Chapter 21 #2
The first touch made Ru gasp, his body tensing briefly before relaxing into the sensation.
“Okay?” Jake stilled his hand.
“More than okay.” Ru pushed against the pressure. “Don’t stop.”
Jake worked him open, little by little, taking his time, not wanting to hurt, watching Ru’s face for every reaction, adjusting his movements to draw out the most pleasure. One finger became two, then three, each addition met with gasps and moans of encouragement from Ru.
“Jake,” Ru said, his voice tight with need. “I’m ready. More than ready.”
“You sure?” Jake pressed deeper, finding the spot that made Ru’s back arch off the bed.
“God, yes,” Ru gasped, his hands fisting in the sheets. “Please, Jake. I want to feel you now.”
Ru hooked his legs around Jake’s hips; it was the green light Jake needed.
Positioning himself, he pressed forward slowly, watching Ru’s face for any sign of discomfort, desperate not to hurt this man who’d lit up the darkness and chased the shadows away.
But there was only wonder, as Ru’s eyes fluttered closed as Jake filled him, his lips parting on a silent gasp.
The tight heat of Ru, wrapped around him, was overwhelming, testing Jake’s control to its limits.
“Okay?” he rasped, every muscle tense.
Ru’s eyes opened, finding Jake’s, holding his gaze with an intensity that made Jake’s heart jolt. “More than okay,” he breathed. “Now fucking well move, Jake. Please.”
Jake obeyed the command, setting a pace that started slow and deep, discovering what made Ru moan, and his fingers dig into his shoulders. He adjusted his angle, seeking and finding the spot that made Ru cry out and his spine arch.
“There,” Ru ground out, hands scrabbling for purchase on Jake’s sweat slick back. “Right there.”
Jake thrust forward, increasing the pace that could never keep up with the rapid, hard hammer of his heart. “You feel so fucking good, Ru. So. Fucking. Good.” Jake gritted out the words, each one rough with raw emotion. “So tight, so perfect around me.”
He found Ru’s mouth. Wet, hot, hard, diving deeper, matching every piston engine thrust of his hips. Ru moaned into his mouth, hands sliding down to grip Jake’s arse.
“Harder,” Ru urged when they broke for air. “I won’t break.”
Jake’s hips snapped harder, faster, each thrust driving down deeper.
Pressing his face into the hot crook of Ru’s neck, he sucked hard, adding to the marks he’d already made, claiming Ru as his with every suck, and lick, and bite as Ru came apart beneath him.
He wanted to give Ru everything. Pleasure, protection, safety, he wanted to give it all and make Ru forget there had been anyone before, or that there could be anyone after.
This wasn’t just sex, this wasn’t just release. It was connection, communion, a giving and taking that went beyond the physical. This was like nothing—nothing—he’d experienced before, with any other man. His body spasmed, not with release but with the intensity of the emotion.
Ru seemed to sense the shift, his hands coming up to frame Jake’s face, pulling their foreheads together. “Stay with me,” Ru whispered, the words more than the sum of their parts. “Right here, with me.”
Jake nodded, unable to speak past the tightness in his throat.
He slowed his movements needing, if only for the moment, to step back, to take both a physical and emotional breath.
Ru’s gaze held his, but the intensity was almost too much, threatening Jake’s fragile control.
He’d planned to make this last, to draw out every touch, but the current was building, overwhelming, pushing him closer to the edge over which he’d tumble into free fall.
“Ru,” he ground out, the name both a warning and a plea. “I’m close.”
Jake watched, transfixed, as Ru stroked himself in time with Jake’s thrusts, his movements growing erratic as he approached his own edge.
“Look at me,” Jake commanded as he felt Ru tensing, sensed his approaching climax. “Let me see you.”
Ru’s eyes locked with his, pupils blown wide, a vulnerability in his expression that felt like the most precious gift Jake had ever been given.
“Jake,” he cried, the name becoming a litany as he thundered towards the point of no return. “Jake, Jake, Jake—”
Ru came with a cry Jake felt in his bones as Ru’s body tightened around him in waves, his release spilling hot between them.
The sight of Ru, the sound of his name on Ru’s lips, the rhythmic pressure pulsing around his cock, it was too much, snatching away his breath, his heart thumping harder and faster than it had any right to.
Jake’s control shattered, complete and unstoppable, his hips driving forward one final time as release crashed over him.
The world narrowed to the scent of Ru’s skin, the hard thrum of pleasure coursing through his body, the strange sense of both falling, and being caught and held close.
Jake buried his face in Ru’s neck, overwhelmed not just by the physical sensations wracking his body, but by the emotional deluge that left him fighting for air, and the sense, the knowing, that something fundamental had shifted within him.
They stayed connected as their breathing slowed, Jake careful not to crush Ru beneath his weight despite Ru’s arms around him, holding him close. When he finally moved to pull away, Ru made a small sound of protest.
“Not yet,” he murmured, tightening his embrace. “Stay.”
Stay. One small word, so much more than the here and now.
Jake closed his eyes, willing the prickle of sudden, unbidden tears not to fall.
Mumbling about his need for the bathroom, Jake slipped out of Ru’s embrace and the warmth of the rumpled bed.
In the bathroom he rested his weight on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror. His hair, normally too short to ever be a mess, stood up in little clumps. Other than that, he looked the same. What had he expected?
Until he stared deep into his reflected eyes.
Eyes that were clear and bright, eyes that looked… happy.
His world, already thrown off its axis, tilted some more.
Back in the bedroom, Ru looked up and smiled. “Come here.” He held out an arm in invitation.
Jake settled in beside him, allowing Ru to arrange them so that Jake’s head rested on his chest, their legs tangled together.
It should have felt strange because Jake was usually the one doing the holding, if there was holding at all, but somehow it didn’t.
It felt right, the solid thump of Ru’s heart beneath his ear grounding him.
They lay in silence for a while, Ru’s fingers drifting across Jake’s shoulder, Jake’s hand resting on Ru’s hip. The room was quiet except for their breathing. Outside, the day continued brightening, winter sunlight casting shadows across the floor.
“That was…” Ru began, then trailed off. “I kind of feel like I’ve been hit by a hurricane, and somehow survived. I think.”
Jake made a sound of agreement, not trusting his voice yet. The silence stretched between them, comfortable at first, then gradually weighted with unspoken questions. Jake could feel tension returning to his body, awareness creeping in around the edges of the post-orgasmic haze.
What had they done?
No, that was the wrong question. He knew exactly what they’d done. The real question was: what the fuck happened now?
The storm would clear eventually. Ru would move on to Bobblecombe or return to London, to his life, to a world entirely separate from Jake’s moorland isolation.
Whatever this had been, it was nothing more than a blip in lives that shared no common ground.
And without that, nothing could grow. Jake shifted, to move away, but Ru’s hold on him tightened.
“What are you thinking?” Ru asked, fingers still sweeping back and forth across Jake’s skin. “You’ve gone very quiet.”
A bland answer, that said nothing of worth, would be easy to give but it’d be a lie, and he owed Ru more than that.
“I’m thinking about what happens when the storm ends.”
Ru’s hand stilled momentarily, then resumed its regular, almost metronomic, movement.
“That’s a problem for future us. For now, can’t we just be here? In this moment?”
Future us. The words implied continuity, connection beyond this room, this day. It should have frightened Jake, instead the words burrowed, deep and warm, into his chest.
“Here and now.” Jake pressed a kiss to Ru’s chest, right over his heart. “I can do that.”
They lay together under the winter light, learning the contours of a new landscape, navigating by touch and trust rather than maps or compasses.
Yet Jake knew, somewhere beneath the surface contentment, that questions remained.
Questions about what happened tomorrow, or the day after; about what happened when the storm ceased and real life resumed; about how much he could bear to have this again with Ru, and about how much he could bear not to.
But for now, with the waif and stray he’d found in his barn warm and solid against him, those questions could wait.
For now, there was only this, skin against skin, shared breath, and the growing certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.