Any amount of protest, or make believe, died the second Nick pulled away and looked at him with glossy bedroom eyes and pink, swollen lips.

Joel had planned on being strong. On pretending like this attraction, this crush, was inconsequential. But then Nick twisted and Joel didn’t want to pretend. He didn’t want anything but Nick’s mouth on his and since Nick wanted that too, he didn’t see the point in fighting anymore.

Even still, the rolling of hard hips took Joel by surprise.

He gasped, head recoiling and slamming against the wood door behind him hard enough for stars to dance across his vision—or maybe that was because of Nick, whose mouth was locked on Joel’s neck, lips and tongue and teeth, created a myriad of gentle tugs and swipes while their hips rocked against each other.

Joel could faintly hear little sighs and pleas, sounds of breathless begging filling the small space between their bodies. When he realized that he was the one making those sounds, a little of the blood that wasn’t already in his cock rushed to his cheeks.

“S—sorry,” he stuttered out, ignoring the way he already sounded completely fucked out. He couldn’t breathe and all Nick was doing was dry humping him through jeans and giving him a hickey. Joel felt fifteen and a bit humiliated, but then Nick let out a little laugh that blew cool air across his neck, goosebumps racing to the surface, and Nick twisted his hips just there and Joel’s open mouthed apology turned into a loud groan instead.

“Don’t be sorry,” Nick murmured, sweeping a tongue across the bite his teeth had made before moving his lips over to the other side of Joel’s neck. He leaned his head back almost immediately to give him more access. “I like you talking.”

Nick sucked on his collarbone, just on the other side of gentle. Joel’s fingers dug deeper into Nick’s sides with his effort to not beg Nick to kiss him harder.

“You—you do?” Joel took a deep breath but it all fell out in a gust when Nick started leaving softer kisses up the side of his neck, pulling his body back enough that Joel was helplessly trying to follow the friction he was taking away.

“Yes,” Nick said into his jaw, where he was nibbling and licking without abandon. “I like the sounds you make when you forget I can hear you. The way your breath hitches, the way it sounds deep and rough, like you’ve already had me down your throat.”

Jesus Christ. Joel couldn’t breathe and he yanked hard on Nick’s hips, feeling a bit of satisfaction when the man let out a little surprised oomph and their bodies slammed into each other with enough force to yank a moan out of them both.

“Do you like that?” Nick put one hand on the door beside Joel’s head, the other gripping on his forearm. Joel was still gripping too tightly against Nick’s hips. Joel thrust up towards Nick, but Nick kept pulling back and just lightly rotating.

“How the hell do you have so much self control?” Joel groaned out, trying to yank him closer again.

He must have been prepared because he didn’t budge. Nick laughed. “Because as badly as I want to just fuck you up against this wall until you until you can’t remember anything but my name, I have ideas that require a bit more—finesse.”

Joel’s jaw fell a little, feeling a bit light headed. He struggled to speak with a suddenly bone dry mouth. He tried twice but on the third time, Nick caught his bottom lip between his teeth and started to kiss him as if his mouth had the answers to life and death. Suddenly, Joel really didn’t give a single shit about coming up with a witty retort.

They should’ve slowed down. Ten minutes ago, Joel was storming away and trying to come up with a good way to get Nick to leave his house for good.

Ten minutes ago, though, Joel didn’t know what it would feel like to press his body tightly against Nick’s. Surely, that was worth consideration.

Nick pulled back, then he kissed him again.

This kiss wasn’t like their last one. That kiss had been all tongue and teeth, a clashing of bodies fast and furious. Instead, this time, Nick took his time. He moved his lips slowly, pushing and shifting them in rhythm with Joel, rolling his tongue lavishly. Joel tried to keep the electricity surging beneath his skin at bay and kiss Nick with the same slow assuredness.

But Joel knew nothing in life was assured. He didn’t have the luxury of taking time for granted.

With a surge of desperation he didn’t know he had in him, Joel slipped a leg between Nick’s and turned them around, slamming Nick into the door and trading their places. Nick hit it hard enough that Joel would have felt guilty, but Nick just let out a lewd string of curses and kissed him with renewed energy.

Joel tried to copy Nick’s earlier ministrations on his neck. There was sweat on the base of his neck near his shoulder and Joel greedily licked it off, tracking the salty taste down until it reached the edge of Nick’s shirt. He gathered the material of the flannel in his fists and tugged, hard.

Nick pushed back from Joel, ignoring the whines of protest. He tore his shirt off and threw it over his head.

He cocked his head, tongue peeking out to sweep across his lips. Joel’s dick twitched in response.

Nick grinned as if he’d noticed. With as tight as Joel’s jeans felt, his cock pressed painfully against the seam of his zipper, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Nick could. He pulled back, though, and leveled Joel with a steady look he knew he wouldn’t have been capable of. “Is this okay? Should we slow down?”

“No.” A full body shiver wracked through Joel and Nick’s grin widened wickedly in response. He grabbed Joel’s shirt and yanked him close before unbuttoning the top button.

“Have you ever been with a man?”

Nick’s words slowed Joel’s thinking down even further, the few times he’d found himself with other men playing through his mind. Mostly drunk, blurry memories pressed against walls and bodies, equally hard.

“Yes,” he shivered.

Nick licked his lips. “You’re sure we shouldn’t slow down?”

Joel tried to clear his head, to think about this logically.

He wasn’t supposed to be doing this, he knew that. He wasn’t supposed to be getting more attached to Nick.

But—well, wasn’t the damage already done? He might as well see this through.

“Yes,” he growled out, tugging him closer for another kiss. It was warm and filthy and broken by Nick’s low chuckle.

“Well, if you’re sure.” He continued talking as he deftly flicked the shirt open and then Nick’s hands spread across Joel’s shoulders, slowing pushing it down and down until it fell to the floor. Nick ran his hands across Joel’s abs with the tips of his two forefingers meeting the edge of his much too tight jeans. His thumbs brushed across Joel’s hipbones and Joel was breathless. “I don’t think you need these anymore.”

Heat was curling sweetly around every one of Joel’s organs. He cut Nick off, swallowing his words instead of hearing them. He licked his way into Nick’s mouth, kissing him just as slow and hard as his pulse was coursing through him. He felt his whole body pulsing, throbbing with need that he didn’t know what to do with. It was seconds away from bursting out from him, from burning the whole goddamn house down.

Nick yanked away, his fingers tightly wound in Joel’s short hair and when he tugged, Joel went with it, groaning all the while.

Joel opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Nick’s hands dipped down between his jeans and boxers and all language rushed out of his head at once.

He moaned, his head fell back helplessly. Nick had his jeans off before Joel managed to stop making noises and he ran his knuckles softly against the hard bulge in Joel’s boxers, where he was straining.

“Nick,” the one word held more than just a name. It was a plea and a promise and anything else Nick wanted it to be. At that moment, Joel would have let the earth open up and swallow him whole if that was what Nick wanted.

And, as it turned out, that was something near what Nick wanted.

Nick sank effortlessly to his knees, fingernails dragging against the sensitive flesh of Joel’s thighs as he dragged Joel’s boxers down on his way. The cold air hit him, sending his already sensitive cock twitching. Before Joel had the chance to say anything, Nick swallowed him down.

“Oh fuck, Nick,” Joel hissed out, his hands falling to Nick’s head. His fingers clenched painfully in the bright red strands, nearly cramping with the immediate pressure. His eyes couldn’t focus, too blurry as they darted between his white knuckles in Nick’s messy hair and the way Nick’s bright pink lips were stretched as his cock slipped in and out of them.

It was too much, too good, too vivid of a sight—it was everything Joel hadn’t known to ask for. The way his precum mixed with Nick’s spit, shining his cock bright, Nick’s nose nuzzling against the coiled brown hair at the base, the soft little vibrations in Nick’s throat that would have been sounds if there was enough room to spare, the flick of his tongue, relentless yet gentle.

The fire inside of Joel was an open flame that threatened to consume everything. Joel’s throat ached from the desperate scratching of his groans as they made their way out.

He snapped his eyes opened when he realized he had let them fall shut and the image below him, Nick’s eyes closed in rapt pleasure, one hand on Joel’s hip to keep him still and the other curled into a fist, wrapped around his own long, aching red cock—Joel’s lips parted and a gutted breath was punched out of him as he watched. Nick’s tongue and lips worked fast and without rhythm against Joel’s cock, while his hand moved in the same uncoordinated desperation as he fucked into his own fist.

He let out a strangled warning, a sound that could have been Nick’s name, but Nick just gripped his hip tighter and sucked him in deeper. Joel came with a cry, hand flying out of Nick’s hair to grip at the door, his fingers digging against the grain of the wood as he tried to find purchase. He squeezed his eyes shut against the bright stars dancing across the blackness and his hips jutted helplessly forward, the fire and energy rushing out of him.

He peeled his eyes open, chest heaving. Nick had pulled off of him and was leaning back, legs parted as he rested on his calves, his hand still moving. There was a small strip of white on his chin and his lips were dripping wet, his eyes glossy as he stared up at Joel with pupils blown so wide, there was no blue left. His lips parted and he sighed, a soft keeling sound.

Joel watched with his mouth hanging open and his breath uneven as Nick spilled over his own fist, a small smile pulling at the corners of his stretched and bruised lips.

Adrenaline bled from his body and his legs trembled. He leaned heavily against the door and tried to catch his breath.

His heart was pounding as if he ran a marathon. He looked down with heavy eyes to see Nick looking up at him, breathing as heavily and looking equally exhausted.

“That—” Joel swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. His voice sounded rough. “That was not my intention.”

Nick laughed. He sat back and tucked his legs underneath him, sitting cross-legged on the carpet. Joel slid down the wall and let out a relieved sigh when his wobbly legs were allowed to rest.

“Me either. But…” he trailed off, shrugging one shoulder.

Joel nodded in agreement.

That was probably a bad idea in the grand scheme of things. But, Joel had been the one to kiss him first. He had been angry and his blood had been hot from more than just fury and the only solution seemed to be flying across the room and kissing Nick. And, he wasn’t going to pretend—it had helped a little.

His skin didn’t itch so bad anymore. He could think clearer.

He was supposed to be asking Nick to leave his house and not to come back. He was supposed to be trying to salvage the friendly relationship they had and not pursuing this— which wasn’t going to work out.

He had been so firm in his decision before he went to bed last night. Nick sleepily came from the office, his hair all over and his pajamas were loose and low on his hips—the sight was as appealing, as it was adorable and Joel had crumbled immediately, practically grinning like an idiot the second he saw him.

He leaned his head against the door and breathed in and out, deep and slow. He didn’t know where they went from here.

“So—” Nick cut himself off and Joel reluctantly opened his eyes to see him. He was frowning down at his lap, shoulders a little hunched, and the look was so distinctly different from how he had been carrying himself a few minutes ago that Joel’s chest rumbled with dissatisfaction. It stood out in stark comparison to the rest of his relaxed, blissed out body.

His head whirled as if he hadn’t just had the most amazing orgasm of his life.

Joel’s throat constricted, nearly closing completely, as he forced the next words out of his mouth. “This doesn’t change anything.”

Nick’s face froze. Then he narrowed his eyes and swallowed hard. Joel watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed and he squared his shoulders up. “Is that so?”

Joel couldn’t move. He was trapped by the ice in Nick’s eyes, its hardness betrayed by the way his fingers kept tapping against his knees. If he felt half as bad as Joel did, half as anxious and wanting, he must be miserable.

Joel thought of Janie and lifted his chin defiantly. “You are a stranger.”

Nick’s jaw fell and his eyes widened. “Aren’t we a little past that?”

Which, okay, yes. They were. But—“And you’re leaving in a few days.”

Nick’s mouth closed. Even he didn’t have a defense for that.

Something akin to regret washed over him. He pulled his legs closer to him, trying to resist the urge to just crawl into a ball and fall asleep. Horrifically, his eyes burned. “I’m—Things aren’t just me, Nick.”

He didn’t know how else to explain it. All the words he could have used were gone, dried up, too busy mourning something that had barely started and already fell flat.

But he didn’t need to. Just like Nick had seamlessly walked into their life, everything they needed from burger maker, to joker, to literal savior, he understood why he had to walk out. He nodded, face softening from its anger into a repackaged mourning.

“Janie.” He said, simply.

Joel nodded, miserably. “Janie likes you. And I can’t—you’re leaving and she knows that but she doesn’t—”

Joel couldn’t explain that if he got more attached, if he let himself feel for Nick what was banging from the inside of his chest to be let out, he’d never be able hide that from her. He’d never—

Joel looked down at the ground.

He heard Nick get up. “Should I leave?”

Probably. Definitely. Please don’t.

Joel stood as well, hating the ringing in his ears, the pounding in his chest that felt like fists against his sternum, the rushing of adrenaline in his head. It all hurt worse as his muscles remained relaxed and his body yearned to reach out and close the space between them.

“No,” Joel admitted. Then he swallowed. “If you’d like to stay, Janie would be remiss if she didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Nick bit his bottom lip. Joel tightened his muscles as he forced himself not to let his gaze drop. “I’ll just—be out for the day, then.”

Joel nodded. That was probably for the best.

He stepped aside when Nick grabbed his bag and left the room, closing the door behind him gently. Joel slowly went and sat at his desk, listening to the sounds of Nick getting ready in the bathroom. When he heard the front door close, he dropped his head into his hands.

His heart ached and he tried to forget the feeling of Nick’s palms on his body and his lips on his skin.

He was so, so screwed.