Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Seth
EVERY MUSCLE TENSES THE second I wake. Instinct kicks in, warning me that there’s someone here, someone in my bed, someone who isn’t supposed to be here. Every bit of paranoid readiness I learned in the military screams to the fore in the breathless moment before I realize that the messy mop of hair poking out of my sheets belongs to Jacob.
Jacob.
The previous night rushes through my mind. My instincts were partially correct. He shouldn’t be here. Not like this. I tense for an entirely different reason, battling a wave of contentment. He sleeps peacefully on his side, one brown shoulder peeking from the sheets. Everything inside me urges me to kiss it, but I hold myself back and slip as quietly as possible out of the bed.
Jacob murmurs at the shifting of the mattress, but he doesn’t wake as I scoop up any wearable clothing I can find and creep out of the room. A chill rustles across my bare skin when I tip toe my way to the bathroom, praying Mason doesn’t wake up. His door is shut, just as it was last night. He might not have come home at all. I shut myself in the bathroom regardless, cleaning myself up as much as I can before getting dressed.
Jacob and I fell asleep naked and draped over each other. Even after I brush my teeth, the taste of his pleasure loiters in my mouth, hiding under my tongue. A tremor quivers through me, but I ignore it, slapping cold water onto my face. I forgot my glasses, but I don’t need them right now, and I’d rather not go back into that room where Jacob is sleeping. The moment he wakes up is the moment I come face-to-face with the choices I made last night.
I pad downstairs. The living room is empty, and Mason’s car is still gone. He must have had a good night as well, which is fortunate for me. I don’t know how loud Jacob and I were, but even if we were whispering, Mason might have heard us. Old houses tend to let a lot of sound through the cracks.
I go to the kitchen, searching not just for coffee, but also for solace. The routine of putting a filter, water and grounds in the coffee machine and setting a pan over the stove settles my nerves and lets me think a little clearer. It was just one night, just one time. I can set boundaries around this and save my job and my dignity.
I’ve coated several slices of thick challah bread in egg and slapped one into the pan when footsteps creak on the stairs. I brace, turning with a spatula in my hand in time to find Jacob sleepily shuffling into the kitchen.
I almost drop the utensil.
He isn’t wearing what he had on yesterday. His legs are mostly bare, only his briefs hiding him. Above, he dons a shirt that looks like it’s trying to swallow him — because it’s my shirt. It’s huge on him, hanging to his thighs, the sleeves of the T-shirt nearly hitting his elbows. He quirks a smile when he catches me staring, stepping more confidently and less sleepily onto the linoleum and up to the stove.
“Cooking for me again?” he says. “It smells good.”
I forgot all about the French toast when he appeared. I flip it before it burns, my hand numb around the spatula. I threw on sweatpants and a plain old T-shirt to come down here, then tossed an apron over it. Jacob hooks his fingers under the straps of the apron, running them downward and skimming them over my pecs as he does.
“This is so cute,” he says. “I’m starting to love waking up and finding you in an apron.”
“It’s for cooking,” I say, a weak attempt at an excuse.
“Uh-huh.” But he’s already sinking to his knees, eyes glittering as he gazes up at me from the floor.
“Jacob,” I say, a warning, a plea.
He runs his hands up under the apron, fingers crawling up my thighs. I didn’t put anything on under the sweatpants, and that’s about to become very, very obvious. He catches two fingers in the waistband, giving it the slightest of tugs, and my breath catches.
“We’re in the kitchen,” I say.
“We’re alone,” he counters.
We are. We are completely alone. No roommate. No bandmates. No press hungry for a compromising photo. In the entire world, there’s only us.
Jacob tugs, and my sweatpants fall in a puddle around my ankles. The apron covers me, but Jacob reaches under it and finds the damning evidence of my arousal. He smirks up at me as he grips it.
“Good morning indeed,” he says.
Then he tosses the apron over himself, ducking under it. A second later I’m gripping the counter beside me as the heat of his mouth envelopes me. I nearly choke, the spatula clattering to the floor as Jacob ruthlessly sinks down me all the way to the root. He hums at himself as he goes, his voice shivering down my dick. Jacob flicks his tongue out, licking along my shaft, swirling around the head, then plunging straight back down.
It happens so fast I nearly lose my balance. I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my teeth, fighting to stay upright. The hand not clinging to the edge of the counter reaches for the spot where Jacob’s head pushes out the apron. I steady myself against him, wishing I had the wherewithal to get under the stupid fabric and clutch his soft waves of hair.
Suddenly, Jacob pops off me. The shift almost sends me to my knees. He flips aside the apron to peer up at me.
“Can I swallow you?” he says.
My knees damn near buckle.
Some functional part of my brain understands that this is a practical request, but most of me is caught in the flash fire of desire the question ignites. I have to gather myself before I can answer.
“Yeah,” I say, a rough rasp. “Yeah, I’m good. Tested and all that.”
Jacob’s smile stretches, eyes impossibly brighter. “Good.”
Then he dives back down, and this time I can get a hand in his hair, so that’s exactly what I do. I cling to him, and he whimpers, that beautiful voice that’s attracted the whole world shivering through me. Just me. The music pouring from his throat isn’t for anyone else right now, and that’s almost as dizzying as what his mouth is doing to me.
He takes me deep, then swallows around me, just as promised, and a noise snakes out of my throat that I barely recognize. Fuck, what is this man doing to me? Wasn’t I just thinking about how I need to reset the boundaries between us? Now he’s on his knees in my kitchen, and I’m about to blow down his throat.
“Jacob,” I groan in warning.
He doesn’t budge, bobbing determinedly along my cock, taking me deep, swallowing again and again until my hand is strangling his hair and some low rumble of pleasure is rolling out of me and I’m bursting uncontrollably down his perfect throat. I sag, clinging to the counter, to him, until the fury passes and I can creak my eyes open.
He’s on his knees watching me. Jacob wipes at his mouth, his hazel eyes wide and framed in dark lashes when he’s looking up at me like this. Warmth darkens his cheeks. His hair stands askew from my tugging.
I can’t bear it for another second.
He squeaks when I suddenly yank my sweats up, then bend to scoop him up off the floor. His arms go around my neck and his legs hook around my waist, just like they did last night.
“The French toast,” he says.
Smoke steams off the burning toast. I flick the oven off and shove the pan onto an unused burner, but that’s all the time I have for caring about toast. I carry Jacob to the kitchen table, swiping mail off it as I throw him atop it. Then I yank his briefs down and get him in my mouth.
He shudders and sighs, grabbing for my hair. The prickle of his pulling urges me on. I take him fast, hard, deep, plunging down him until his wiry hairs are in my nose. The taste merely lingered under my tongue this morning when I brushed my teeth, but now it’s everywhere. Now it’s my every breath.
Jacob’s legs dangle off the table, but he raises them suddenly, hooking his ankles behind me like he’s trying to yank me in closer. I dive as deep as I can, only pulling off when I suck him all the way to the tip.
“Yes?” I say. It’s all the breath I can spare for the question.
“Yes,” he gasps. “Fuck yes.”
I throw myself onto his cock. He tugs my hair hard enough that my eyes water and bucks his hips at me. I can taste his pleasure building, warm and salty on my tongue, and anticipation tightens my gut. Satiated though I am, I burn anew at this glimpse of his pleasure. He cries out loud enough to wake the damn neighbors, or at least it feels that way with his voice ringing in my ears. It’s a voice that normally fills stadiums, but today it sings through my crappy little kitchen, even more beautiful than when it’s amplified for the amusement of thousands of screaming fans.
“I’m gonna—” he cries. “Oh, fuck. Seth!”
He spills as he cries my name, and I’m nearly as delirious as him. The sound chimes in my ears as his hot seed slides down my throat. I groan as though I’m the one lying on that table, closing my eyes as I swallow him.
When I open them, he’s staring at me, panting, flushed, sprawled out. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
“Fuck, what a morning,” he says with a breathy laugh.
I help him sit up, but he uses the straps of the apron to pull me down and kiss me. I can taste myself in his mouth, and he can likely taste himself in mine. The musk mingles together until it’s all one thing, one taste belonging to one being, the tremulous, terrifying possibility of an “us” that can never be.
“God, I wish I didn’t have to go to practice today,” he says against my lips.
He clings to the apron like it will hold us both in this moment, spare us from the outside world, but as the fever cools, reality rushes in, icy as mountain runoff. We shouldn’t have done this. We shouldn’t have done it once, let alone twice. Jacob kisses me indulgently, lips mapping my mouth, before finally pulling away with a sigh. When he gazes up at me, a spark of worry creeps into those hazel eyes of his.
“We’ll do this again,” he says.
I’m not sure if it’s more threat or promise. Maybe a bit of both. Either way, I’m too weak to refuse, too weak to deny it. I promise myself I’ll find a way — later. After he’s gone. Once I can think straight. Once his taste is out of my mouth. Then I’ll end this the way I should have last night.
“My knight in shining armor,” Jacob says with a smirk.
I wish I was half as chivalrous as he seems to believe.