5. No Grabbing
NO GRABBING
Which room? Connor’s brain was a whole beat, no, three beats, behind the question. “Either. Yours.”
Maybe Jonathan preferred to be in someone else’s room so he could leave.
His dark eyes and curved pink lips were beautiful, but when everything in Connor’s brain focused on the spot where Jonathan’s hand remained tightly wrapped around his wrist, he couldn’t guess what the other man wanted. “You choose.”
The elevator doors opened and Jonathan stepped forward.
In the instant it took to remind his own feet to follow, their arms stretched, but Jonathan didn’t let go of his wrist. He must look like an idiot with a man six inches shorter than him towing him—leading him?
Taking him?—so how could he not look like an idiot?
No, wait, that was backward. He absolutely did not look like an idiot, because this hot guy was taking him to a room. Not the idiot, not at all.
He wanted Jonathan to keep touching him.
He had tons of dog cuddles as well as grabby little people tugging at him all the time, so much that sometimes his job felt mainly like getting them to keep their hands to themselves.
The gift he needed was someone touching him without a demand.
Someone who wanted to touch him because they simply wanted him.
Jonathan reached out and pushed the button for the sixth floor. “Mine.”
Thank fuck he’d made the choice.
This was the purpose of the evening, not like it was a date-date.
He’d been a yes, please from the moment he’d rotated on the bar stool and seen that lobby Jonathan was also Axel1998.
The banter and laughter had momentarily obscured that he didn’t have to wonder what was going to happen next, all he had to do was stay onboard.
Absolutely the easiest thing he’d done in a very long time, especially since every square inch of his skin was focused on the way Jonathan had not let go of his wrist even now, standing side-by-side in the elevator.
Jonathan’s shoulder nudged Connor’s upper arm, and he pulled the back of Connor’s hand against his thigh. The white pants were smoother than he’d expected, and away from the restaurant he could catch a hint of citrus. He looked and smelled like summer.
Stand in your own space. No grabbing.
The doors opened.
Watch where you’re walking, follow the leader.
Sure enough, Jonathan led them to a door midway down the hall, pulled a keycard from his bag, tapped it on the reader, and then they were inside, every step without having released Connor.
The door clicked shut behind them. A lamp at the far end of the room provided a dim golden light, and more light spilled from a narrow gap in the partially open bathroom door. It wasn’t bright, but it was enough.
The waiting stretched but didn’t feel uncomfortable. He could hear the faint hum of the air conditioner, its quietness signaling the price of the room. He took another deep breath, seeking the summer-scent of the man who had turned to face him.
Then Jonathan lifted the hand that wasn’t bracketing Connor’s wrist and flattened it in the middle of Connor’s pecs.
Ahh. That slight weight felt so good that his eyes fluttered closed.
Jonathan pressed and walked him backwards until his shoulders connected with the door.
He placed both of Connor’s palms flat on the slick surface and didn’t have to say leave them, because Connor understood from the way the other man deliberately smoothed over the backs of his hands and then traced each of his fingers where they pressed into the door that he was to stay like this, fixed in place, waiting.
He wanted this, so, so much.
“Are you always this agreeable?” Jonathan’s voice was a whisper across the skin in the hollow of Connor’s throat. He needed more than the stirring of air. He needed to be touched so much he was close to groaning, but he held back. Jonathan would do it, he was certain.
“Summer vacation,” he muttered.
“It’s only the middle of June.” Jonathan’s fingers were busy flicking down Connor’s chest, releasing buttons, stroking the exposed skin, giving him what he wanted.
“Vacation from being in charge.”
The man in front of him made a low-pitched hum that Connor interpreted as pleasure. “I can work with that.”
Cool hotel room air brushed where there had been the barrier of his fabric.
His skin tightened where Jonathan’s fingers trailed up the centerline of his chest and wafted through his chest hair.
He’d been staring at the man under that black mesh all night, and knew Jonathan had none.
He wanted to rub himself all over that smooth chest, but he waited.
He could open his eyes and look, though.
Jonathan had such cute teeth, peeking out where he nibbled at his lower lip. “How much in charge do you want me to be?”
“Very? All. Anything.”
That earned him another of those lovely little hums.
“Then keep your hands on the door.” Jonathan sifted through his chest hair again, up and down Connor’s pecs and through his hair and lower to his stomach, then up again, until he shook with his desire to touch Jonathan back.
But he did exactly as he’d been told, kept his hands on the door, and away from Jonathan.
Every flutter of Jonathan’s fingers across his chest and collarbones made it more difficult, but he obeyed.
“It’s your choice, Connor. Remember that.”
Hearing Jonathan say his name made his legs and arms feel heavy and solid. Anchored, that’s how he felt.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Jonathan whispered before he slid cool fingers behind Connor’s neck and into the hair at the base of his skull, pressing his head forward with the necessary tilt that would bring their faces together. “Do you want that?”
Even this close, Jonathan’s skin looked flawlessly smooth. His eyebrows were a perfect matched set that Connor wanted to trace, but he had to keep his hands on the door. “Please.”
He lost himself in the sensations of sweet chocolate, bitter coffee and first kisses.
This was nothing more than an excellent hookup, but he knew he’d always remember the moment when their lips met, soft and parted, his between Jonathan’s, and then Jonathan’s lower lip between his as he stroked his tongue across that pillow. It was everything he’d imagined.
Jonathan arched closer to him, rubbed up and down without separating their mouths, while the mesh fabric of his shirt slid across Connor’s bare chest. He could feel the cool press of hard buttons into his skin.
The tweaks where they caught in his chest hair zapped straight to his cock.
He wanted to look down and see the black mesh that made the shoulder panels resemble a dirty version of a Western shirt wrapped around his cock so he could see through the fabric and watch himself mess it up.
He wanted to be touched, and he wanted to touch, but Jonathan hadn’t released him yet, so he poured his need into their kiss.
Jonathan pulled away, leaving Connor open-mouthed and bending, but then the other man put his hands on Connor’s cheeks, bracketing his face.
Yes. That was good.
Jonathan stared into his eyes. “I wonder how much self-control you have.”
“A lot.” He nodded. “Like a lot lot.”
“Oh, darling, you’re not supposed to dare other men, don’t you know that?”
“No, nope, didn’t know that.” Connor shook his head but managed to suppress his grin.
“You hold onto this door while I test your answer.”
Connor thought he said yes, please, believed he formed the words, but possibly he only groaned. Yet, Jonathan understood. He slowed his movements until Connor felt like he was floating.
Jonathan let his mouth follow Connor’s jaw to his neck, back to his ear, the edge of his lips, and the spot where his neck met his shoulder. That spot got a graze of teeth that made Connor buck his hips. He kissed everywhere but Connor’s mouth, which was open and panting.
He could hear his own breathing growing louder, turning into gasps and then even louder, probably into heaving, as Jonathan explored his skin.
Fuck, he’d reached Connor’s nipples, stroking and twirling and then pinching. The tiniest scrape. He wanted more. And then he pinched them unexpectedly hard for one instant, which tightened every big muscle group Connor had—his quads, his glutes, his traps—and a fuck ton of the small ones too.
Before he could respond, Jonathan let go and ran the soft tip of his tongue in circles around the sensitive skin.
Fuck.
The air cooled the wet marks, and he felt puckery and tight.
It was so much. Not too much, but so much that he felt drunk on the sensations, and knew if he wasn’t backed into the door, he’d be swaying. His fingertips, pressed into the door until they were close to numb, might be the only thing keeping him from collapse.
“Please.”
“Please what.” Jonathan sounded smooth and even in the quiet room, not cracked and tight like Connor felt inside his skin.
“Please.” He wanted to nuzzle Jonathan’s face, needed to kiss him and return half the pleasure Jonathan was giving him, not this only-taking that was happening. He needed to know Jonathan was enjoying this. He wanted to give. “Please kiss me.”
He went back to that spot on Connor’s neck that must be linked directly to Connor’s thighs, because his legs started to tremble. “Like that?”
“My”—his brain groped for the word—“mouth.” Then he wouldn’t just be receiving.
Jonathan’s thumb stroked the outline of Connor’s lower lip, and he wasn’t too proud to turn his head to chase the sensation.
“Here?” He pressed firmly enough that he pinned Connor’s lip to his own teeth.
Other guys hadn’t done these things to him before. He’d never known that he could like this, whatever this was.
“Please.” The motion of speech felt so intimate conducted against the pressure of Jonathan’s thumb that Connor shuddered.
“No.”
Then Jonathan removed his thumb.
Connor thunked his head into the door and moaned. His body already craved these sensations he didn’t know how to ask for, but knew Jonathan could give him.
“So much discipline.”