2. Tony
TWO
tony
I grabbed the takeout pamphlets from the kitchen drawer and walked back to Jaime. I was reeling, not sure what to make of his presence in my space yet. If anyone asked, that was why I shoved them against his chest with more force than necessary.
I ignored the electricity that seemed to crackle when my fingers touched him, even over his clothing.
“Pick one and order whatever you want, plus the circled items,” I said. “Ask them to bring a card reader. I’m going to shower.”
Jaime spluttered, leaving the pamphlets on the arm of the couch without even glancing at them. “You—what?”
I tried to get my face to scowl. Not sure I managed it. “Did you want to join me?”
Fuck.
No idea why I said that. I was sure my face showed it, too. I didn’t blurt out shit like that.
Jaime was too quick on his feet for his own good, though. For both of ours. The question made him freeze for a second, but only a second. Then a smile plastered on his face, and his light brown eyes gleamed with mischief. It was all I could do not to stumble when he moved off the couch.
“So you are flirting with me.”
What?
I started to shake my head, but he prowled closer. This was ridiculous. I shouldn’t be short-circuiting. I shouldn’t be holding my breath like I did as a teenager in the locker room trying not to get an accidental boner during PE. I shouldn’t be walking backward, letting Jaime gain the upper hand until he had my back pressed against the threshold to the living room.
“I’m not.” It was too late, too meaningless, by the time I managed to utter those words.
Jaime just gave me a lopsided grin. He was a fucking enigma. Always had been. Within the walls of the club, he was a menace of a pup. He fucked everyone with reckless abandon and wreaked havoc wherever he went—albeit he never strayed too far from the other pup, Cece. Outside of the club, though? I’d only seen him a couple of times. He used to hang out with my exes—Marga and Jen—from time to time. I’d picked them up and crossed paths with him then.
The first time, I hadn’t even recognized him. He’d looked too put together and hadn’t fit the image he portrayed in the club at all. Perfectly styled golden-brown hair, clothes no one would bat an eye at if he wore them to my snobbish family’s meals. He’d been wearing loafers when he stepped inside today. Loafers and perfectly pressed chinos and a button-down. He was in his twenties, and nothing about him screamed he came from the kind of family that would explain those fashion choices.
It didn’t make sense.
I might have spent double the time studying him than anyone else in the club. He was fierce and had one hell of a brat in him whenever he opened his mouth. He was opinionated and loud, but he didn’t look it outside of the club. He certainly didn’t look it here—running hot and cold since he walked in, moving between bravado, anger, and something akin to fear.
His body pressed against mine. I wasn’t thinking straight when I felt a bulge against my inner thigh. I glanced downward. Did he…?
My throat bobbed as I gulped.
Years ago, Erika had dragged a bunch of us for a meeting in a bar near the club. I couldn’t remember what it was about, but we’d started drinking. Someone asked León something about… his transition, maybe? Anyway, he said that he only packed if he had plans to use that dildo on someone.
I supposed everyone was different.
Of course, Jaime caught my reaction. “Answer my questions and I’ll show you.”
“Show me?”
He was smaller than I was, but he didn’t feel smaller. The height I had on him meant nothing, and the knowledge was disturbing.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Did I?
“ Boy ,” I growled, fists clenching at my sides.
My nostrils flared.
It was an amateur move at best, but I needed to get back on top here. I didn’t like feeling small, watched, taunted. It wasn’t what I signed up for when I joined Plumas, and I had no plans to make changes in that area.
Jaime watched me for a second. Something flicked through his gaze, but I couldn’t read him. I was taking stock of my own body, too busy regulating my heartbeat to think clearly.
“You act as if you’ve got zero experience.”
If only you knew .
I pressed my lips together before I could say something else I didn’t mean.
“You were just talking about putting food on the table,” I sneered, leaning into that cruel space I had no business stepping into without a negotiation that hadn’t taken place. “Don’t you have any self-preservation or was that just talk?”
Of course I knew it wasn’t talk. I’d been a student once, too—I hadn’t shared the struggles, but I’d witnessed them. Hell, Jaime didn’t even pay the membership fee at the club. Erika allowed for a small percentage of members who couldn’t cover the fees to pay by volunteering as either DMs, cleaning service, or anything else. It wasn’t something I’d looked too hard into. Just enough to know who to cover for if we crossed paths outside of Plumas. At the time, it had felt like the bare minimum I could do.
As if that would offset everything my family—and their money—stood for, and against.
“I still have questions,” Jaime said after a beat. I couldn’t tell if that was acquiescence or more bravado. He didn’t move, didn’t give me room to step back without having to push him away. “And you want me to ask them.”
I scoffed. It was instinct, before I’d even processed what he was saying. “Careful, boy. You don’t know what you’re playing with.”
He probably did, but it wasn’t something I was going to voice out loud.
“And why’s that?” Jaime narrowed his eyes.
He still didn’t move away. If anything, he inched closer. I got a whiff of his hair gel. That wasn’t something I ever lingered on, not even now. I shook off the thought.
“You have sixty seconds to start placing an order.” I unclenched my fists as I spoke. “And don’t think I won’t send you packing once the food is here if you’re annoying enough.”
“Why this rush to shower now?”
I frowned. “People shower after coming home from work.”
What, he’d thought I needed a cold shower because of him?
The thought would’ve been laughable if it didn’t make me pause—if it didn’t make my next words catch at the back of my throat.
No, not going there.
“Right.” Jaime grinned as if he knew something I didn’t. “Go shower, then.”
With that, he took a step back. I fumed. I had no idea what the endgame was, but I did not appreciate him trying to put himself on top. I was not submitting to him, and there was nothing cute about his games.
I really needed to put myself back together by the time I was out of the shower. One intriguing pup was not going to get the upper hand—let alone in my own house.
The problem was, I was new at this, and he knew it. Even if he feigned surprise about my inexperience, as he called it, there was no way he was completely clueless.
Jaime would’ve heard about the handjob between Sergio and me back when I’d just started working as a TA and needed a good kick in the ass. He’d definitely seen the infamous pictures that came out last year, too, and had been around the block enough to know why they had been such a big deal.
Whatever I’d expected when I walked back into the living room, it wasn’t Jaime curled up on the couch, completely engrossed in the book I’d given him. It really messed with my head. At this point, I was starting to suspect running hot and cold was his standard setting. I wondered if he was even aware before I reminded myself it wasn’t my problem. Jaime wasn’t, and couldn’t be, my responsibility.
It was stupid to think about it, even when he’d been pushing my buttons earlier.
Still, I didn’t move from the threshold where he’d held me down earlier. I couldn’t have taken longer than ten minutes. It didn’t seem to matter much.
For some unknown reason, I didn’t make him aware of my presence.
His tongue poked out of his mouth while he read. He used his thumb to keep track of where he was on a page, too. I shouldn’t be memorizing these details, but he was a puzzle I wanted to solve even though I knew it wasn’t my place to. He’d always been forbidden.
In a way, he still was.
“I know you’re watching me, just so you know.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Do you?”
Jaime closed the book and placed it on the arm of the couch before he turned around to look at me. Not a hair was out of place from the last time I’d seen him. I was used to subs who ran their hands through their hair at the first sign of anxiety and made a mess out of it.
I didn’t know how I felt about the absence of that familiar tell.
Or why I liked it, why my body itched to lean forward, to stand closer to him.
This was ridiculous.
“You have this way of watching people.” Jaime shrugged. “It’s impossible not to notice.”
Huh.
I ignored whatever way those words made me feel and stalked to my corner of the couch. “Did you order the food?”
“Yep. Indian.” Jaime showed the yellow flyer as if there wasn’t only one Indian restaurant I ordered from. “They said it would take about an hour. Maybe longer.”
I frowned. He didn’t look disturbed at all by it. “They usually take forty minutes, max.”
“Yeah, well…” Jaime alternated between looking at me and the book I’d given him. “See, I was going to order a normal amount of food, but then you had to taunt me with my concern about paying the bills. So, I took advantage.”
Back to being a brat, then?
I made a show of looking unperturbed while reclining against the back of the couch. It really wasn’t something that bothered me. Perhaps I didn’t feel as indifferent to money after things blew up with my family and I lost that safety net, but I still earned more than I knew what to do with. One extravagant takeout order to an Indian restaurant wasn’t going to affect my net balance much.
“Let me guess, you forgot to order my food, too?”
Jen did nine out of ten times. It used to drive Marga insane. There had been literal fights over ordering takeout.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. It had been a year now, and our arrangement had been born out of convenience more than anything else, but…
Fuck, I missed having a sub or two to tame.
“No?” Jaime frowned. “But I didn’t know you were vegan.”
Huh.
“What makes you so sure I am?”
I was. I just might be developing an addiction to learning everything about how his brain worked.
Jaime snorted. “One of the flyers is for a vegan restaurant. All the others, I know they have vegan options because they’re the ones we order from when we hang out with María. She’s vegan, too. Oh, and all the food you’ve circled is explicitly vegan.”
I waited to see if he would say anything else, but he clammed up almost as fast as he started talking.
I narrowed my eyes. There was something about him. He seemed to be feeling off-kilter, but he didn’t behave like most people I knew when they felt that way. He was biting, but he wasn’t reckless. His eyes didn’t dart around looking for a way out, and he didn’t hold his breath expectantly while waiting for me to say something.
“María is vegan?”
I only knew she was a switch with one killer body. She loved lace and group play nights at Plumas, and she’d been harboring an unrequited crush on Erika that blew up a few months ago. No one had told me shit, but I had eyes.
“If you’re about to say something about her body, I swear?—”
I raised a hand, one finger pointing up. Jaime shut up right away.
He really was always ready to attack, wasn’t he? “María is the hottest woman in the club. Wanna continue that threat?”
Jaime glowered. Of course, I knew what he’d been thinking about. Some people associated the image of vegan bodies with malnourished ones. Curvier, bigger people like María didn’t fit that image. Neither did I, to be fair. It wasn’t the same, obviously, but no one looked at my muscles and thought I could maintain them without animal protein.
I wasn’t a bodybuilder, but anything other than scrawny blew people’s minds. It just wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. I’d long ago given up on engaging with those discourses.
“Who’s the hottest man, then?”
I gulped.
Fuck.
I’d really walked into that one, hadn’t I?
I should’ve just said person.
It had been a year, but I wasn’t used to people knowing yet. Probably because them knowing hadn’t been my choice in the first place. I wasn’t used to anyone thinking of me as anything other than a straight man. Even when Erika dropped by with one excuse or another about the club that always ended up with discussing the big it , my brain still needed a few seconds to get back on track.
“Make a guess.”
Jaime raised an eyebrow. He was probably debating the merits of playing along or challenging me. I really hoped he chose the former. Both options had my throat drying up, but one gave me the tiniest ounce of breathing room.
“What do I get if I guess it right?”
I highly doubted he would. For starters, I wasn’t sure of the answer myself. I tried to go through a slideshow of all the guys in his friend group, but just the mental exercise made me freeze.
I shook my head. Getting lost in that kind of loop never led anywhere good. “You get to ask your questions.”
Jaime perked up just as I predicted he would. I didn’t understand why that simple thing was tugging at my heartstrings. “And if I don’t?”
“I ask mine.”
He pretended not to be as excited as he was at the prospect. It was… It wasn’t cute, sweet, or any of the adjectives I usually applied to subs. Jaime wasn’t that, but he was alluring.
“Wait, are we talking just physically or the whole package?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
Jaime rolled his eyes. “Like, I can acknowledge León is hot as fuck, physically, but if I could jump anyone in the club, he wouldn’t be my first choice.”
Yeah, I’d witnessed all the tugs-of-war he and Cece pulled on the club’s primal player. It beat me how León had the patience for it, but he got off on that kind of thing. Or something.
“Who would you… jump, as you put it?”
Jaime hummed. “Honestly? Probably Sergio. Maybe Ev. We went shopping with him last weekend, and that ass? Yeah, I’d tap it.”
“So, other subs?” I frowned.
I was not going to think of Ev’s ass, even though I could very easily picture it. He spent a lot of time in the club as of late, and he kept wearing the tightest boxer briefs.
Jaime huffed. “Uh, yeah? I mean, Marga and Jen were together, and subs. I know the hets are weird about that kind of thing, but it can’t be a new concept.”
“They weren’t together,” I replied automatically.
I’d think about the second part of what he said later—when I was alone and I could examine all those pieces without eyes on me. I was trying , dammit—to deconstruct myself, to be receptive and analyze my privilege, and all those big words.
No one had said all those big words would feel like crawling ants waltzing over my skin. No one had said how isolating and exhausting it would feel. I knew it was wrong, but sometimes? Secretly? I just wanted to breathe without all this weight on my shoulders.
“They weren’t?” Jaime frowned.
“Not that I know of.” I’d lost count of all the times I’d had to correct other Doms’ assumptions about all the live lesbian porn I must be getting. “They tried kissing once. It went badly.”
It wasn’t something I’d encouraged. I’d had no interest in making them be together.
“Huh.”
Yeah .
I cleared my throat. “So. Are you going to take a guess?”
Jaime scowled. “I can think while I talk about other shit, y’know?”
“Prove it.”
Of course, the boy took his sweet time coming up with an answer. The longer he took, the harder it was to ignore the way my heart thrummed inside my chest.
“Honestly, I know I’m going to get it wrong, but… I’ll go with Danny. You’re a big time Sadist, and Carlos is a hardcore maso, too, but he’s closer to your build. I’ve always thought you’re into size difference.”
My heart beat faster against my rib cage. It was stupid. Jaime was right. He’d gotten it wrong, but he’d gotten other things right.
“Too many body mods,” I managed to say.
I knew it stemmed from my upbringing and being told over and over that piercings and tattoos were unbecoming and a signifier of lower class, but… Nope. I couldn’t do it.
I liked unblemished skin I could color myself.
There was no denying that the way Danny took a whipping was a fucking work of art, though. I’d attended all of León and Danny’s workshops. I could tell myself it was okay—I wasn’t getting off to them. I was getting off to their skill set. And the mouth of one of my girls warming my cock. That helped, too.
It used to, at least. I hadn’t been to any of those workshops in a while. Now, when I went to the club, it was always as a DM, and I made sure to not sign up for the days with the most appealing workshops. It was a penance of sorts.
It didn’t matter that it was getting old.
“Right.” Jaime cleared his throat. “Who is it, then?”
I raised an eyebrow. It was all I could do to not let him see he’d caught me deep in the middle of another bout of panic. Those were happening less often, but they were still there.
Him being here didn’t make it easy.
“That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Well, no.” He huffed. “And I’ll still answer your questions. I’m just curious.”
Of course he was. It was probably the one predictable thing he’d said ever since he made himself welcome in my house.
I closed my eyes. If I was lucky, he’d just think I was taking my time and not going through all the possible answers without trying to freak the fuck out.
Sergio was an absolute no. He always had been. Back then, during the now infamous handjob I bet everyone in Plumas gossiped about on the daily, I’d just been…
Confused wasn’t the right word. A confused fucking asshole was closest, but it still didn’t cover half of it.
Abel was a no for similar reasons, too.
León and Danny were full of ink and piercings, and Jaime had been right about the size difference. Why would I want to be with a sub who not only looked like they could crush me, but they probably actually could, too? Even if I was sure there was an adrenaline rush in making Carlos go down to his knees, I didn’t want to be fighting assumptions about who was on top every time I took him somewhere.
That left Jaime. Was it progress that I could now say I found him attractive?
But… “Are you a man?”
The words left my mouth before I could come up with a better way to phrase it.
Jaime’s muscles clenched tight. He was ready to bolt in the most viscerally visual way I’d ever seen him. “The fuck?”
I cursed under my breath. Fuck. That came across as the most insensitive question, didn’t it?
“You use he/they pronouns, and your profile says you’re trans masc, not a trans man like León’s says.” I breathed out. “I was going through the options, to answer your question.”
I was ready to watch him storm out regardless, to ignore the allure of all the food he must’ve ordered to take back to his place. It would’ve made sense. It would’ve been the safer option. My heart still beat too fast for my own liking. I hadn’t taken an actual deep breath since he’d stormed in. I needed the breathing room.
So I had no idea why I relaxed when his knuckles lost that white pallor where he’d been holding on to his knees. No idea why I didn’t shove him away when he moved with the very clear intent of shuffling closer.
“So, just so we’re clear… if I was a man”—so he wasn’t. Noted.—“you’d say I’m the hottest in all of Plumas?”
I swallowed. My silence gave him tacit permission to keep moving. He wasn’t touching me, but I could, easily, if I leaned forward or reached out.
I didn’t.
The knowledge was enough to send me back into a panic.
“Yes?”
Fuck.
Jaime cocked his head to the side. “And you understand I’m not, like, a lite version of it. You’re not any less gay because you like me and not Danny.”
I grunted. “I know.”
I understood why this was what he focused on, but I still found it jarring. Because that wasn’t what I was focusing on. No, my anxiety was about how close he was standing, how forbidden this still felt, regardless of all the work I’d been putting into it. I could see the fine hairs in his forearm, for fuck’s sake.
“And I mostly top.”
I huffed. “I’m very much aware.”
“And you still find me hot?”
The initial anger had been replaced with more of those smug smiles he wasn’t shy about.
It made me itch to bend him over my lap.
Nope.
Not going there.
“Do you need your ego stroked that badly?”
Of course, the taunt left him unmoved. Well, not exactly. Every second that passed, he seemed more and more interested. Curious. He was watching me too closely.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go—any of it.
“You know I don’t.” He grinned way too widely as he spoke. “But come on, you’ve been a taboo subject for over a year. I’m allowed to be curious.”
“You are not allowed to be a pain in the ass,” I rebutted.
“I don’t get many complaints on that front.” Jaime shrugged. “I can give you references if you want.”
“Being a smart ass is not a cute look.”
“Good thing I’m not trying to be cute.”
His only saving grace was that he wasn’t trying to get close. No, if anything, if I stopped focusing on my beating heart and watched him the way I was supposed to… he was hesitant. Him hovering so close was just more of that annoying posturing.
The realization helped me take a deeper breath. Posturing from brats was easier to handle than whatever I thought was happening here.
“What’s the deal between you and Cece?”
“Huh?”
Brats were stupidly easy to distract.
I snorted. “The deal was that I asked questions if you didn’t get the person right. So, that’s my first question.”
Jaime pulled back. Probably less than an inch, but it was more than enough. I watched as he scrunched up his nose. He didn’t have freckles across his cheeks and nose, like María did, but he had a few darker spots around his face. I bet he hated them and the youthful vibe they gave him.
“We live together. She’s my kink sib.”
I noted the use of terminology. I overheard Cece explain she used she/they pronouns, but preferred gender-neutral terms. It seemed that hadn’t changed.
“And what does that mean for you?”
“Are we seriously doing this?”
“While we wait for the food that’s going to take at least half an hour more to arrive thanks to your need to fill the fridge?” I pointed out. “Yeah, we are.”
Jaime scowled. At this rate, he was going to get forehead lines way before his time.
“Well, now I don’t regret all the times I told Marga and Jen to break up with you.”
I narrowed my eyes. Anger poked its head out, but it didn’t last long. It was a weird thing. A year ago—hell, before then—I could let anger fuel me, cling to my bones until everything was surrounded by it. I didn’t act on the feeling, the red blurring the edges no matter what, but it was always there. It was something I took pride in keeping reined in twenty-four-seven. I acted in spite of it, of the pressure building and the sense of unfairness clinging to every word.
“Do you fuck her?”
All this time, Jaime hadn’t run a hand through his hair once. It was a stupid thing to notice, to obsess over, but that wasn’t stopping me.
“Sometimes.” He sat back—finally—while pulling a knee to his chest. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Does Cece fuck you?”
I didn’t miss how he said he mostly topped, even though topping was all I’d ever seen him do. I walked a dangerous line, I was aware, but the need to know burned brighter than the fear of what could come out of it. That fear wasn’t overpowered often, so I was taking advantage regardless of what my nervous system had to say about it.
“Not as often.” Jaime shook his head. “But I didn’t come here to talk about how I fuck.”
There was something final about his tone there. His eye twitched, and I straightened right up. “All right.”
I didn’t hate that he killed the topic. I hated the surprise that flickered through his eyes when I acquiesced. I hated the way he regarded me as if he wondered if I had some terminal disease he should inquire about.
“Good.”
“Good,” I repeated out of nothing else to say. “So how are the rest of your classes going?”