21. An Excellent Use of County Resources
An Excellent Use of County Resources
They started kissing in the elevator and barely stopped long enough for Jay to get the hotel-room door open.
The lock had hardly clicked behind them before Harris put him against the door, one hand beneath his shirt while Jay’s fingers hooked into the back of Harris’s belt.
The room smelled like industrial carpet cleaner, and the air-conditioning unit rattled beside the window.
Harris barely noticed either with Jay this close.
They made it toward the bed without agreeing on a direction. Harris lost his shirt near the desk. One of Jay’s boots landed somewhere by the bathroom. By the time the backs of Harris’s knees struck the mattress, Jay’s jeans were caught halfway down one leg and Harris’s belt hung open.
Jay pulled back just enough to look at him. “What do you want?”
Harris kissed him instead of answering.
Jay made a sound that might have been a laugh, caught Harris by the back of the neck, and kissed him harder.
Better.
Some ridiculous part of Harris had decided that if they kept this up, Jay’s mouth would remain occupied and neither of them would reach the question Harris had spent the entire drive trying to prepare for.
It was not a sound plan. Harris committed to it anyway.
Jay hooked his remaining booted leg around Harris and ground down against him. The pressure dragged a curse out of Harris.
“Yeah,” Jay said against his mouth, as though that had answered everything.
Jay was above him, hot and solid, tugging impatiently at his belt until Harris knocked his hands away.
“You’re slow,” Jay said.
“Shut up. I’m trying to help.”
“You’re making it worse.”
“Story of your life.”
“My life is extremely well managed, thank you.”
Harris got the belt free and opened his jeans. Jay immediately put a hand inside them, and Harris’s head dropped back against the mattress.
“Christ.”
“You’re right,” Jay murmured. “Much more efficient.”
Harris pinched his nipple through his shirt. Jay’s hand tightened around him. That nearly ended the evening before Harris had figured out what the hell they were doing.
He caught Jay’s wrist. “Hold on.”
Jay stopped immediately.
No alarm. No impatience. He stayed above Harris with one knee pressed into the mattress, simply waiting to find out what Harris needed.
That immediate stillness mattered.
Harris caught his breath and looked up at him.
Dark hair hung loose around Jay’s face, the ends nearly brushing his shoulders.
His shirt had fallen open enough to show the flush spreading over his chest, and his mouth had gone red from kissing.
His jeans remained tangled around his thighs.
Harris had one knee between Jay’s legs and his own pants open beneath him.
Nothing subtle remained between them.
Harris caught the side of Jay’s neck and drew him down again. Jay opened for him immediately, his whole body coming back into contact.
Hungry.
That was the word Harris had been failing to find.
He had wanted men before, though he had spent years calling it everything except wanting.
He had never understood this hunger to eliminate every remaining inch.
The irritation at fabric, buttons, and hands positioned anywhere except where he needed them.
The near-angry urge to have Jay above him, beneath him, against him—and somehow closer than any of those arrangements allowed.
Jay shoved Harris’s jeans lower. “Off.”
“Bossy.”
“You have no idea.”
Harris got rid of them. Jay finally kicked free of the last boot and his own jeans, then came over Harris again with nothing between them.
Harris’s hands moved down his back, over his sides, and around the firm curve of his ass. He pulled Jay closer until their cocks pressed together.
Jay’s eyes closed. “Fuck.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
Harris took that as a challenge. He pulled Jay tighter against him and rolled his hips again, harder this time.
Jay’s laugh broke off into a breath. “Fuck, yes.”
Harris put his mouth against his throat. Jay smelled like mint, sweat, and whatever product he used in his hair. Familiar parts arranged differently now.
Jay’s hand tightened at the back of Harris’s neck. “I’ve been thinking about us fucking since approximately mile marker thirty-eight.”
Harris went still. “Oh yeah?”
Jay moved slowly against him, enough to make Harris’s breath catch. “If you want.”
All right.
Here it was.
Harris wanted Jay. He trusted him. Whatever happened next, Harris could manage it.
“What do I need to do?”
Jay blinked. “For what?”
“You know.” Harris regretted the sentence immediately. “To get ready.”
Jay’s movement stopped. His brows drew together as he looked at Harris’s face.
“For me?”
“Yup.”
“To fuck you?”
Harris’s jaw tightened. “Thought that was where this was headed.”
Jay stared at him for another second, then pressed one hand flat against Harris’s chest when Harris tried to pull him down for another kiss.
“Wait.”
Harris exhaled through his nose. “What?”
“You’ve been assuming I’d top the first time?”
“You always topped Miles.”
Jay’s face changed. His mouth opened, closed, and then moved faintly at one corner.
“That’s what you said,” Harris added.
“Right.”
“Seemed like a reasonable conclusion.”
“It was certainly a conclusion.”
Harris gave him a warning look.
Jay’s hand remained warm against his chest. Instead of asking another question, he moved closer and pressed his mouth to the side of Harris’s neck. His thumb moved slowly over Harris’s ribs.
The touch took some of the weight out of the silence. Harris could look past him toward the hotel window instead of directly at him. The curtain had not been fully closed, leaving one thin strip of parking-lot light against the wall.
Jay kissed his neck again.
“Do you actually want me to fuck you?”
Harris let out a breath. “I figured I could.”
Jay’s thumb kept moving. “That’s enthusiastic.”
There was humor in it, but no pressure. He didn’t pull away or make Harris hold his gaze. He stayed close, mouth brushing once against Harris’s shoulder, giving Harris somewhere else to focus while he tried to separate what he thought he should be willing to do from what he actually wanted tonight.
“Not sure I’m ready for that tonight,” Harris admitted.
“Okay.”
The answer came immediately.
Jay kissed the corner of his mouth and let his palm move once over Harris’s chest.
Harris looked at him. “That easy?”
“Of course.”
Something in Harris loosened.
“We absolutely could do that sometime,” Jay said. “If you decide you want it.”
Sometime.
Harris put the word somewhere he did not have to inspect tonight.
“And if you don’t,” Jay added, “that’s fine too.”
Harris nodded.
Jay shifted slightly above him. “Also, that wasn’t what I was imagining.”
“No?”
“No.”
Harris turned his head back toward him. “What were you imagining?”
“You fucking me.” Jay looked directly at him while he said it.
For a moment, Harris genuinely thought he had misunderstood. “You want me to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Top you.”
Jay’s smile arrived slowly. “We are running out of ways to phrase this.”
The image formed before Harris could stop it. Jay beneath him. Harris’s hands on his hips. Harris inside him.
His cock pulsed between them.
“You’d let me… do that to you?”
The humor in Jay’s face sharpened into something hotter. “Oh, I’d do a lot more than let you.”
Christ.
“Harris.” Jay’s fingers moved into the hair at the back of his neck. “With Miles, topping became the default because that was what worked for us. It doesn’t mean I stopped wanting anything else.”
“And you want it with me.”
“I’ve spent several days thinking about the details.”
Satisfaction hit Harris with enough force to leave him briefly unsteady.
Jay had not offered to switch because Harris failed some test. He had not selected an easier option for the inexperienced man. He had been sitting across from Harris at breakfast, working in the production office, riding beside him in the truck, and imagining Harris’s hands on him.
Harris caught him by the hips and rolled them. Jay landed flat on his back with a startled grunt.
“Too much?” Harris asked.
“No.” Jay’s mouth curved. “I like when you manhandle me.”
The admission went directly through Harris. He kissed Jay again, one hand closing around his thigh and pushing it wider. Jay opened without hesitation and met the kiss with enough hunger to burn away most of what Harris had carried into the room.
This was what Jay wanted.
Not a concession. Not a consolation prize.
Harris.
“Bag,” Jay said against his mouth. “Front pocket.”
Harris leaned over the side of the bed without moving far enough to lose contact. He found the condoms and the small bottle of lube, nearly taking the lamp with him when he straightened.
Jay laughed.
Harris glared at him. “Not a word, Navarro.”
“I said nothing!”
“You were about to.”
“I was merely appreciating your grace under pressure.”
“Appreciate quietly.”
Harris opened the lube. He was not working entirely from nothing, which was unfortunately not the same as knowing what the hell he was doing.
Years ago, Claire had once asked him to play with her ass during sex.
She had disliked it almost immediately, they had stopped, and the experiment had never been repeated.
That was the full extent of Harris’s practical experience.
He moved between Jay’s thighs, shifting one leg higher. The position left him completely exposed.
Harris paused.
Jesus.
Jay was built everywhere Harris looked. Strong thighs. The clean lines of muscle across his stomach and chest. And his ass—rounder than Harris had expected somehow, muscular and full beneath his hands, the kind of body that made it difficult to remember he was supposed to be nervous.
He had touched Jay there before. Grabbed him through denim, run his hands over him in the dark.
This was different.
Jay was naked and open beneath him, watching Harris look.
Not some anonymous man.
Jay.
“You planning to touch me, Shaw?”
“Getting the lay of the land.”
“Your dirty talk needs serious work.”
“Could leave you to do this on your own.”