Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MARCUS
It’s the last Saturday in November, and Jeremy is practically bouncing off the walls of his apartment. I roll over and squint at him while he digs through his closet, chatting away with Toothless, as if the fucking cat is listening.
“Can’t we go back to bed?” I moan. “The art gallery will be open later today too.”
He stops and turns to face me. He’s shirtless in a very tight pair of hot-pink boxer briefs, and I take a moment to appreciate the gentle cut of his abs and the prominent bulge of his junk.
“The earlier we go, the less crowded it will be. I thought you didn’t like people.”
“I don’t. Even more reason to stay here and fuck around instead.” I try to give him a sexy smile, but he just rolls his eyes.
“No, you promised we could go, and I want to go now.” He grabs my wrist, trying to tug me out of bed. But I just pull back, and Jeremy falls against me with an indignant squeak. I wrap him in my arms and press my nose into the nape of his neck, inhaling the scent of his shampoo.
“Stooop,” he whines around a moan as I grind into his ass with my very hard morning wood. “We can do this later.” He shifts so that we’re facing each other and pouts, and I really want to bite that plush protruding lip. “You promised,” he repeats.
I sigh and lean forward, pressing my mouth to his in a slow, soft kiss that elicits another moan, and I feel his cock perk up and bump mine.
“Fine,” I grumble. “But can we at least get each other off first? It’ll be quick.” I smile against his lips. “Compromise, right? Like Hopper says to Eleven? Halfway happy?”
Our latest binge show is Stranger Things.
I’ve never been much of a movie or TV guy, but watching this stuff seems to be one of Jeremy’s love languages.
I have a hard time saying no when his eyes light up while he rambles on about plots and character development and which couple I should ship and why.
“Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have told you that I have a thing for David Harbour.”
My hand drops to Jeremy’s hardening length, and I slide my fingers beneath his waistband, giving him a rough tug.
I swallow hard, the familiar euphoria taking over my brain when Jeremy ruts against me.
It’s not enough anymore. I want to be closer to him.
To feel like I’m a bigger part of him. We’ve done everything so far but actually fuck, and I know he wants to.
But I’m scared out of my goddamn mind. Emotional heaviness of the act aside, I need to know the logistics involved, and I feel like an idiot for asking.
Watching gay porn only gets me so far. I have no idea if I’m a top or a bottom.
I think I want to top, but sometimes, when I want to feel grounded, I crave Jeremy’s control—to just take my choices away.
What if I want both? Will Jeremy want both?
Fuck, what if I’m terrible at it?
I pull my hand free and cup it under his mouth. “Spit,” I rasp. “Make it sloppy, Jer.”
He does, a string of salvia catching at the corner of his mouth.
With my other hand, I push down his boxers and then my own before I wrap us together, my spit-slick palm gliding over our lengths and mixing with our sticky precum.
We groan loudly, and I involuntarily thrust my hips.
Our cocks slide together, the friction white hot, and Jeremy lets out a needy whimper that I devour when our mouths come together again.
We both let go, grunting and thrusting, and it doesn’t take long before we come, our bodies tense and shaking as our releases mingle on our stomachs, chests, and the sheets.
Jeremy presses his sweaty forehead to mine and gives me a tired grin. “Are you halfway happy now?” I give a nod, still high on our mutual orgasms. “Good,” he chirps. He rolls out of my arms and gets to his feet. “Now go clean us up and change the sheets.”
“Ugh, you’re ruining my high,” I mumble as I reluctantly climb out of bed and stumble to the bathroom to start the shower.
Once we’re dressed and ready to go, we call an Uber to the gallery that Jeremy’s been raving about. It’s really the first time we’ve done something in Seattle, just the two of us in public, but going to see art with my interior designer doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not anxious.
I haven’t seen or heard anything from Ryan before the trip to Cannon Beach and the subsequent meeting at Skynet a week ago, but that doesn’t mean he’s not out there.
I have a friend in human resources at Skynet, meaning he has access to a lot of secure documents.
He owes me a favor, so I put him in touch with John so that he could dig up and pass along whatever they need that might relate to the redacted files Courtney’s team has already uncovered.
“Hey! Earth to Marcus.” Jeremy waves his hand in front of my face, and my gaze falls to his sparkly green nails that happen to match his green Converse today. Probably intentional.
“Sorry, thinking about pub stuff.”
Jeremy glares and tugs on my sleeve, leading me into the gallery. “Well, today we aren’t discussing work.”
I stare down at where his fingers are still holding the fabric of my coat, and a flash of annoyance crosses his face before he lets go.
The space is quiet and airy, and I immediately appreciate the way it’s socially acceptable for us to stand together and intimately whisper about art without someone raising an eyebrow.
This place is one of the larger galleries in Seattle.
Jeremy absorbs it all with a childlike exuberance, and after an hour, I find studying him more interesting than the art from various local artists around us.
He’s also a work of art, dressed in a sparkly black sweater and teal, purple, and green pants that I joked were probably part of my grandpa’s wardrobe in the eighties.
His silver hair is swept back, styled away from his face in perfect waves, and his intense eyeliner completes the look to perfection.
Even the smattering of freckles across his nose makes an adorable statement.
“This isn’t boring you?” Jeremy asks when we take a break on a bench, admiring a stained-glass window that morphs the gray daylight outside into rainbows at our feet. We’re both leaning back on our hands, our pinky fingers barely touching.
“Not really bored.” I shrug. “But I’ve been to a lot of museums and galleries all over the world, and they start to blend together after a while.”
He rolls his eyes. “Your life sounds so hard.” I frown, and Jeremy backpedals. “I’m sorry. I was joking.”
“But you’re not wrong.” I look away, feeling a sudden disconnect between us.
I did grow up with money. My family traveled a lot, and I was forced to visit more museums and see more plays than any kid I know.
I look at Jeremy, a portrait of color and light, then glance down at myself in my gray Henley, black and navy flannel, and dark jeans.
We look ridiculous together.
“I guess I didn’t get to do a lot of kid stuff when my dad took us places,” I say slowly, my eyes losing focus.
“Charlie just accepted it, but Sebastian hated it the most—spending summers in museums in Europe or seeing Hamlet at Shakespeare’s Globe in London while our friends were swimming or camping like normal families. ”
Jeremy’s brows lower. “I guess I never thought of it like that. You weren’t given a choice?”
I shake my head. “Nah, Dad didn’t want us to miss out on anything he considered educational.” I grin. “But there was one day while our father was in a business meeting that Sebastian convinced Charlie and me to sneak out with him to the London Dungeon.”
“The London Dungeon?”
“Yeah. Now I think it has rides and live actors and stuff, but when we went, it was mostly animatronics and wax figures depicting medieval torture. There was also an entire section on the Black Plague that was pretty graphic.”
Jeremy’s eyes widen. “How old were you guys?”
“Seb was eleven and Charlie was ten. I was sixteen, but I looked a lot older, so I managed to get us in without an adult by claiming I was nineteen.”
“Holy shit. Were Sebastian and Charlie scarred for life?”
I bark a laugh. “Seb and Charlie? Nah, they were fearless. They still are. And they were completely fascinated with the whole thing. Charlie had such a hard-on for the plague after that that she did her senior research paper on it. Me, on the other hand? I had nightmares for months.”
Jeremy gives me a broad grin. “You were scared?”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t be like that. Men can be scared.”
“Of course they can.” He gives me an impish grin. “But Marcus Conner? Never.”
“You’d be surprised at all the things that scare me.”
He leans close, his breath tickling my ear. “Like what?”
I shiver. “Like you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. The way I feel about you.”
“Why does that scare you?”
I rest my forearms on my thighs as I stare straight ahead. “Because I don’t understand it. And I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you.”
I hear Jeremy’s intake of breath, and I glance at him. His eyes are comically wide as he stares at me, and I feel hotness creeping into my cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say with a wince. “That was too intense. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just been on my mind, I guess. When I don’t understand something, I fixate on it until I do. So here I am, still fixating.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I feel my panic rise. I probably just freaked him out. Hell, I think I just freaked myself out. But then he stands and holds out his hand. I glance around and then take it, allowing him to help me up.
“Let’s keep going,” he says.
The last room in the gallery is all pottery, including a timeline that the owner did on the history of the art form. Even though I love pottery, I’ve only done it as a creative outlet, so the information is all new to me and immensely fascinating. My stepmom would have absolutely loved this.
Jeremy looks at me sideways while I read. “You’re really into this, huh?”
I nod. “When I was in college, one of my roommates was a ceramic engineer. She wanted to go overseas to developing countries and teach them how to purify water through clay and how to make dishes without a kiln.”
“Holy shit. I had no idea that was a thing.”
“Now with my—” I realize that I haven’t shared my pottery hobby with him yet, and I’ve already been weird and vulnerable once today, so I backpedal. “With my interest in pottery, I think there might be some good local pieces you could find for the pub.”
Jeremy’s eyes light up, and it makes my insides feel mushy. “I’ll add it to my list!”
God, he’s so pretty.
Without thinking, I tangle our fingers together and crowd him into an exit stairwell.
It smells like concrete, the air is a bit stuffy, and everything is echoey, but all I see is him staring up at me with parted lips and startled eyes.
I hold him against me and kiss him hungrily, licking into his mouth, my tongue probing obscenely.
His hands land on my hips, his fingers digging into my skin. Just when I feel my dick start to take notice, I pull away and stare down at him. I bring a hand up, my thumb grazing his swollen bottom lip.
“What was that for?” he asks breathlessly.
“Just a thank-you. For bringing me here. Today was . . . really fun.”
And I mean it. I don’t spend a lot of time outside of work and my apartment, but I’m starting to realize that maybe I should. I haven’t been this happy since before my stepmom died.
The door on the floor above us bangs open, and we jump apart. I give Jeremy an apologetic look before we reenter the main part of the building.
By the time we leave, it’s started to rain, puddles already gathering in the sidewalk cracks as we walk back toward Jeremy’s apartment. My stomach growls, and Jeremy giggles. “Let’s get lunch.”
I nod absently and look up at the thick clouds, wondering what it would be like to be able to kiss Jeremy Hart outside, in the rain, in front of the world, rather than hidden away in a smelly stairwell.