16. Eater of His Muffins #2
He sighed. “It’s Eugene, which is great, but not San Francisco. And we both work with kids and families.”
Connor dropped his head onto the back of the couch. Jonathan immediately missed his closeness. “I know. We’ll probably see tons of people we know.”
Jonathan squirmed around to more easily look at Connor’s face. “What if we tell each other what we would wear if we were, I don’t know, independently wealthy? And going to Pride somewhere like Berlin or Toronto?”
Connor grinned with eyes that gleamed gold and green and hazel in the subdued light, and his shoulders curled around Jonathan’s body. “I like that. You first. Tell me what you’d wear.”
Jonathan pretended to think, but he’d known as soon as the conversation started what he wanted to wear for Connor. The image was saved in his favorite outfits folder, so he wouldn’t even have to scroll through a lengthy search.
“I saw a photo of a British actor wearing a sequined jacket, black and pale pink zig zags and wide lapels out to here.” Connor’s gaze tracked Jonathan’s fingers to where he pressed the middle of his clavicle through his linen shirt.
“He was half-Chinese, built kind of like me, but the pattern and the lapels created an illusion.”
“I don’t want an illusion,” Connor whispered.
This man knew what to say. “The jacket did good things for his shoulders.”
He stretched to nuzzle the skin at the neck of Jonathan’s shirt. “Your shoulders are already good things.”
Parts of Jonathan’s body had entered the chat. “Instead of a shirt, he wore thin chains under the jacket.”
Connor had inhaled while Jonathan spoke, but then he stopped breathing. Until he exhaled one word. “Chains?”
“Silver chains, thicker than a necklace, but not what I’d describe as chunky, more sort of draped across his bare chest. I think it was a shirt made of chains.” He ran his fingers along the path he remembered, on top of his clothing, but he knew he was creating an image in Connor’s imagination.
“Chain. Mail.”
Connor’s lips were parted and his eyes gleaming pools reflecting a lamp on the table. He barely appeared to breathe.
He cupped Connor’s chin in his hand and ran his thumb over Connor’s lower lip until he felt the vibration of air going in and out.
“What else,” Connor whispered.
“Leather pants. The actor wore black, but I think for Pride I’d choose pink.”
“I want to see that. On you. Any color. And a bunch of necklaces on your chest. Ditch the jacket though. Sequins are scratchy and I need your arms uncovered.” Connor seemed to be describing a vision he already saw in his head.
“We can do that. But not at a family parade.”
Connor’s abs flexed underneath Jonathan as he jerked to sit more upright. “We can?”
“NYU for undergrad and grad school? Right there between Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea? Unlike you, I actually own club clothing.” He was pretty certain his black leather pants would fit. It had only been eight months since he’d last worn them.
The sound Connor made was louder than a sigh and more shapely than a gust of air, nearly a plea, but not quite a word.
Jonathan heard layers of yearning in a single syllable.
While he let Connor enjoy whatever images spooled in his head, he himself quietly enjoyed Connor’s hands stroking from his shoulders to his thighs, the slight vibrations of their torsos against each other as they breathed. Both of them won.
“Out of curiosity, can you share this photo you claim to want to dress like? For research purposes.”
Jonathan reached across the gap to the coffee table to get his phone.
Because Connor’s large body was highly coordinated, but not graceful in small spaces, the process ended with both of them spooning side by side, Connor against the back of the couch and Jonathan almost tilting off the cushions, forced to trust that Connor would keep him from overbalancing and hitting the floor.
Somehow, he managed to hunt through his phone and lift it over his shoulder to show the photo to Connor without receiving an elbow or knee to any soft body parts. Or even the seemingly always medium-hard when cuddled like this body parts.
“That’s James Phoon!”
“How do you know that?” Jonathan tried to turn to look at Connor, but he was too precariously close to the edge to change positions.
“Bridgerton, my dude.”
A funny buzzing fizzed in Jonathan’s head. “You watch it that closely?”
“I watch the dudes that closely.”
“I might also have watched it.”
“Might you?” Connor pounced, gripped Jonathan’s wrists in his hands, and raised them above Jonathan’s head until his hands rested on the arm of the couch. “Might you?”
Connor transferred both of Jonathan’s wrists to one of his hands, and the other one was on Jonathan’s chest, on his stomach, stroking, stroking his thighs, palming him, oh god, running the length of everything he could reach and making him twist in the tightest line, all while stretched back-to-front on the couch. “I want you to fuck me in a carriage.”
He couldn’t see Connor, but he felt every inch of his muscular thighs pressing against the back of his own.
“You’ll sit on the bench and spread your legs and open your trousers.” Connor’s mouth took control of the junction of Jonathan’s neck and his shoulder, and his hands had control of Jonathan’s body, and it was going to be another fast and furious night. “I’ll straddle you.”
Jonathan closed his eyes, the better to chase the images Connor was creating. When Connor took over, when he used his size to manage Jonathan’s orgasm, it reminded him of that first time when Connor had snatched him into the air and pushed him against the hotel door.
“The carriage will hit a pothole and drive your cock into me.”
Tonight Connor was touching him, and no matter how much Jonathan wanted to touch Connor, wanted to make this story into reality and drive into Connor until they both lost even the ability to speak, his hands were locked fast on the arm of the couch.
He whispered in Jonathan’s hair, the fingers of one hand brushing the length of Jonathan’s cloth-covered cock until he reached the tab of Jonathan’s zipper. “I have horses. Lots of horses. We can ride. Together.”
Connor on horseback. Connor’s thighs. Connor in a saddle. Connor in riding pants. Jonathan with a crop. Connor’s words drew pictures in Jonathan’s imagination, until he wanted all of it. His thighs quivered with his wanting and with the way Connor had him stretched.
Connor’s hand was weirdly wet. And on Jonathan’s face as well as manacling his wrists and releasing his—he opened his eyes and screamed.
“What the—” Connor shouted.
Jonathan tumbled to the edge of the couch, falling, but then Connor clawed him back and he was only hanging halfway, one hand braced on the floor while that evil spawn dog had somehow teleported across the room to his bed, where he stood shaking and looking mournful.
“Ribby,” he gasped. “He licked me. My face.”
Connor laughed like a drunk and hauled him deeper into the security of the couch.
Jonathan acquiesced to the compulsion to join him in laughter, and they untangled from each other. Standing, Jonathan adjusted his gaping pants.
“Our four-legged chaperone.” Connor looked at the ceiling as if trying to avoid seeing anything that might set him off again.
“We shouldn’t have been alone in your carriage, clearly.” Jonathan said, looking at Connor, not at the very naughty dog.
Ribby trotted over again, tail wagging, and darted from where they stood to the front door. Connor sighed, then stretched his arms to his full wingspan in that large athlete chest-expanding way that former-Jonathan might have found off-putting. New Jonathan didn’t share that opinion.
“I guess he needs a walk,” Connor said.
“We all need things we aren’t getting right now.” That came out sounding more disgruntled than Jonathan felt.
“Come on, you can at least get some fresh air.”