but Tean made an annoyed sound and pressed him back onto the mattress.“I just said it because—because I like you touching me.”
“I know, Jem.”
“It wasn’t, like, a dig.”
The faint hint of menthol and something else, some sort of fragrance, wafted up to Jem.
“I know.”Tean’s breathing sounded funny, though.
Jem was still trying to think of a way to apologize—which was harder than he expected because the massage felt so fucking good, and his brain was melting out of his ears—when Tean leaned down and kissed his shoulder.It took a second for Jem’s brain to catch up, and then he let out a soft, pleased breath.
The next kiss moved higher.Tean’s hands stilled, fingers spread wide on Jem’s back now for balance.And the next kiss found the spot where Jem’s neck joined his shoulder.Jem whispered, “Fuck,” and he tilted his head, baring more of the sensitive skin.
Tean kissed his way up the side of Jem’s neck.Jem shivered, and the shiver turned into a full-blown tremor when Tean bit Jem’s earlobe and, a moment later, ran his tongue around the shell of Jem’s ear.
“Shit, babe,” Jem said, voice husky.
Tean gave him a pat on the back.“Roll over.”
The combination of the balm and Tean’s sure, steady touches had relaxed the tender muscles in Jem’s back, and he flopped over with barely a twinge.Tean was still kneeling there, and Jem gathered him in his arms, so that Tean shuffled forward to sit on his lap.Jem eased his glasses off and kissed him, and one of his hands found Tean’s thin chest and ran down it: following the stripe of hair down the center, tweaking one nipple, stroking his flat stomach.Tean was strong; Jem knew that better than anyone.But sometimes, when they were together like this, he had the sense that if he moved too fast, if he wasn’t careful, he might break him.
When Tean pulled back, his dark eyes studied Jem, as though searching for something.
“I miss you,” Jem said.
It sounded childish as soon as it left his mouth.He wanted to pretend he hadn’t said it.But something softened in Tean’s face, and he cupped Jem’s cheek.The touch raised the soft sound of Jem’s beard scraping his palm.
“Lie back,” Tean said.“Relax.”
With a grin, Jem propped himself against a pillow, arms behind his head.Tean scooted down the length of his body.His fine-boned fingers found the elastic of Jem’s trunks and eased them down his thighs; Jem’s dick straightened, and the faint spice of his body was unmistakable.Tean bent and began to lick the head.
When Jem and Tean had met, Tean’s experience with sex had been limited to Ammon—and what they’d done together had been, in its own way, as fucked up as everything else between the two of them.Jem had been with other men, but for the most part, as hook-ups, or friends with benefits.He was fine with the mechanics of it—he knew where everything was under the hood, so to speak—but, as he’d figured out with Tean, that was just the beginning.As they’d figured out together was, maybe, a better way of saying it.As they were still figuring out.
Tean, at least, had certainly figured out more than his fair share.Not that he’d surprised Jem; Tean was smart, he paid attention, and he was considerate.Three factors that went a long way with whoever was sharing your bed.He certainly knew what Jem liked.
He started slowly, his lips and faint touches from his tongue, sliding back and forth along Jem’s dick.Everything was so soft and slick.It had been a long time, and Jem got even harder.Tean paused, adjusted his fingers around the root of Jem’s cock, and looked up from under wild hair and dark eyelashes.One thumb traced a vein.
“A little, uh, excited,” Jem said.A grin slid out.“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Tean said.
He ran Jem’s dick across his lips again, and this time, he kept moving, sliding the head and then the shaft along his cheek.Tean didn’t have much of a beard, but the day’s faint stubble rasped against sensitive skin, and Jem let out a little sound.When Tean raised his head, a streak of saliva and pre glistened on his cheek.He repeated the process on the other side, and Jem hissed a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and said, “Babe, I’m close.”
“You are?”
“Kind of, yeah.”