The Doctor's Orders, page 13
Nick couldn’t, not yet. When Jared leaned in, Nick pressed their foreheads together and drew a slow breath. “I heard a rumor.”
“Well, it’s Copper Point, so it fits. What did you hear?”
Why was his heart pounding so much? “I heard you flirted with Matt Engleton at the grocery store.”
He hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t to see Jared tip his head back and roll his eyes. “God, I can’t believe that’s how the little mongers spun the story. But of course they did. He’s the one who flirted with me, by the way.”
Jealousy burned hot and fast in Nick. “But did you flirt back?”
“Well, I had to be diplomatic.” Jared arched an eyebrow. “It was actually an awkward moment. I wasn’t sure how to handle it. He’d asked me out at the welcome party for Uzma—”
“Wait—he did what?”
“He asked me out. I didn’t get to answer him, though, before somebody swept me away and got grouchy, so this was his second attempt. Ideally I would have told him no, sorry, I’m seeing someone, but I decided that would cause more problems. So I was trying to work out how to diplomatically sidestep it.”
“You could have told him no.”
“Well, it would have been awkward, since until you swept back into my life, I was about to tell him yes.”
Nick stared at Jared, the ominous lead boot floating over him now crashing down into the bottom of his stomach.
Just as quickly as it fell, Jared whisked it away with a soft smile and a kiss, a sweet brush across Nick’s lips that lingered and made Nick yearn all the way to his toes.
Jared nipped lightly at Nick’s bottom lip. “I wasn’t going to tell him yes because I was in love with him. I just thought, ironically, it was time I moved on. It was almost like you heard my thoughts and came storming over.”
“No. I saw the way he looked at you, and I didn’t like it.” Remembering made Nick glower. “You’d never dated anyone before, since I came back.”
Jared raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you’d expected me to live like a monk? When you hadn’t even told me how you felt?”
“No, I….” Nick didn’t know what he was saying. All he knew was the gossip had been wrong, Jared was here in his arms, and this wasn’t what he wanted to do with their night together. “I’m sorry. I overreacted, and I don’t have a right.”
“Well, it’s fine. I want you to have a right.” Jared’s smile came back, and he nuzzled Nick’s nose, sliding his body to fit against Nick’s. “I’m just glad you’re here. I was worried something would get in the way and I’d have to eat all this food alone.”
Kissing his way up Jared’s jaw, Nick whispered against his lover’s skin. “I wish I could keep you company every night.”
“You’re here right now.” Jared ran his hands down the front of Nick’s shirt. “That’s enough.”
Yes, Nick was here. Alone in a house with Jared in his arms, the curtains drawn, and no one to interrupt them. The want that had bloomed as he entered turned into a need, and he tilted Jared’s head to kiss the place he knew his lover liked. “Let’s wait on dinner.”
Jared let himself be kissed, then shied away, taking Nick’s hand and tugging him into the kitchen. “No way. I went all out for you. Food first. Sex later.”
“Bossy,” Nick said, but he was smiling.
Winking, Jared smacked him on the butt. “Promise.”
The food was excellent. It was a simple stew, seasoned lightly, but it was so good Nick wanted to lick his bowl, and he basically did with the homemade sweet rolls Jared had heaped in the center of the table next to a pot of herbed butter. Even the salad was amazing, a mixture of tossed greens with fresh croutons and a mustard dressing.
“I love all of this.” Nick chased the last bit of lettuce from his bowl and patted his belly. “It’s perfect.”
“Thank you.” Jared beamed under the praise as he rose. “There’s dessert too, of course. Custard with a dab of whipped cream. I thought about going fancy, but I kept the meal simple in the end. I hope that’s okay.”
“Simple is good. Fancy is good. Food is good.” He kissed Jared’s hand as he set down the custard. “You are fantastic.”
“You are a flatterer. More wine?”
Nick did have more wine. And then more after he finished his custard, drinking it seated on the sofa with Jared as they talked about how nice the Amin family was, how cute the kids were.
Emmanuella’s comment got under Nick’s skin a little, sending him into dangerous waters. “You ever think about having kids?”
Jared shrugged and sipped. “Sure.”
Nothing more, just that. Which meant he really did want them and didn’t want to talk about it.
Not with his closeted boyfriend, anyway.
Setting down his wineglass, Jared smiled, then climbed onto Nick’s lap. “All right.” He ran his hands over Nick’s hair, along the sides of his neck, and the want from the front door came back in full heat. “We’ve had our meal.”
Goddamn, this sexy man. Nick tugged at the tail of Jared’s shirt, slipping his thumb inside the gap below the lowest button. “Mmm, but I’m still hungry.”
“Then you’d better do something about that.”
Nick wanted to. So much so that he ached. Something about this, though, made him… breathless was too simple a word. He was suspended between the present and the past, remembering and looking forward. It was heady. It was terrifying.
It was wonderful.
Jared pressed their foreheads together, nuzzling their noses. He drifted toward Nick’s ear, kissing around the edge, nipping the lobe. “I look forward to making love to Nick the adult.”
Nick looked forward to making love to Jared too. Spreading his thighs wider, he cupped Jared’s ass and pulled him closer. “We going to get started right here, or you want to go upstairs?”
Jared tapped him on the nose. “Hush. You’re not driving the bus right now.”
Oh? It was difficult to keep his smile back. Nick raised an eyebrow. “You think so, do you?”
Jared pressed a kiss on Nick’s upper lip, on the divot in his chin, on the underside, teasing his tongue against the beard.
Nick couldn’t help it. He shivered.
Raising his head, Jared smiled, a mixture of self-satisfaction and softness. “I do think so.”
A shaft of ache and melancholy hit Nick out of nowhere, stealing his breath for the span of a heartbeat. It truly is as if nothing has changed.
Except it all had. They weren’t young men. Time had marched on, as had their lives. Nick was different too. He wasn’t consumed with guilt and fear, not like he was then. He was still afraid, yes, but he didn’t feel like he was drowning.
Now here they were, with a second chance. The hell Nick was wasting it.
Jared captured Nick’s hands, drew them to the front of his own shirt. “Undress me, please.”
Excitement kicked in Nick’s belly as he complied wordlessly. God, but this was an old game. They didn’t need it now, which Jared well knew with the way Nick had tried to jump him at the door. But they hadn’t needed it half the time they’d played it toward the end of their time together in high school. They’d simply liked it.
When they’d begun making out, if it hadn’t been for Jared’s bossiness in bed, they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Nick knew what he wanted, but when he thought about it too much, he freaked himself out, got too far inside his own head, and shut his system down. The first time Jared had told him what to do had been an attempt to draw him out of his panic. Keep kissing me. That had worked so well, Jared kept going. Touch me. Take off my clothes.
It didn’t take long for them to realize they were onto a kink they wanted to keep. Subtle as it was, it worked for them. Everything got mixed up. Who was the dominant partner here? Where was the give-and-take? It was a concert only the two of them knew how to direct. It kept Nick from feeling guilty, and at the end of the day, it was damn fun.
How much better was this going to be with twenty years of growth?
Nick slid Jared’s unbuttoned shirt away from his shoulders, revealing an expanse of lightly muscled, pale peach-pink skin dotted with a few more tufts of blond hair than he remembered. When Nick ran his hands over that skin, over the hard rounds of his lover’s pectorals, Jared hummed and braced himself against Nick’s shoulders.
God, yes, he’d missed this. Every part of this.
Nick leaned forward to press a reverent kiss on Jared’s sternum. “This what you wanted?”
“You’re on the right track.”
Nick smiled into Jared’s stomach, sliding his hands down Jared’s sides and resting them on his hips. “What were you after, then?”
“Mmm. It just seems like we’re both wearing too much, I’d say.”
Nick laughed and placed a loud kiss on Jared’s navel. “Quit being coy.”
The playful edge left Jared’s voice. “Take off the rest of my clothes, Nick, then remove your own.”
If anyone else spoke to Nick like that, all his hackles would go up. But no one else would know the exact balance between command and invitation, would have known, in fact, to play around first and wait for Nick to say, “Baby, I’m ready for it” before launching ahead.
Only Jared would be this way. Only with him could Nick let go.
Surrender he did. After unfastening the zip, Nick hooked his fingers into Jared’s waistband and tugged the fabric away, letting Jared’s steadiness and balance even out the last of his nerves. He pulled his own shirt over his head, helped by Jared’s long, cool fingers. When Nick got to his jeans, Jared took Nick’s face in his hands and kissed him the entire time he worked them down, so that by the time he had them and his socks off, he was panting and desperate.
God, but I’ve been in love with him all this time. He hadn’t dared let himself acknowledge it when they were young, never thought about it until now, but it was the truth.
Would it be enough?
Jared ran his hands along Nick’s beard, breaking the kiss to nuzzle his nose. “Stop thinking so much. We can worry about anything you want after.”
He was right, Nick knew. It was just…. “I don’t want to screw it up.”
Arms enveloped him, holding him close, pressing Jared’s naked body against his. “You won’t. We won’t. We’ll figure this out together. I only want to be with you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“There’s lube in the drawer of the end table beside you. Bear that in mind for later. Right now… right now, I want to take you in my mouth.”
A hot rush hit Nick like a wind. Oh God, was he going to…?
The look on Jared’s face, carnal and dark, told Nick everything he needed to know, sending fire into his gut. “Push me down and make me take it, Nick.”
Grunting, Nick kissed Jared hot and hard before anchoring his grip carefully in his soft blond hair and easing that wicked mouth toward his cock. “You do remember everything, don’t you?”
Jared’s only answer was to cup Nick’s balls and suck Nick’s length eagerly into his throat.
Nick remembered the first time they’d done this. One day Jared had told Nick to tug his hair until it hurt and push his face onto Nick’s cock. He’d worried about it, even as he’d wanted it desperately, and then Jared was looking up at him with a dirty smile and a mouth full of dick and Nick had surrendered to the lust. They’d been so terrified and turned on at the same time, they’d been a mess. That first time he’d stretched Jared’s mouth so much he couldn’t talk right for a few minutes, which had horrified Nick and made him apologize over and over, but Jared only laughed.
“Don’t you worry about stuff like that,” he’d told him. “If I don’t want it, I’ll always tell you. You can let go with me. I like it.”
Mouth full of cock once again, Jared gazed up the length of Nick’s chest with half-lidded eyes and a sleepy smile, saying the same thing without a single word. Let go with me. I like it.
Tightening his grip on Jared’s hair, Nick took him at his word.
Jared opened up his throat, wrapped his teeth behind his lips, and sucked Nick in, working the underside of him with his tongue. He made sexy, high-pitched moans that turned Nick on as well as buzzed against the tip of his cock as he thrust forward. For all that Jared was the one with his hair in Nick’s fist, his lips split wide and spittle dripping down his chin, he was the one driving the show. The more noise he made, the more he let go and made it clear he was absolutely into this, the more Nick was able to surrender to the feeling, to shut his eyes and thrust, trusting that so long as the hands on his thighs were clawing and clutching at him, not pushing, he had permission to pump into Jared’s wet heat until neither of them could stand it.
Nick came faster than he wanted and with little warning, making him feel like he was a teenager again. As Nick caught his breath, Jared popped off his cock and rested his cheek on his thigh.
Jared’s lips were swollen, cheeks flushed red. He seemed content, though not sated.
Nick smoothed his lover’s hair. “What do you want now, baby?”
Eyes closed, Jared ran his hand over Nick’s other thigh. “Push me on my back and hold my hands over my head. Bring the lube.”
Nick had been a little winded, but he wasn’t now. All right. “Couch or floor?”
“Mmm. Couch? Let’s be nice to your knees. We’re not sixteen anymore.”
Nick’s heart beat fast as he lifted Jared, arranging him on his back, laying his arms above his head over the armrest. Jared held them there dutifully, waiting as Nick got the lube as well as a condom, which he set on the floor. When Nick knelt in front of Jared on the couch, Jared gave Nick another order.
“Put my legs over your shoulders.”
Nick’s eyebrows went up. This was new.
Jared’s smile was coy. “I’ve learned a few things since you last saw me.”
Jealousy pierced Nick, which was ridiculous. He hadn’t been celibate either. Yet all he could think of was the fireman Jared dated in college fucking him over a couch with his legs over his shoulders. Dammit.
Jared winked at him. “Shh. Stay here with me. Don’t drift off anywhere. I’m not bringing anybody else to bed with us. Don’t you go doing it either.”
Nodding, Nick brought one of Jared’s legs, then the other, over his shoulders.
This had the effect, of course, of spreading his naked body, providing Nick with exposure to Jared’s balls, his hole, visible through his parted cheeks.
God, he was gorgeous.
Smiling, Jared stretched like a cat as he settled in. “Do what you want with me, Nick. I’m all yours. I can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything. Can’t get off without you.”
What I want. Damn, but Nick wanted a lot. He ran his hands down Jared’s legs. “So you’re just going to lie there, are you, while I have my way with you?”
“Oh, I’m hoping I’m not able to stay still very well, no.”
Nick laughed. It erupted out of him, making his chest warm, melting the last of his nerves. Smiling, he kissed Jared’s knee. “I missed you.”
Jared caressed him back with his leg. “Same.”
Nick kissed that leg again, swirling his tongue just above the kneecap as his fingers traveled on a path toward Jared’s abdomen. His thumb massaged circles on its way to the center of Jared’s chest, heading toward his left nipple before catching it gently between his fingers. As Jared gasped and arched toward the touch, Nick flipped open the bottle of lube, squeezed a bit into his palm, and brought his other hand between Jared’s legs.
A rush hit Nick as Jared cried out at the cool touch against his opening, parting his legs more to let Nick in. Nick kneaded gently at the nipple as he teased one finger around Jared’s hole, over his cock, greasing him well, taunting him with the thought of touch without actually giving it to him. All the while, Jared writhed and gasped beneath him, shutting his eyes and shaking.
“Please.” He kept his hands together above his head as if they’d been tied there, but his arms trembled, making it clear he wanted to tug them down. “Please, Nick, touch me.”
Here it was, the switch—just like that, Nick was in control. God, he loved this. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“Put it in me. Please.”
Nick ran his finger over Jared’s puckered, quivering apex. “What do you want put in here?”
“Your finger. Your cock. Anything. Please.”
Nick pushed the barest tip of his finger to Jared’s hole. “Like this?”
Jared whimpered, trying to bear down. “More. Give me more.”
Shifting his body to get a better angle, Nick gave himself a view of his hand splayed against Jared’s ass, Jared’s body turned up and ready, quivering for him. Nick pressed inside, breaching him with deliberate, aching slowness until Jared’s heels dug into his back in desperation.
This was the same. A slightly different choreography, but this invitation to play, to push, to be like this with Jared was so comfortable it was like putting on a pair of shoes he’d been walking past in his closet but had told himself didn’t fit. Oh, Jared fit. He fit the curve of Nick’s hands, the thickness of his lust, the ease of his soul. He fit the way he wanted to be just a tiny bit dirty, whispering for Nick to spread him, begging him to, but not getting so kinky either of them was uncomfortable.
Jared with him now, in his arms. Laying himself open for Nick, letting him into his body. When he closed his mouth over Jared’s cock and inserted a second finger, when Jared arched against him, Nick floated away and dreamed of being able to do this every day.
Once Jared came into his mouth, Nick didn’t know how to lead anymore, but that was fine because his lover took over. After a pause to recover, Jared took Nick’s hand and led him up the stairs to his bedroom. The curtains were open here, as well as the windows, letting in the early-evening breeze.
Nick’s gaze darted to the screen, but Jared soothed him with a kiss on his arm. “My neighbors are gone on vacation. But if you want, we can shut the window.”
I need to trust him. Nick shook his head and focused on taking in Jared’s room. It was cozy and neat, and the bed was big, full of lush blankets and pillows. “We left the lube downstairs, though.”
