Chapter 12 #2
With only a hair’s breadth of space between their bare legs, Jax could feel the heat emanating from Tom’s skin.
He could smell the stupid body wash he used even though he didn’t like it.
Jax wanted to inch closer, to let their thighs press together on the bench.
He wanted to put his hands there on the soft, hidden skin.
He kept his hands on his own lap and his eyes on the camera.
The team had to celebrate Luca’s first NHL goal.
In the name of bonding, Jax agreed to join them.
He made sure to sit on the opposite end of the table from Tom.
He didn’t think he’d be able to take it otherwise.
Not for a full evening. He drank his beer—regular, not light; he couldn’t deny himself everything all at once; he wasn’t Tom—and teased Luca for only making it on an empty net.
“I suppose I will have to keep trying,” Luca said.
Flushed with alcohol and pleased with how the game had gone, he didn’t even mock Breezy too much over his sudden crisis of faith about Chloe.
It turned out the great-grandmother she thought was from Messina actually came from La Massana, which wasn’t even in Italy.
Mooney and Howie stood at the bar, trying to chat up two women who were clearly out of their league but might be interested in telling their friends they’d hooked up with professional athletes.
Jax was glad to see their friendship had survived intact.
Dmitriyev hovered beside them, silent. Jax couldn’t help but wonder if it was a bit.
He knew a Russian guy on the team in Philly who swore up and down the best way to get girls was by using the line, “Sorry, no English,” despite being fluent.
Dmitriyev didn’t seem the type for subterfuge, but you never knew.
He and Vanderbilt were friendly, which could only mean questionable things about Dmitriyev’s sexual history.
Jax looked away. If he didn’t see what they got up to, he wouldn’t have to think about it later.
He had no intention of ruining his perfectly happy position, surrounded by team members.
Phil Easton ruled over their table, a benevolent king with everyone except Tom, whom he reminded every ten minutes or so that he’d been right and didn’t even need to be in skates to win the damn game for them.
It was a good evening.
Good enough to make Jax complacent. When Phil caught a ride home with Vanderbilt and Hayes stepped out to meet Allie, he found himself suddenly alone in the booth with Tom.
Howie, Dmitriyev, and Mooney had left for a club with the girls they’d been talking to.
Only Breezy and Luca remained, sitting at the far end of the table and debating intensely whether the best pizza in the world could come from Montreal.
This topic had them so intent on each other they didn’t notice when Tom turned to Jax.
“The shelter…you start in ten days, right?” This was the first time Tom had asked about anything to do with the shelter.
“Yeah?”
“Hmm. Are you coming over tonight?”
Jax swallowed tightly. He wanted to—God, did he want to—but… “I don’t know if I can.”
“Why not?”
“You were so fucking good tonight, Tom. And I don’t wanna take things too far, or—or fuck things up, and I don’t trust myself.”
Tom blinked. He had these long, sooty eyelashes. Jax wondered what they’d look like with mascara. He bet Tom would be fucking gorgeous. Not that he wasn’t already. “Don’t trust yourself how?”
“If I go home with you, I’m gonna want more than kissing,” Jax said, low and fervent.
When Tom didn’t answer, the words kept coming though Jax tried to fight it, aware he could scare Tom off for good.
“I…fuck, Tom, I wanna get on my knees for you. I wanna swallow you down and make you feel like you won the Stanley fucking Cup of blow jobs. I want you to pull my hair and make noise for me and tell me how good I am for you—”
The table shifted when Tom banged his knee into it.
Luca and Breezy glanced up, momentarily distracted from their debate about whether there was such a thing as authentic cheese-stuffed crust.
“Sorry,” Tom said. “Guess I’m a little tired. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
He slid out of the booth without a backward glance.
Jax watched him go. His ass in those suit pants was a crime. Maybe he should have gone whole hog, straight-up admitted he had no preference which part of Tom’s physique he got his mouth on. He’d be perfectly fine burying his face in those cheeks and never coming up for air again.
Probably not. If the mere mention of a blow job scared Tom off, Jax would have to learn to keep his stupid mouth shut. Good thing Tom had self-control because Jax was clearly all out.
His phone chimed in his pocket. Jax pulled it out.
I’m waiting around the corner. Give it two minutes and follow me out.
Very carefully, Jax resisted the urge to fist pump.
No impulse control, huh? If only Tyson Fuller could see him now.
He drank the rest of his beer, told Breezy he was a caricature of a human being, and let Luca explain what he meant.
Then, he moseyed off toward the bar to settle the tab for the team. He was feeling generous.
It took way too long to get to Tom’s place in Palo Alto from the city.
Convenient it might be for practice, but not when Jax desperately needed to see Tom naked.
They spent a full half hour in the back seat of an Uber, not touching each other.
Finally, they reached Tom’s cold, impersonal apartment, and once again the urge struck Jax to fill Tom’s life with things he’d enjoy instead of sticking to the purely practical.
Tom deserved a place that suited him rather than one that just made sense for hockey.
He deserved furnishings he liked, food he enjoyed, and a little mess crowding the corners of his hermetically sealed-off existence.
Jax could be the mess.
Jax was already a mess, kissing Tom wet and sloppy as soon as the door shut behind them. “Tom,” he said between kisses. “Tom, Tom, I want you so much, you can’t imagine.”
Tom groaned with his head thrown back against the wall while Jax ran his teeth down his clavicle. “I think I have an idea.”
Fifteen years, Jax reminded himself. It had been fifteen years since Tom had done anything, and even then, he’d admitted he hadn’t done a lot. “Are you sure about this? We’ve been drinking, and—”
“I had one light beer,” Tom said. And then he said, “Please.”
Jax’s tenuous hold on his impulse control snapped.
He fell to his knees, hard. He didn’t care about the pain when they hit linoleum.
He didn’t care they were both still fully dressed.
He needed, and he needed now. His hands shook as he undid the fly of Tom’s pants and pushed them down to fall around his ankles.
It had been months since he’d touched anyone else, weeks since he’d started wanting this, and his entire life since he’d touched someone and meant it the way he meant this.
Tom’s cock was long and uncut and already mostly hard. Jax pressed a kiss to the head before running his tongue all around it.
“Oh,” Tom said somewhere above him, vaguely surprised.
With his mouth open, Jax drew a sloppy line down the entire length of Tom’s cock, getting it wet.
The taste, the smell—body wash, sweat, Tom—being on his knees for this man, all of it conspired to send any blood still in Jax’s brain south.
He was hard and straining, and it comforted him in a weird way because, really, nothing had changed from all their make-out sessions.
He could give something to Tom, something Tom wanted to experience, and his own intense arousal was a happy by-product.
He took the head of Tom’s cock into his mouth and sucked.
“Jesus.”
Jax groaned around his mouthful in agreement. He loved how Tom sounded, how overwhelmed. He wrapped his fist around the base and set a slow rhythm, up and down with his mouth.
“Uh,” Tom grunted, and, “fuck.”
With his free hand, Jax grabbed one of Tom’s and deposited it on his head.
Tom kept his grip gentle at first, petting at the strands, but when Jax started really using his tongue, drawing snaking patterns along the underside of Tom’s cock, his hand clenched down.
Jax’s eyes rolled up, and he moaned. The vibrations made Tom pull harder, and Jax sucked more in response, and from there, it was all heat and spit dripping out the corner of his mouth and the inexorable weight of Tom’s cock on his tongue.
Jax lost a little time, bobbing his head up and down, sucking and tonguing and changing his rhythm up when it got to be too much for his jaw.
He liked how little he needed to think. He palmed himself through his pants every now and again when he got too desperate, only barely enough stimulation so his body knew he hadn’t forgotten it.
“Please,” Tom said eventually, and oh. His voice had gone so breathy and deep. He said it again, and the desperation in it made Jax throb.
He pulled off long enough to say, “I’ll take care of you, baby.”
Then he opened his mouth wide, let the head of Tom’s cock rest there, and started stroking him frantically while he drew wild patterns with his tongue.
The hand in Jax’s hair clenched tight. Tom’s hips shook with the effort of staying still. He said, “Jax!” And then he came all over Jax’s tongue in long pulses that left him shaking and bent over.
Tom slid to the floor, naked from the waist down, and pulled Jax onto his lap. Everywhere he touched Jax, shoulders, waist, legs, lit up as though an electrical charge passed between them.
“I can’t,” Jax gasped out. “I have to—”
Fumbling between them, Tom got his pants undone. Jax had leaked so much his underwear was wet clean through, and he nearly came the second Tom touched him. All he needed was a little extra push.
“Tell me,” he half begged, half demanded. Their movements became rhythmless and clumsy, Jax thrusting his hips up into Tom’s hand, Tom trying to meet his frenetic pace. “Tell me I was good for you.”
“So good,” Tom told him, his eyes still hazy, his lips kissed red. “I’ve never felt like that. You were so good for me, Jax.”
Jax came hard all over Tom’s dress shirt. He shuddered his way through it, gasping, hips pushing up—up—up until he got too sensitive to keep going.
He collapsed onto the floor next to Tom. “Jesus Christ.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jax let his head thunk against the wall. “As good as you remember?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Jax raised his head again to shoot Tom a quizzical look.
Tom shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I gave one blow job once. He never returned the favor, and we never talked about it again.”
Something a little possessive trickled down Jax’s spine. He tried his best not to notice it. “I should have made it more special, then.”
“It was plenty special.”
“Could have at least made it to a bed,” Jax said around a yawn, the word alone reminding him how sleepy he was.
Tom scrambled to his feet. “Come on.” He offered Jax a hand. “We can make it there now.”
Jax let himself be dragged to bed. They shed their clothes somewhere along the way, and then his head hit Tom’s fancy pillow and his arms wrapped around Tom’s body. He thought, I could get used to this.
He fell asleep before he could remember he shouldn’t.