Tea, page 16
“My back?”
“You, you berk.”
“Oh, charming…”
John kissed him, and that worked. Chris melted into it, a hand coming up to catch at John’s hair. Despite their states—Chris half-naked, and John entirely so—it was an oddly chaste kiss. Sweet. Affirming. The feel of Chris’s breathing against his own and the brush of soft skin against his chest hair was somehow more erotic to John than any amount of cunnilingus. The play of Chris’s fingers over his bicep, tracing the muscle and squeezing it, was strangely affectionate and alluring at the same time. The leg that hooked over his hip and drew them closer together was not so much about sex as it was about a snuggle—not, John imagined, that Chris would like that word any more than he liked ‘making love.’
Even after John’s dick recovered—Chris’s proximity bringing it to a soft but full state within minutes, and then about a quarter of an hour later achieving full hardness when Chris finally tired of the cuddle category of foreplay and fought his way into John’s mouth with tongue and teeth—John felt little urgency to act. They were at the cottage, by the coast, for a week. He had all the time in the world.
So, he took his time and loved.
Simply loved. Stroked the skin he’d bruised downstairs. Kissed the sweet spots on neck and shoulder, rather than bit them. Smoothed the juncture of leg and arse over and over, until he had the very hairs themselves memorised. Lost himself in the touch of Chris’s lips and hands.
Lost himself so thoroughly that he jolted in surprise when Chris laughed and pushed his shoulder.
“You’re too heavy for that,” came the breathless protest, and John realised he’d turned them so that his full weight had come to rest on Chris’s chest.
“Sorry,” he said, levering an arm under himself and propping his frame up over that mesmerising body. He kissed the hollow below Chris’s throat and stroked a spread hand up his thigh and hip to rest on his waist. “You still want to—?”
“God, yes.”
John nuzzled his ear. “Promise to tell me if it hurts.”
“It’s bound to hurt a bit.”
“It could be uncomfortable,” John allowed, “but it shouldn’t be much more than that.”
“Okay.” Chris didn’t sound convinced.
John reached for the bag and unzipped it to find the condoms and the lube. For the first time since he was a teenager, his hands fumbled clumsily with the bottle and the wrappers. He nudged his knee up between Chris’s thighs and felt him flinch a little at the tear of the packet.
At least he wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
Rolling the condom on with the sight of Chris half-naked and waiting below him, was one of the hardest things John had ever had to deal with. Pun half intended. He had to squeeze the base of his cock a little and take a deep breath once the latex was in place, and only when the imminent danger had passed did he open his eyes again.
He shifted his leg, and Chris opened his knees a little wider. Reached up to clutch at the pillow above his head.
Tense.
“Hey.” John stroked a hand down his arm. “It’ll be easier if you turn over.”
“No.”
John raised his eyebrows.
“I want to be able to touch you.”
John dropped down, elbows either side of Chris’s shoulders, and kissed him. Lightly. Almost teasing. When he drew back, Chris followed for a moment, before catching those long fingers over John’s taut arms and squeezing.
“Yeah,” Chris murmured, like it had been an answer. “Like that.”
John chuckled, burying his mouth against Chris’s neck and sucking lightly until he felt the tell-tale shiver of arousal. Until he dropped his weight a fraction, to rock their bodies lightly together, and felt an answering relaxation. Until Chris yielded with a breathy sigh and stretched his head to the side for more.
And out of nowhere, the words spilled out.
“I love you.”
Chris gave him a little laugh in reply, and John grinned.
“I do!”
“Mhmm…”
“Love you,” John repeated, buoyed both by the warm reception and the streak of disbelief. He kissed the abused neck, the hard angle of jaw, the warm ear, and then began to track downwards again. He left one arm high, the victim of Chris’s searching fingers, and smoothed his path with the other, skipping past the T-shirt and the places Chris didn’t want him to see as easily as though they weren’t there at all.
And then he found himself right back at the beginning.
A gentle exploration with his dry fingers found Chris as open as John had hoped for, and a return with the lube opened him up further with a surprised noise and then a groan that could almost have been a purr. There was an edge of exhaustion in his grip, and John exploited it ruthlessly. It would be easier if he were loose. It would be better if his pleasure didn’t have to compete with any pain.
“Let me,” Chris mumbled, reaching a hand down.
“Let you what?”
“I want to touch you. Get your dick all primed for me.”
“It’s primed enough,” John complained, but drew a circle of lubricant into the palm of Chris’s hand with the bottle, and then drew that hand to clasp about his cock.
And—God. Grit his teeth and fight the urge to come on the spot.
“Don’t move,” he grunted, and Chris stilled. “Oh God. God.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he groaned heavily, and Chris laughed. The sound was high and giddy. “Jesus.”
“I’ve jacked you before.”
“Not like that.”
Not naked and lubed-up and half a foot from—from—
Chris’s fingers wrapped slowly about his length and began to pump.
John groaned and dropped his head to rest on Chris’s chest as he was…primed, as Chris put it. And it felt like it too. It wasn’t a loving or shy touch. It was brisk and almost businesslike. John was being readied, not revered. This was a necessary act, not a sex act in itself, not right now. He was pumped like a tool, a toy.
Ordinarily, John might have felt a little cheapened by the gesture. Yet something about Chris’s determination was in itself dizzying.
He wanted this as bad as John did, and suddenly, the phrase ‘knowledge is power’ made a whole lot more sense.
John took a deep breath and removed Chris’s hand by the wrist.
Okay.
Now.
“Ready?”
“Uh-huh.”
John kissed the inside of one knee. Drew Chris closer by the hips. Lined himself up, until the sheathed head pressed against Chris’s wet heat.
“Bear down on me,” he coached.
“O-okay.”
He heard the nerves.
Very carefully, so as not to shift the position of his prick, John leaned forward and found collarbone with mouth. Wrapped his teeth around the soft spot above the ridge. Licked it until Chris whimpered.
Then bit.
And pushed.
“Fu—oh!”
The cry broke off into a high keen. John groaned. He thrust into unbelievable tightness. Searing heat. A grip like a vice. A pulse pounding all about him. Muscle and flesh and body, a physicality he’d never imagined. His hands had no idea. His hands had no bloody, blind idea.
Resistance. A depth his fingers couldn’t get to. A soft whimper. He bit again, harder, and felt the yield. Sank deeper—and bottomed out. Christ, he’d bottomed out. He was sunk to the base, completely sheathed. Gulping for air, like his lungs were in his captured cock. He panted harshly against Chris’s neck and gathered himself.
God. Christ. This was—this was—
“Move. Please. Please move.”
He could feel a tightness in the body underneath him. A discomfort. There was a fine sweat on the skin beneath his fingers, and it was nothing to do with pleasure.
John pulled back, a bare inch and no more, and worked his fingers between them.
“Just relax,” he whispered and began to rub.
Chris whined and arched under him. The pressure tightened impossibly. Black spots danced at the corners of John’s vision. His lungs caught again—and he forced it back. Not yet. Not yet. Focus. He refocused. On the heaving chest. On the writhing form. Bent his head to taste sweetness and salt on Chris’s jaw. Played him like an instrument, until he felt fingers tightening on his arms, and—
Now.
The first ripple of climax tugged at his dick, and John followed.
A shallow thrust. Barely an inch of movement. And yet—
Chris groaned, more sensation than sound. The second wave was harder, and John followed that too. And they found a rhythm, begun in the crashing tide of Chris’s climax and continued even after exhaustion rushed after it, and he lay lax and welcoming, the only grip left in his hands as they dug bruises into John’s arms.
As he clung to John’s body and rode him as surely as if their positions had been reversed.
John wanted—desperately wanted—to pull back and thrust deep. To plunder and pillage. To get as deep as possible, as hard as possible, and rock the bed with their lovemaking.
One day. In Chris’s waterbed, perhaps.
But the blanked-out look of bliss, the soft whimpers emerging from Chris’s throat, the sweet little yes-yes-yes that escaped when John dropped his weight enough to mould them together and carry Chris’s form through the thrusts…
It didn’t last long.
It could never have lasted long.
John came too soon, and it shattered him. Broke him apart. His vision went white. His mind collapsed. He felt skin and heat and those clutching hands, and nothing more. The room, the world, his very name, was ripped away. His soul lay bare, basking in primal ecstasy, and only those hands kept it clutched tight and safe. He was—broken. Truly broken. He was the sea, and Chris the cliff-face that tore him apart.
And yet if John ever reformed, he would come right back and do it all again.
He could do this for the rest of his days and not regret a moment.
The world inched back in around the edges. Chris’s chest heaved under John’s ear. Pulses thundered. John couldn’t tell one from the other.
He didn’t care to try either.
“I love you,” he breathed.
A soft, shattered laugh. Fingers combing through his hair.
He needed to—get up. Take the condom off. Get them under the blankets. Check it had been good. He should.
“I love you,” he said again and did none of it.
Just—breathed.
But beneath him, Chris just breathed too, and John figured that maybe, just this once, just breathing was all that was needed.
Chapter Twenty-One
WHEN JOHN WOKE up, he was alone.
Sunlight was streaming through the window, thin and watery. The sheets had been thrown back on Chris’s side of the bed. And John felt—
Gross, actually.
He frowned fuzzily at the bed canopy and tried to work out why. The burn of some seriously good sex was lingering in his muscles. His brain itched for a workout, like it usually did after a couple of days away from the gym. He was vaguely hungry.
Yet he felt inexplicably disgusting.
“What the hell—” he murmured and went to sit up.
Oh.
Well, that explained a few things.
Grimly, he pulled the sheets back, took a deep breath, and peeled the sodden condom off his limp dick. It bloody hurt too. Christ. He must have blacked out last night.
Problem resolved, condom tied off and dumped on the side table for the bin later, the good feelings were allowed their air, and John headed naked for the stairs to find his escapee partner.
It wasn’t that hard. Small cottage aside, Chris wasn’t exactly trying to hide. John found him stretched out on the sofa in jogging bottoms and a tank top, hair wet from the shower. He was listening to something on his phone, earphones gleaming white under his curls, and nursing a mug of—to John’s surprise—tea.
“Seriously?” he asked, stooping to kiss the top of his head. “Tea?”
“There’s only shit coffee.”
“There’s some instant in the cupboard.”
“Like I said. Shit.”
John laughed and perched on the edge of the sofa to take a sip of tea and a kiss.
“Mm, morning.”
Chris laughed. “Hello.”
“You okay?”
The smile widened. “Think we can stretch to very good.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So last night—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, does your ego need stroking as well as your cock?”
John burst out laughing.
“Let’s see,” Chris said, mock-thoughtfully. “You ate me out to make me come, then finger-fucked me into another one, then you beat yourself off because you wanted to do me proper instead of a shove it in and shoot off—”
John’s stomach hurt. He had to bend over and wheeze at his knees, cackling.
“And then you took me upstairs and finally, finally, fucked me. And make me come on your cock because—actually, I don’t even know why. But you did. So yeah, I came three times last night because, apparently, my orgasms are your life energy or something.”
“Close enough,” John choked. When he finally straightened, he was still grinning like a loon.
“Trust me,” Chris said smugly. “I am very good.”
“Hmm, that’s not perfect. What would perfect look like?”
“Decent coffee and a massive breakfast.”
“Give me twenty minutes to shower, and we’ll go out. There’s a café right down by the water that does an amazing fry-up.”
“What about their coffee?”
“No idea. But they have coffee,” John said, levering himself up on groaning knees.
“Instant isn’t coffee!” Chris shouted after him, and John laughed as he headed into the bathroom.
And—sod it. Left the door open.
God, his mood couldn’t get any higher. It was post-coital, sure—John might romanticise the act and think of sex with no strings attached as pointless and meaningless, but his body didn’t agree and was thoroughly enjoying the endorphin shot of getting its rocks off—but it was deeper too. Chris’s easy demeanour. The smell of his shampoo. The fact that…
Jesus, the simple fact that he’d smiled and been pleased that John was awake.
Okay, so John would have preferred a good long cuddle in bed the morning after, but it was gone nine, and Chris probably had had to take his medication or something.
He showered, enjoying the stretch of slightly stiff muscles and working the twinge out of his back—being so bloody big caused havoc with his lower back—before stealing a handful of Chris’s shampoo and raking it through his far shorter hair. The scent was becoming familiar, though John chuckled at the thought of turning up to rugby practice with hair that smelled like jasmine.
Knuckles rapped on the open door.
“Can I come in and do my teeth again?”
“Sure,” John said and cracked open the shower door to watch. “You could always come in here with me.”
“Already showered.”
“So? Shower again.”
Chris laughed. “Mm, waste of water.”
“How about I make you dirty again, and then you’ll have to.”
“Trust me,” Chris said. “Attempting to have shower sex with me is a bad call.”
He shoved the toothbrush in his mouth, and John spied an opportunity.
“I didn’t say anything about sex,” he protested. “You’ve got a dirty mind.”
A mumbled argument was his reply, but he couldn’t understand it.
“Honestly. I wanted a nice, sweet snuggle under—”
“Whmph?”
“Snuggle,” John repeated. “Wonderful things, snuggles, you should try them. In fact, tomorrow morning, I’ll snuggle you so hard you can’t sneak out of bed like that.”
Chris flipped him—or rather, the towel rail—off, and John laughed. He shut the water off and scrubbed down with a towel before wrapping it around his waist and stepping out.
And, the minute Chris was done with his teeth, stepped up and slid his arms around that slim waist.
“This,” he murmured, tightening his arms, “is a snuggle.”
“We need to work on your vocabulary,” came the snotty reply.
John kissed his neck. “Sure?”
“Well, maybe later.”
John grinned and squeezed tighter for a minute.
“I meant it,” he said.
“What?”
“What I said last night.”
“You said a lot of things last night, most of which I don’t remember.”
“You don’t?”
“I was a bit distracted.”
John laughed. “Well, how about the bit where I said I love you?”
“Oh, aye?”
“It’s true.”
“Most people are in love when they’re balls-deep in someone else’s body.”
John shook his head, rubbing his stubble against Chris’s neck. “Nope. Meant it. I know it’s a bit soon, and this is still all new and everything, but I know what I feel. And I love you.”
Chris turned in his arms and reached up on tiptoes to kiss his chin.
“I don’t believe in love this soon,” he murmured, “but thank you.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“What do you believe in, then?”
“Passion. This is passion. I believe that—I feel that, too—but it’s not love.”
“So when does love kick in?” John asked.
“When passion stops.”
John frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This is the…the honeymoon period, I guess. That exciting bit, when you have someone new. And then it fizzles out and stops. And after it stops, either there’s not anything to hold it all together and you drift apart, or love’s snuck in and you don’t.”
“Well,” John said, squeezing again. “You believe your thing, and I’ll believe mine.”
“What’s yours?”
“That love at first sight is real, and I caught it when I saw you.”
“Caught it? Excuse me, I’m not infectious.”
“You bloody are.”
Chris laughed and hit him. John trapped his arms to his sides and attacked his ear until Chris yelled and fought him off, cackling with laughter.
“You, you berk.”
“Oh, charming…”
John kissed him, and that worked. Chris melted into it, a hand coming up to catch at John’s hair. Despite their states—Chris half-naked, and John entirely so—it was an oddly chaste kiss. Sweet. Affirming. The feel of Chris’s breathing against his own and the brush of soft skin against his chest hair was somehow more erotic to John than any amount of cunnilingus. The play of Chris’s fingers over his bicep, tracing the muscle and squeezing it, was strangely affectionate and alluring at the same time. The leg that hooked over his hip and drew them closer together was not so much about sex as it was about a snuggle—not, John imagined, that Chris would like that word any more than he liked ‘making love.’
Even after John’s dick recovered—Chris’s proximity bringing it to a soft but full state within minutes, and then about a quarter of an hour later achieving full hardness when Chris finally tired of the cuddle category of foreplay and fought his way into John’s mouth with tongue and teeth—John felt little urgency to act. They were at the cottage, by the coast, for a week. He had all the time in the world.
So, he took his time and loved.
Simply loved. Stroked the skin he’d bruised downstairs. Kissed the sweet spots on neck and shoulder, rather than bit them. Smoothed the juncture of leg and arse over and over, until he had the very hairs themselves memorised. Lost himself in the touch of Chris’s lips and hands.
Lost himself so thoroughly that he jolted in surprise when Chris laughed and pushed his shoulder.
“You’re too heavy for that,” came the breathless protest, and John realised he’d turned them so that his full weight had come to rest on Chris’s chest.
“Sorry,” he said, levering an arm under himself and propping his frame up over that mesmerising body. He kissed the hollow below Chris’s throat and stroked a spread hand up his thigh and hip to rest on his waist. “You still want to—?”
“God, yes.”
John nuzzled his ear. “Promise to tell me if it hurts.”
“It’s bound to hurt a bit.”
“It could be uncomfortable,” John allowed, “but it shouldn’t be much more than that.”
“Okay.” Chris didn’t sound convinced.
John reached for the bag and unzipped it to find the condoms and the lube. For the first time since he was a teenager, his hands fumbled clumsily with the bottle and the wrappers. He nudged his knee up between Chris’s thighs and felt him flinch a little at the tear of the packet.
At least he wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
Rolling the condom on with the sight of Chris half-naked and waiting below him, was one of the hardest things John had ever had to deal with. Pun half intended. He had to squeeze the base of his cock a little and take a deep breath once the latex was in place, and only when the imminent danger had passed did he open his eyes again.
He shifted his leg, and Chris opened his knees a little wider. Reached up to clutch at the pillow above his head.
Tense.
“Hey.” John stroked a hand down his arm. “It’ll be easier if you turn over.”
“No.”
John raised his eyebrows.
“I want to be able to touch you.”
John dropped down, elbows either side of Chris’s shoulders, and kissed him. Lightly. Almost teasing. When he drew back, Chris followed for a moment, before catching those long fingers over John’s taut arms and squeezing.
“Yeah,” Chris murmured, like it had been an answer. “Like that.”
John chuckled, burying his mouth against Chris’s neck and sucking lightly until he felt the tell-tale shiver of arousal. Until he dropped his weight a fraction, to rock their bodies lightly together, and felt an answering relaxation. Until Chris yielded with a breathy sigh and stretched his head to the side for more.
And out of nowhere, the words spilled out.
“I love you.”
Chris gave him a little laugh in reply, and John grinned.
“I do!”
“Mhmm…”
“Love you,” John repeated, buoyed both by the warm reception and the streak of disbelief. He kissed the abused neck, the hard angle of jaw, the warm ear, and then began to track downwards again. He left one arm high, the victim of Chris’s searching fingers, and smoothed his path with the other, skipping past the T-shirt and the places Chris didn’t want him to see as easily as though they weren’t there at all.
And then he found himself right back at the beginning.
A gentle exploration with his dry fingers found Chris as open as John had hoped for, and a return with the lube opened him up further with a surprised noise and then a groan that could almost have been a purr. There was an edge of exhaustion in his grip, and John exploited it ruthlessly. It would be easier if he were loose. It would be better if his pleasure didn’t have to compete with any pain.
“Let me,” Chris mumbled, reaching a hand down.
“Let you what?”
“I want to touch you. Get your dick all primed for me.”
“It’s primed enough,” John complained, but drew a circle of lubricant into the palm of Chris’s hand with the bottle, and then drew that hand to clasp about his cock.
And—God. Grit his teeth and fight the urge to come on the spot.
“Don’t move,” he grunted, and Chris stilled. “Oh God. God.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he groaned heavily, and Chris laughed. The sound was high and giddy. “Jesus.”
“I’ve jacked you before.”
“Not like that.”
Not naked and lubed-up and half a foot from—from—
Chris’s fingers wrapped slowly about his length and began to pump.
John groaned and dropped his head to rest on Chris’s chest as he was…primed, as Chris put it. And it felt like it too. It wasn’t a loving or shy touch. It was brisk and almost businesslike. John was being readied, not revered. This was a necessary act, not a sex act in itself, not right now. He was pumped like a tool, a toy.
Ordinarily, John might have felt a little cheapened by the gesture. Yet something about Chris’s determination was in itself dizzying.
He wanted this as bad as John did, and suddenly, the phrase ‘knowledge is power’ made a whole lot more sense.
John took a deep breath and removed Chris’s hand by the wrist.
Okay.
Now.
“Ready?”
“Uh-huh.”
John kissed the inside of one knee. Drew Chris closer by the hips. Lined himself up, until the sheathed head pressed against Chris’s wet heat.
“Bear down on me,” he coached.
“O-okay.”
He heard the nerves.
Very carefully, so as not to shift the position of his prick, John leaned forward and found collarbone with mouth. Wrapped his teeth around the soft spot above the ridge. Licked it until Chris whimpered.
Then bit.
And pushed.
“Fu—oh!”
The cry broke off into a high keen. John groaned. He thrust into unbelievable tightness. Searing heat. A grip like a vice. A pulse pounding all about him. Muscle and flesh and body, a physicality he’d never imagined. His hands had no idea. His hands had no bloody, blind idea.
Resistance. A depth his fingers couldn’t get to. A soft whimper. He bit again, harder, and felt the yield. Sank deeper—and bottomed out. Christ, he’d bottomed out. He was sunk to the base, completely sheathed. Gulping for air, like his lungs were in his captured cock. He panted harshly against Chris’s neck and gathered himself.
God. Christ. This was—this was—
“Move. Please. Please move.”
He could feel a tightness in the body underneath him. A discomfort. There was a fine sweat on the skin beneath his fingers, and it was nothing to do with pleasure.
John pulled back, a bare inch and no more, and worked his fingers between them.
“Just relax,” he whispered and began to rub.
Chris whined and arched under him. The pressure tightened impossibly. Black spots danced at the corners of John’s vision. His lungs caught again—and he forced it back. Not yet. Not yet. Focus. He refocused. On the heaving chest. On the writhing form. Bent his head to taste sweetness and salt on Chris’s jaw. Played him like an instrument, until he felt fingers tightening on his arms, and—
Now.
The first ripple of climax tugged at his dick, and John followed.
A shallow thrust. Barely an inch of movement. And yet—
Chris groaned, more sensation than sound. The second wave was harder, and John followed that too. And they found a rhythm, begun in the crashing tide of Chris’s climax and continued even after exhaustion rushed after it, and he lay lax and welcoming, the only grip left in his hands as they dug bruises into John’s arms.
As he clung to John’s body and rode him as surely as if their positions had been reversed.
John wanted—desperately wanted—to pull back and thrust deep. To plunder and pillage. To get as deep as possible, as hard as possible, and rock the bed with their lovemaking.
One day. In Chris’s waterbed, perhaps.
But the blanked-out look of bliss, the soft whimpers emerging from Chris’s throat, the sweet little yes-yes-yes that escaped when John dropped his weight enough to mould them together and carry Chris’s form through the thrusts…
It didn’t last long.
It could never have lasted long.
John came too soon, and it shattered him. Broke him apart. His vision went white. His mind collapsed. He felt skin and heat and those clutching hands, and nothing more. The room, the world, his very name, was ripped away. His soul lay bare, basking in primal ecstasy, and only those hands kept it clutched tight and safe. He was—broken. Truly broken. He was the sea, and Chris the cliff-face that tore him apart.
And yet if John ever reformed, he would come right back and do it all again.
He could do this for the rest of his days and not regret a moment.
The world inched back in around the edges. Chris’s chest heaved under John’s ear. Pulses thundered. John couldn’t tell one from the other.
He didn’t care to try either.
“I love you,” he breathed.
A soft, shattered laugh. Fingers combing through his hair.
He needed to—get up. Take the condom off. Get them under the blankets. Check it had been good. He should.
“I love you,” he said again and did none of it.
Just—breathed.
But beneath him, Chris just breathed too, and John figured that maybe, just this once, just breathing was all that was needed.
Chapter Twenty-One
WHEN JOHN WOKE up, he was alone.
Sunlight was streaming through the window, thin and watery. The sheets had been thrown back on Chris’s side of the bed. And John felt—
Gross, actually.
He frowned fuzzily at the bed canopy and tried to work out why. The burn of some seriously good sex was lingering in his muscles. His brain itched for a workout, like it usually did after a couple of days away from the gym. He was vaguely hungry.
Yet he felt inexplicably disgusting.
“What the hell—” he murmured and went to sit up.
Oh.
Well, that explained a few things.
Grimly, he pulled the sheets back, took a deep breath, and peeled the sodden condom off his limp dick. It bloody hurt too. Christ. He must have blacked out last night.
Problem resolved, condom tied off and dumped on the side table for the bin later, the good feelings were allowed their air, and John headed naked for the stairs to find his escapee partner.
It wasn’t that hard. Small cottage aside, Chris wasn’t exactly trying to hide. John found him stretched out on the sofa in jogging bottoms and a tank top, hair wet from the shower. He was listening to something on his phone, earphones gleaming white under his curls, and nursing a mug of—to John’s surprise—tea.
“Seriously?” he asked, stooping to kiss the top of his head. “Tea?”
“There’s only shit coffee.”
“There’s some instant in the cupboard.”
“Like I said. Shit.”
John laughed and perched on the edge of the sofa to take a sip of tea and a kiss.
“Mm, morning.”
Chris laughed. “Hello.”
“You okay?”
The smile widened. “Think we can stretch to very good.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So last night—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, does your ego need stroking as well as your cock?”
John burst out laughing.
“Let’s see,” Chris said, mock-thoughtfully. “You ate me out to make me come, then finger-fucked me into another one, then you beat yourself off because you wanted to do me proper instead of a shove it in and shoot off—”
John’s stomach hurt. He had to bend over and wheeze at his knees, cackling.
“And then you took me upstairs and finally, finally, fucked me. And make me come on your cock because—actually, I don’t even know why. But you did. So yeah, I came three times last night because, apparently, my orgasms are your life energy or something.”
“Close enough,” John choked. When he finally straightened, he was still grinning like a loon.
“Trust me,” Chris said smugly. “I am very good.”
“Hmm, that’s not perfect. What would perfect look like?”
“Decent coffee and a massive breakfast.”
“Give me twenty minutes to shower, and we’ll go out. There’s a café right down by the water that does an amazing fry-up.”
“What about their coffee?”
“No idea. But they have coffee,” John said, levering himself up on groaning knees.
“Instant isn’t coffee!” Chris shouted after him, and John laughed as he headed into the bathroom.
And—sod it. Left the door open.
God, his mood couldn’t get any higher. It was post-coital, sure—John might romanticise the act and think of sex with no strings attached as pointless and meaningless, but his body didn’t agree and was thoroughly enjoying the endorphin shot of getting its rocks off—but it was deeper too. Chris’s easy demeanour. The smell of his shampoo. The fact that…
Jesus, the simple fact that he’d smiled and been pleased that John was awake.
Okay, so John would have preferred a good long cuddle in bed the morning after, but it was gone nine, and Chris probably had had to take his medication or something.
He showered, enjoying the stretch of slightly stiff muscles and working the twinge out of his back—being so bloody big caused havoc with his lower back—before stealing a handful of Chris’s shampoo and raking it through his far shorter hair. The scent was becoming familiar, though John chuckled at the thought of turning up to rugby practice with hair that smelled like jasmine.
Knuckles rapped on the open door.
“Can I come in and do my teeth again?”
“Sure,” John said and cracked open the shower door to watch. “You could always come in here with me.”
“Already showered.”
“So? Shower again.”
Chris laughed. “Mm, waste of water.”
“How about I make you dirty again, and then you’ll have to.”
“Trust me,” Chris said. “Attempting to have shower sex with me is a bad call.”
He shoved the toothbrush in his mouth, and John spied an opportunity.
“I didn’t say anything about sex,” he protested. “You’ve got a dirty mind.”
A mumbled argument was his reply, but he couldn’t understand it.
“Honestly. I wanted a nice, sweet snuggle under—”
“Whmph?”
“Snuggle,” John repeated. “Wonderful things, snuggles, you should try them. In fact, tomorrow morning, I’ll snuggle you so hard you can’t sneak out of bed like that.”
Chris flipped him—or rather, the towel rail—off, and John laughed. He shut the water off and scrubbed down with a towel before wrapping it around his waist and stepping out.
And, the minute Chris was done with his teeth, stepped up and slid his arms around that slim waist.
“This,” he murmured, tightening his arms, “is a snuggle.”
“We need to work on your vocabulary,” came the snotty reply.
John kissed his neck. “Sure?”
“Well, maybe later.”
John grinned and squeezed tighter for a minute.
“I meant it,” he said.
“What?”
“What I said last night.”
“You said a lot of things last night, most of which I don’t remember.”
“You don’t?”
“I was a bit distracted.”
John laughed. “Well, how about the bit where I said I love you?”
“Oh, aye?”
“It’s true.”
“Most people are in love when they’re balls-deep in someone else’s body.”
John shook his head, rubbing his stubble against Chris’s neck. “Nope. Meant it. I know it’s a bit soon, and this is still all new and everything, but I know what I feel. And I love you.”
Chris turned in his arms and reached up on tiptoes to kiss his chin.
“I don’t believe in love this soon,” he murmured, “but thank you.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“What do you believe in, then?”
“Passion. This is passion. I believe that—I feel that, too—but it’s not love.”
“So when does love kick in?” John asked.
“When passion stops.”
John frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This is the…the honeymoon period, I guess. That exciting bit, when you have someone new. And then it fizzles out and stops. And after it stops, either there’s not anything to hold it all together and you drift apart, or love’s snuck in and you don’t.”
“Well,” John said, squeezing again. “You believe your thing, and I’ll believe mine.”
“What’s yours?”
“That love at first sight is real, and I caught it when I saw you.”
“Caught it? Excuse me, I’m not infectious.”
“You bloody are.”
Chris laughed and hit him. John trapped his arms to his sides and attacked his ear until Chris yelled and fought him off, cackling with laughter.
