Chapter Twenty Mateo #3
The kiss should be messy. Needy. It should leave us breathless and bruised.
It's our first one since we were mad about it three years ago, and I'm not sure why it doesn't carry any trace of that rage tonight, even to remind us we're happier now.
But it doesn't need to be anything other than the tender exploration it is, so close to a second first time, and one we'll never forget.
He starts in on my buttons without pulling away, and I hold the sides of his face to make sure he doesn't change his mind about that.
As soon as Jamie can get his hands on my bare skin, he does.
There's time for me to finish with his shirt, but I haven't made it that far and I won't rush anything now.
"Upstairs," he breathes. "Let me take you upstairs."
It's a stunning request when I've been upstairs—when I've slept in his bed—so many times before, and I swallow hard. "Please."
Jamie takes my hand, and I'm dizzy with lust. I don't know why we've waited so long to do this, except that I know exactly why, and I hate the circumstances beyond our control and all the times we've been to blame.
I need to tell him I'm done waiting for the things we can have just like this.
I need to tell him we can keep this away from hockey and the press and everything we've been afraid of, because Harper already knows, and it would be okay if my family knows, too.
I need to tell him we can be together sometimes because it's better than not being together at all.
I need to tell him before he hands me a pen and paper and asks me to make another list of rules because it's all he's ever known me to do.
In his room, Jamie lets go just long enough to turn on a lamp, and then he's kissing my neck as he pushes my shirt off my shoulders. "I want to see your body. All of it."
"You've seen my body."
"I want to see your body when I'm allowed to look," he says. "When I'm allowed to take my time with it."
"And I want to hear you while you take your time."
"Does that mean you won't put your fingers in my mouth again?"
I smile and finally get rid of his shirt, not shy about stroking his dick through his pants as soon as I'm done. "I'll put my fingers anywhere you want them."
He groans, long and loud. "I can't believe we're really doing this."
In search of more proof that we're really doing this, he kisses me, still far from rough about it, though there's something insistent now.
Both of us are carefully possessive after years of knowing other people got to do this without restraint, but it's ours tonight.
Jamie was lauded for his finesse on the ice, and he moves as deftly now, my belt and clasp and zipper no challenge, even while his tongue teases mine again.
When I'm down to my boxer briefs, I can only assume he's racing toward naked, my hands chasing any warmth uncovered for me.
But I need to be naked too, so I let him go long enough to make it happen.
"Bed. Your bed."
Jamie throws the covers out of our way, and we climb onto each other as much as we climb onto the bed, me on top of him and him on top of me, slowly frantic about wanting everything at once.
His body has continued to change, just as surely as mine has.
I felt it when I hugged him hours ago, but the beautiful reality takes my breath away now.
We're older, and he's so much further away from the years that demanded different things from him—both more and less in their own ways—and I'm as in love with this version of him as I would've been if I'd ended up beneath him during his MVP season.
I'm beneath him now, on my back after we've traded places one more time, and I make room for him between my legs and wrap my arms around him to keep him close.
Kissing him is enough for a while, as if that's really all this is.
Our hips never still while we rub against each other, and I'm reminded of how much he leaks when he leaves me slick and ready to beg.
My fingers dig into his ass to demand more, and he whimpers in response.
"Jesus, 'Teo, I could come like this. I'm so fucking hard," he breathes. "I want us to. I want to kiss you and feel you against me and come just like this."
"Tonight? Now?" I ask, though I'm far from opposed. I'll come however he tells me to.
He pauses, and I'm ready to reach between us just to encourage a decision either way, but then he's at my neck again. "No, not now."
"So tell me. Tell me, tell me, tell me," I chant.
Another long kiss shuts me up until Jamie's ready to answer. "There's so much. But I don't think I want it all at once. I don't want to chase nine years of fantasies when I'd rather convince both of us we have time for them later."
"It's okay. We can keep this as simple as you want. Loud and slow aren't reserved for fucking."
"No, that's all I want," he says, slowly grinding against me as he speaks into my ear. "I want you to fuck me. That's—before that night, I'd never tried, and then you—it was so good. I was so mad at you, but it was so good."
The reminder of that extra layer of hurt—how I didn’t take my time with something that should’ve demanded it—is devastating.
I want to roll him over and do everything right, but it won't fix what I've already broken.
His entire life, Jamie's needed to be reminded that he's worth more than what his body can do for people—that he can be adored apart from a trade of entertainment for attention.
He's told me all along that he wanted it slow, and then I got him face down on someone else's bed and rushed him through something that was supposed to matter.
"I'm sorry," I murmur against his lips. "I'm so sorry. I loved you all wrong."
"No, don't say that. Don't forget that night. Don't wish you could take it back. Just fuck me like we waited for this one."
Before I can continue with more apologies or promises, Jamie moves down my body.
I close my eyes as he takes the long way so he can memorize the reaction I have when he kisses or bites or licks or exhales over my collarbones or armpits or nipples or ribs.
I think he needs to remember everything in case he's wrong about us having more time, and it's another three years before we find each other for another night like this.
It's why I'm paying such close attention.
But then he's at my hip, his teeth against my skin before he soothes the same spot with his tongue.
He's asked me to give him something, but Jamie clings to his control for now, cupping my balls in one hand and lifting my dick to his mouth with the other.
My foreskin has mostly retracted, but Jamie slides it over the head and back again before he drags his tongue from base to tip and moans.
When he does it again, I'm the one to moan. "Christ, you're cleaning yourself off me."
Jamie doesn't answer, taking me to the back of his throat instead. My hand is in his hair before I can piece together another coherent thought, but even this far gone, I don't push him. I just need to touch him anywhere I can.
When he's done with me, in this one way and for this one moment, he crawls back up my body to kiss me so briefly I almost miss it.
I'd complain and hold on to him better if his next move wasn't to stretch across the bed for the nightstand drawer, and when he comes back with a bottle of lube and nothing else, I don't have words anyway.
He meets my hungry stare, but doesn't ask if this is okay with me.
It's possible we both think I'd tell him if it weren't, especially when it feels like one more rule I'd follow or line I'd draw.
Later, I'll tell him I'm too tired of both, but I'm still staring when he straddles me.
I don't follow his hand as he works himself open because I'd rather watch how his eyelashes flutter in response to that touch.
Jamie doesn't take as much time as I expect him to, but then his wet hand is stroking me, and I finally drop to look because it's what I wished he'd done on prom night, all those years ago.
It's when everything was supposed to change for us. It was when a lot of things did change for us, if only in ways we couldn't have predicted. For a moment, I think about what might have been, and then I arch into his fist and breathe his name.
Jamie rises onto his knees, then lowers himself onto me, and we both cry out like everything is brand new.
"This is—"
He doesn't finish his sentence, and that's okay. When he doesn't move either, my hands bracket his waist and encourage him to ride me, no matter how slow he wants or needs this to be. My age and experience grant me the patience he deserves, and for now, everything is for Jamie.
"Take it. Take me. I'm all yours."
"Please," he moans, lazily falling forward until he can kiss me even more lazily than that.
Always coordinated and aware of how goddamn good he is at everything, Jamie finally realizes just how much control he has like this, and he smiles into the kiss.
Then he picks up his pace and settles into a rhythm designed to test the patience I'd just sworn I've mastered.
I bend my legs and thrust up into him, cautious and caring while his tongue moves against mine.
Neither of us had thought to turn on the air conditioning in a house he hadn't planned to use this weekend, so we're sweating already, panting and trying so hard to make this one unforgettable night last.
It won't happen unless I remind him of the things we've said.
Practiced and perfect, I flip us.
"You're forgetting slow and loud, sweetheart," I say as I pull out, so leisurely about it that Jamie writhes beneath me in search of the pressure that's barely slipped away.
I don't make him wait long before I reverse course, mostly because I want the pressure too, but first I put a hand behind each of his knees and push them toward his chest. Sliding into him this time causes him to shake, ready to crumble when I reach for the precum smeared across his stomach and suck it off my fingertips.
"Fuck, baby. Fuck," he whines. "It's never been like this. Never. I want this forever."
"You can have this forever."
If my words sound more hopeful than honest, Jamie doesn't say.
Instead, he makes enough unholy noises to compete with the sound of our bodies colliding, and both keep this from being anything like the imperative silence we shared once before.
We're breathless, and he's beautiful, and while I'm still fucking into him, I curl forward for whatever messy kiss either of us can manage.
Hovering just above his open mouth, I think I tell him I love him a hundred times.
Jamie pulls my hair, but he can't hold on—or he doesn't want to hurt me—that hand wrapping around my bicep when he drops the other to his cock. "No forever tonight. Too close."
I speed up and almost put some distance between us so I can watch, but staying close to him feels better and I force an arm under his body to keep myself there. It means I can feel him brush against me as he goes in search of an orgasm that's already inevitable, and I pant against his jaw.
"Can I come inside you?"
My question is all Jamie needs, and I feel him clench around my dick just before he sobs and spills between us, my chest at least as wet as his when he chokes out an answer.
"Yes. Fuck. Please."
I've been holding back for so long that it takes another several seconds before my body agrees to let go.
By the time I do, his grip on my arm is bruising, and a sticky hand is in my hair, so many filthy things fall off his tongue that I have no chance of catching them all.
I come harder than I have in years—probably about three of them—and then I collapse on top of him, my heart beating so close to his.
"Jamie."
"I'm here. I'm right here."
I don't know why I need to hear that, except for the number of times it hasn't been true.
We'll have to move soon, but I feel a tear roll from the corner of my eye, and I hate it because I don't want him to think anything is wrong.
Everything is exactly right for once, and it's why I don't have plans to start a more serious conversation either.
Jamie and I need to talk. And we will.
Tonight, I just want this.
I get what I want. After another couple of minutes, both of us soft and sated, we tumble out of bed and to a shower mostly made necessary by his unwavering need to touch my hair.
It's been a long couple of days for him, and I'm not surprised when he falls asleep within a few minutes of crawling under the covers, my body pressed to his back while he relaxes into the embrace.
I'm more surprised when he wakes me in the middle of the night for something quick and quiet, but maybe those things are okay when we have a choice about them.
I'm most surprised when I wake up later than usual and roll over in an otherwise empty bed, and I don't know why I didn't expect this when I've left Jamie more than once.
I sit up and see that his clothes are gone and mine are draped over a chair next to my bag, and I sigh, hurt or mad or just generally frustrated by our inability to break habits I never wanted to have.
He's got a flight this morning, and it's possible he's already at the airport. Maybe he stopped by the hotel to see Harper first, though I'm not convinced she's awake yet. Regardless, he could've woken me for a goodbye. Last night deserved as much.
After peeing and brushing my teeth and splashing some water on my face, I get dressed in the jeans and t-shirt I'd packed for today, but add my suit jacket because it'll be cold where I'm going.
Everything else gets folded and put in my bag, and then I jog downstairs to raid the kitchen for things that might be left from a shopping trip I made over a year ago.
I find a protein bar and a coffee pot that's still half full, so I help myself to one of Jamie's travel mugs.
Then I fetch my shoes and cross the great room to the doors leading to his backyard.
They're unlocked, and the truth must hit me then, but I don't believe anything yet.
I walk toward the ocean, the coastal fog still clinging to a late-August morning.
If I looked carefully, I'd probably be able to step onto a footprint or two.
But I hurry, my heart wild when it doesn't need to be, and I'm at the bench before I can sort through all the things I'm supposed to say, and it's fine when he greets me first.
"Good morning."
"I thought you were gone," I rasp. "I thought I was too late."
Jamie shakes his head and kisses me as soon as I sit down. "I'm here. I'm right here."