Chapter 19
The key stuck for a second in the new lock, it still did that sometimes, which Jude was going to get fixed when he remembered to care about it.
He shouldered the door open and the smell hit him first: candles. Not cheap ones, the good kind, something warm and woody, three of them on the kitchen counter in a row like Nate had thought about the arrangement. The overhead was off. The corner lamp was on, turned low.
Oh, Jude thought.
The Ever Bright tracks were playing. His tracks, their tracks, the ones they'd finished last month in the studio on Woodward, the ones that sounded nothing like anything they'd made with Rand because nothing they made now sounded like anything from before.
His own voice from the bedroom speaker, the second verse of "Hollow Bright" as he'd recorded it three weeks ago in a booth that was entirely his.
He set his bag down. Took off his jacket. Walked to the bedroom doorway.
Nate sprawled against the headboard, his thick thighs parted just enough to invite, the candlelight licking golden shadows across his bare chest and the hard line of his cock already thickening against his belly.
On the pillow beside him, the biothane cuffs gleamed beside the spreader bar and blindfold, lined up neat as a surgeon’s tools.
The air hung thick with vanilla wax and the faint musk of Nate’s skin, warm and clean from his shower.
Jude’s gaze dragged over the gear, then Nate’s face, then back again. His pulse kicked hard.
“Hi,” Nate rumbled, voice already dropping low.
“Hi.” Jude’s mouth twitched. “You line those up by size on purpose?”
Nate’s eyes flicked down, a flush creeping along his throat. “Maybe.”
Jude climbed onto the mattress, knees sinking into the sheets.
He lifted one cuff, leather soft and supple under his fingers, the buckle heavy and solid.
The scent of it, new synthetic hide and metal, mixed with the sharper tang of Nate’s arousal.
He buckled the first cuff around Nate’s thick wrist, pulling it snug, two fingers sliding beneath to check the fit.
Nate’s breath hitched, the leather creaking as Jude tightened the second cuff.
The click of the buckles echoed like a promise.
“Color?” Jude asked, voice rough.
“Green,” Nate said, flexing his hands, testing the give. “Fuck, these feel good.”
Jude’s palm slid down Nate’s forearm, feeling the muscle jump.
He grabbed the blindfold next, silk cool against his knuckles, and slipped it over Nate’s eyes.
The fabric settled, blocking out the room, and Nate’s lips parted on a soft exhale.
Jude traced the edge with his thumb, then leaned in to bite the corner of Nate’s jaw, tasting salt and the faint spice of aftershave.
The spreader bar came last. Jude spread Nate’s ankles wide, the metal bar locking them open, cuffs snapping into place with a decisive snap.
Nate’s thighs trembled once, then stilled, his cock now fully hard and leaking against his stomach, the head flushed dark.
The bar knocked the bedframe when Jude adjusted it, the sound sharp and final.
Nate laughed, low and surprised, the vibration rolling through his chest.
Jude stripped slowly, letting Nate hear every rustle of fabric, every zipper.
He climbed between those spread thighs, skin sliding against skin, the heat of Nate’s body radiating up like a furnace.
His fingers wrapped around Nate’s cock, stroking once, root to tip, thumb smearing the bead of precome.
Nate groaned, hips twitching against the bar.
“Been thinking about this since Tuesday,” Nate rasped, voice already wrecked.
Jude traced his tongue along the sensitive underside of Nate’s shaft, savoring the salty tang of his skin and the intoxicating heat radiating from him.
He took the head into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it in a tantalizing dance that drew a strangled groan from Nate.
Above him, Nate’s hands, bound by the cuffs, flexed in a futile attempt to touch, to hold.
His fingers curled open and shut rhythmically, like a man reaching for an elusive lifeline.
Jude set a deliberate pace, working Nate with slow, wet pulls of his mouth that were as much a promise as they were a tease.
His hand cradled Nate’s balls, rolling them with a firm yet gentle touch that had Nate bucking beneath him.
His other hand ventured lower, pressing two fingers against the puckered skin of Nate’s hole, teasing but not penetrating.
The promise of what was to come hung heavy in the air.
Nate’s breathing grew ragged and uneven, punctuated by low, guttural sounds that spilled from his lips unfiltered.
Jude’s name tumbled from him in broken pleas, interspersed with raw expletives.
The pulsating rhythm of the music from the speaker vibrated through the mattress, adding another layer to their intimate dance.
Jude dragged his tongue up the sweat-slick column of Nate’s throat, savoring the salt of him, the way his pulse jumped under his lips like a fucking drumbeat.
The blindfold hugged Nate’s face, black silk stretched tight over those high cheekbones, his lips parted—pink, wet, panting.
Jude’s fingers traced the spreader bar keeping Nate’s thick thighs wide, the cuffs biting into his wrists, the way his muscles flexed and trembled with every teasing brush of Jude’s knuckles along his inner thigh.
“Look at you,” Jude murmured, voice rough as gravel, “all laid out for me. Fucking perfect.”
Nate’s breath hitched, his cock twitching against his stomach, already leaking. Jude smirked, dragging a single fingertip up the underside of that thick, heavy shaft, watching pre-cum smear in its wake. “You gonna beg for it, baby? Or do I gotta make you?”
Nate swallowed, hips jerking helplessly. “Jude-”
“Uh-uh.” Jude wrapped his hand around Nate’s cock, squeezing just shy of too tight, just enough to make Nate’s back arch off the bed. “Say it.”
Nate’s voice cracked. “Please.”
Jude clicked his tongue, stroking slowly, torturous. “Please what?”
“Please fuck me.”
Jude leaned in, lips brushing Nate’s ear. “Not yet.”
He let go, ignoring Nate’s bitten-off whine, and reached for the lube. The snick of the cap echoed obscenely in the quiet room. Jude slicked his fingers, watching Nate’s hole clench at the sound, already fluttering like it knew what was coming.
“So fucking greedy for it,” Jude murmured, pressing the pad of his thumb against Nate’s rim, circling slow, “already trying to suck me in, huh?”
Nate whimpered, hips rocking down, but Jude held him still with a firm hand on his hip. “Nah, baby. You take what I give you.”
The first finger slid in easy, Nate was always so goddamn open for him, but Jude took his time anyway, crooking it just right to make Nate gasp, his cock jerking against his stomach.
“There it is,” Jude purred, adding a second finger, scissoring slowly, “that sweet spot. Bet you could come just from this, huh? Just my fingers fucking into you, stretching you wide-”
Nate’s breath came in ragged bursts, his thighs shaking. “Jude, please-”
Jude curled his fingers, rubbing relentlessly over Nate’s prostate, watching his abs clench, his cock drip. “You close, baby?”
Nate nodded, desperate.
Jude stopped.
Nate sobbed, hips bucking, but Jude pinned him down, laughing low. “Oh no, sweetheart. Not yet.”
He pulled his fingers out, ignoring Nate’s broken noise, and slicked his cock,hard, aching, the head flushed dark red. He pressed against Nate’s hole, just the tip, just enough to make Nate keen.
“You want it?” Jude murmured, dragging the head through Nate’s slickness, teasing.
Nate’s voice was wrecked. “Yes, fuck, yes-”
Jude pushed in, slow, savoring the way Nate’s body swallowed him inch by inch, hot and tight and perfect. When he was fully seated, balls-deep, he leaned down, lips brushing Nate’s.
“Mine,” he growled.
Then he fucked him.
Hard. Deep. Ruthless.
Nate cried out, back bowing, as Jude hammered into him, each thrust punching the air from his lungs. Jude gripped his hips, fingers digging into dark skin, holding him still to take it, to take it-
“Gonna make you come,” Jude snarled, hips snapping, “gonna make you scream-”
He set a rhythm that was deep and steady, one hand braced on Nate’s bound wrist, anchoring him.
His other hand wrapped around Nate’s cock, stroking him in time with each thrust. The room filled with the erotic symphony of their lovemaking, the slap of skin against skin, the wet sound of lube, and Nate’s desperate moans.
Jude played Nate like a finely tuned instrument, slowing his pace whenever Nate’s thighs started to tremble with impending release. He edged him mercilessly, drawing out his pleasure until Nate was reduced to begging, his voice hoarse and broken. “Jude - fuck - let me come.”
Jude responded by slamming into him harder, his voice was a low growl, filled with command and desire. “Come for me.”
Nate sobbed, his cock pulsing, untouched, as Jude fucked him right over the edge.
Nate shattered, body bowing hard against the restraints, cum striping his chest and Jude’s fist in hot pulses.
His hole clenched tight around Jude’s cock, dragging him over the edge too.
Jude buried himself deep, groaning against Nate’s throat as he filled him, the aftershocks rolling through both of them.
The aftercare was its own kind of intimacy.
Jude unbuckled the spreader bar first, careful with the ankles, running his thumbs along the pressure points before setting it aside.
Then the cuffs, one at a time, the buckles going loose, and he held each wrist after and pressed his fingers to the inside, checking circulation, which Nate submitted to with the patient tolerance of a man who knew better than to say I'm fine before he'd been checked.
"Good?" Jude said.
"Good," Nate said.
The blindfold last. Jude eased it off and set it on the nightstand and then waited while Nate's eyes adjusted, while the room came back to him. The candles, the low lamp, Jude's face above his. Nate blinked. Found him.
The open expression. The one that had cost him something the first time he'd let Jude see it and now lived there at rest, unhidden, a permanent feature of the face he wore in this room.
Jude leaned down and kissed his forehead. His temple. The corner of his jaw.
"Hey," Nate said.
"Hey."
"That was." He paused. His voice was still rough, the edges of him not fully reassembled yet. "That was very good."
"Yeah?"
"I've been thinking about it since Tuesday."
"You said." Jude lay down beside him, head on his shoulder, Nate's arm coming around him without having to think about it. "I'll make a note."
"A note."
"Thursday," Jude said. "Two days. That's the number. I'll pencil it in."
Nate's chest moved with the laugh. "You're going to be insufferable about this."
"Absolutely," Jude said. "You set the bar very high. Literally."
The laugh again, louder this time, and Jude felt it move through both of them and let himself have it, the warmth, the ease, the sound of Nate laughing in the room they'd chosen together.
In the speaker his voice had moved on to a new song, the first one he'd written after the trial, the one about the river and the city and what it meant to stay.
He'd written it in this house. On the living room floor at two in the morning with the lamp on and Nate asleep upstairs and the city doing its thing outside.
He'd never been this okay.
He hadn't known it was possible. He'd spent so long not knowing it was possible that finding out felt like something he'd have to keep learning over and over before it stuck.
"Hey," Nate said.
"Hm."
"Thank you." His arm tightened a fraction. "For-all of it. The whole thing."
Jude tilted his head up to look at him. "I thought you were thanking me for the cuffs."
"I am," Nate said. "And the other thing."
Jude looked at him. Nate, who was steady, warm, who'd been answering phones for fifteen years and had finally, in this house, let someone answer back. Who looked at Jude with his whole face open and didn't look away.
"Same," Jude said. He put his head back on Nate's shoulder. "Same."
The candles burned low. The music played.
Outside, the city kept watch, and the river went by, and in a townhouse in Detroit that smelled like good candles and warm leather and two people who'd chosen each other past the point of turning back, Jude listened to his own voice from the speaker and felt, down in the place that had been cold a long time, entirely warm.