Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
JAKE
“No. Not him.”
Jake didn’t need to hear more after he finished tugging on joggers and a long-sleeve shirt. He buried his head under his pillow to block the rest of the brothers’ conversation. He didn’t want to hear Val list all the reasons Jake hadn’t been good enough, and for Dima to agree Jake also wasn’t good enough for him. Their relationship may have been fleeting, and the split mutual, but no one ever kept Jake around for long. Though their physical chemistry wasn’t in question, and they coexisted well as roommates, that didn’t mean Jake and Dima had a shot at anything more.
Maybe he should accept the timing of Val’s interruption as a blessing in disguise.
A gentle rap at the bedroom door roused Jake from his mental spiral. He shifted the pillow and called, “Yeah?”
Would Val enter to warn Jake off his brother? Or worse, had Dima arrived to inform Jake things weren’t working out, and he needed to find someplace else to live as soon as possible?
The door swung open, the hall light framing Dima in the threshold. The second option, then. Except after the briefest pause, Dima entered the room and perched on the side of the mattress. He lifted his hand, froze for no more than a second, and ran gentle fingers through Jake’s mussed hair. “Val left. I’m sorry about all that.”
Jake wanted to rub his scalp against Dima’s fingers like a cat. He settled for a half-shrug. “Not your fault. Everything okay?”
Dima chuckled humorlessly. “No. But Val is angry with me, not you. He’s not fond of the idea of you and I in a relationship.”
“I’m sure you told him we weren’t in one.” Jake hated to move away from Dima’s touch, but this wasn’t a conversation to have lying down. He shifted until he sat cross-legged on the bed, one knee brushing Dima’s thigh.
“I may not have been transparent with him about certain aspects of my life, but I do my best not to lie to my brother.” When Jake gaped at him, he added, “I’m pretty sure you and I qualify as having been in a relationship for at least the past week, if not the last month.”
“Because I crossed so many lines,” Jake said, echoing Dima’s concern from earlier and evading his gaze.
Dima caught Jake’s chin with his fingers. “None of that. We both crossed them. Which should speak for itself, yes?”
He’d leaned closer, leaving Jake simultaneously trapped by Dima’s piercing gaze and freer than ever before. He closed his eyes, but not to hide. Their mouths crashed together in a kiss. Messy and uncoordinated for a beat, until Jake yielded under the hand Dima curled around his nape.
As much as Jake enjoyed the thrill of a partner who was a blank slate, he adored the connection that came from knowing the person in his arms. Or in this case, the person who held Jake in his arms, tugging him closer until he sat half in Dima’s lap. Dressing had seemed a good plan in the moment, but he wanted to rewind time before Val’s arrival, when Dima ran his hands over Jake’s bare skin. This was already a million times better than their long-ago club encounter, and they were still fully dressed. Jake broke away, catching his breath and reaching for the hem of his shirt.
“Wait,” Dima whispered, squeezing Jake’s neck.
Jake froze, panic threatening as Dima stood. Had he read this all wrong?
But Dima never let Jake go, collecting both his hands and kissing each set of Jake’s knuckles in turn as he drew him off the bed. The smile lines at Dima’s eyes crinkled. “If I get to have my hands all over you this time, and I plan to, we’re not going about this half-assed when I have a much bigger bed upstairs.”
Dima’s gaze rake down his front like a physical touch, which only made him crave more. Jake stole his hands back to tug off his shirt. “I support this plan.” The double in Dima’s spare room accommodated Jake’s slight frame fine, but he’d happily follow wherever Dima led. He’d return to his knees for Dima, or whatever other position the man desired. Especially if he followed through on the promise of hands all over him.
True to his word, Dima’s touch never left Jake’s skin. They stumbled more than once as they moved upstairs, laughing together between more kisses that left them both breathless. When Dima pushed his bedroom door open, though, Jake broke away. He’d never stepped foot in this space before, and he hungered for more than the other man’s body.
A stunning sunset print claimed point of pride as the room’s statement piece, but the simple framed photograph atop a nightstand drew Jake’s greater curiosity. A younger Dima, maybe even less than Jake’s current age, stood behind a gorgeous Black man. Together, their smiles outshone the sun on the opposite wall. “Who’s this?” he asked, drawing a finger along the edge of the frame.
Dumb question. The man was obviously someone important to Dima. And likely someone long gone, judging from the age of the picture and his absence in Dima’s current life. Dima stepped behind Jake and wrapped his arms around him once again, resting his chin on Jake’s shoulder. “Sipho.” Dima’s simple response carried only happiness, not sorrow or longing. He ran his nose along the edge of Jake’s ear, adding, “We were together when I lived in South Africa, but he passed away before I returned to the U.S.”
“I’m sorry.”
Where awkwardness might have ensued, Dima’s confident touch never faltered. “Thank you,” he said. “He’s why I closed myself off for so many years. I guess, over time, it simply became habit. To never let anyone close enough to risk the pain of such loss again.”
Jake spun in Dima’s arms, rising on his tiptoes to brush the gentlest kiss yet across his lips. “Until I moved in. Because you don’t lie to Val, but you can’t tell him no, either.”
“An ability you two have in common, apparently.” Dima tugged at the elastic waistband of Jake’s joggers, dragging them down Jake’s thighs until he stepped out of them. “I’ve been wanting to see all of you since the night at the club.”
He might not win any lifting competitions, but military fitness standards meant Jake had nothing to be ashamed of. He loosely circled his stiff cock and smirked, happy to fish for compliments. “And?”
Almost dazed, Dima replied, “You are absolute perfection.” He shot a glance at the picture behind Jake, and his grin widened. “Sipho would have adored you. Would have dragged you home that first night and never let you leave.”
“What about you?” Jake asked as he helped Dima shuck his own shirt and sweats. “Always wanted a houseboy of your own?”
The joke didn’t fall flat so much as it melted under Dima’s heat. He drew Jake onto the bed until they pressed together skin-to-skin. The pressure of Dima’s hard cock against his eased one of the needs crawling under Jake’s skin and awakened a dozen more.
“You’re worth so much more than a simple houseboy,” Dima said. “And it’s my turn to show you how much you’ve driven me out of my mind the best ways possible since the night we met.”
The last of the barriers, physical or otherwise, crumbled between them as Dima caught Jake in another fierce kiss, holding him close. So close that the heat of their bodies mingled with the heat that had already simmered so long, now erupting into a boil. Jake had assumed he’d take the lead, coaxing Dima toward the bliss he deserved. He urged Dima to roll atop him, to cover Jake with his larger body until he filled all Jake’s senses. To Jake’s surprise and pleasure, zero hesitancy slowed Dima’s movements as they writhed together in a dirty grind that ruined both the neatly made bed and Jake for all other men.
He was no pillow princess, giving as much as he took, but the intensity threatened to send him to his peak way too soon. Jake tried to flip them again, plotting to get his mouth further south than Dima’s mouth and neck. Dima lifted to his elbows instead, pressing a hand to Jake’s chest when Jake surged after him.
Jake froze, not from Dima’s touch but at the emotion that swirled in his dark eyes. No man had ever stared at him like this. He was used to partners who looked on him with hunger, but not this deeper need. “This isn’t like at the club, is it,” Jake blurted. This wasn’t anything like the hookup that had first brought them together.
Alone, the statement didn’t make much sense. A crooked grin teased at Dima’s kiss-swollen lips, though, showing those dark eyes saw everything Jake couldn’t put into words. Dima kissed and nipped his way down Jake’s front until he hovered over his aching cock. “No, it’s not.” His rough whisper made Jake’s cock jump, and he chuckled. “I thought shallow and meaningless was all I needed, but all that did was keep me trapped by my past.”
“And now? Here?” Jake’s questions ended in a moan as Dima dipped to mouth at him, enveloping his length in a heat even better than when they’d rutted together.
“Now,” Dima said, releasing Jake with a dirty pop, “you’ve reminded me I don’t have to fear beginnings.” He chuckled as Jake tilted his hips, urging him back to where Jake now needed him more than he needed his next breath. “Along with how much I’ve missed doing this in a bed.”
Dima once again sucked Jake into his mouth, and he abandoned any further attempts at introspection. As hot as their encounter at the club had been, it had merely scratched an itch. For both of them, it seemed. Now, he abandoned himself to the delight of sharing his body with a man who already knew and understood everything that usually forced himself to keep a portion of his mind wary and distant. He sank into the plush mattress and gripped the duvet so he didn’t float away from the joy that thrummed through his body alongside sheer pleasure.
Too soon, Dima’s talented lips and tongue brought Jake to the precipice—then hurled him straight over. His previous overwhelm had nothing on the orgasm Dima dragged from him, leaving Jake with ringing ears and lungs heaving for breath. The weight on his legs vanished and he wrenched his eyes open in time to see Dima kneeling above him, hand almost a blur as he worked the thick cock Jake already craved deep inside him.
Dima roared out his own orgasm as he spilled across Jake’s chest, coming so hard the thick drops reached Jake’s neck and chin. He swayed after, eyes cracking open with a languid smile. The smile brightened as Jake dragged Dima down into his arms, heedless of the mess.
They cuddled close, trading pleasure-drunk kisses. Jake had almost resigned himself to never making his way into Dima’s bed. Now that he was here, he swore to show Dima how good beginnings could be…so that his time in Dima’s arms never had to end.