CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They bandaged clay who was groggy from painkillers when I took him home an hour later, rows of sutures like tiny blue furry caterpillars on his cheek. Shane sat in the back with him, holding his hand, and I had softened my opinion of Eamon a little when I found out Eamon was sending Shane home with Clay.
Clay had asked Jarrod to go home with him, and I had seen Jarrod just shake his head. Given Jarrod had rejected Clay not long before, it made sense for him to not want to be close now.
And, I was elated, Jarrod had said he’d go home with me.
I shook my head. I couldn’t afford to get possessive with Jarrod. It was a certain madness.
We stopped on the way home and Jarrod bought bagels for us to eat in the car. Jarrod was quiet, perhaps quieter than usual, but he didn’t stop me from putting the stereo on either.
Jarrod was tired, I knew that. He’d been the only male left to work, and Eamon had grumped a little at having turn down call-out work. I didn’t know how many customers he’d seen, having been out on the road all night, taking the girls to hotels, but it must have been a few.
I’d been heartened to discover there were an Ugly Johns website and bulletin board, and Eamon had posted the details of Clay’s assailant there, along with his credit card information. Someone would max out John’s card for sure, and as Eamon said, the guy would never book another hooker in the city, or in the country.
Yawning, Jarrod went to brush his teeth and change into borrowed clothes while I made hot chocolates for us. I was tired too, bone-tired, and my hand hurt. I hadn’t hit someone hard for a long long time, and I kind of expected to have a crisis of conscience about it, but it hadn’t started yet.
I was just grateful that I had got there in time, that Clay had locked himself in the bathroom and the guy had been too weak or stupid to break down the door, and that it hadn’t been Jarrod.
When Jarrod reappeared, in my sweats sliding off his hips beneath a worn Mets T-shirt, I took him in my arms and kissed him. I only just found Jarrod; I wasn’t ready to let him go yet.
Jarrod kissed me back, then said, “Don’t think about it. You can’t afford to think about it,” echoing Chloe’s words.
I nodded and said, “Just let me shower, then we can sit in bed for a while.”
I had cleaned up, Jarrod could tell that. There was less mess on the floor, and the sheets were clean this time. Jarrod put the hot chocolates down on the nightstand and closed the blinds against the morning light. He’d have to get aluminum foil and blackout my windows too.
Between the light seeping in around the blinds and the bedside light, Jarrod could still see the paintings on the walls. He gazed at the one opposite the bed, trying to work out what the jagged streaks of yellow and green said about me. It seemed an odd choice of painting for a bedroom, not at all restful and soothing.
I slid into bed, and Jarrod settled his head on my shoulder. I closed his eyes and let myself relax. We were both jumpy from Clay’s attack, and Jarrod knew I had to be replaying it and imagining it had been Jarrod there.
I was wound still, not making myself let go the way Jarrod could. The muscles in my shoulder were still tight under Jarrod’s cheek, though the hand stroking Jarrod’s back through his T-shirt was gentle.
This was not the time or place to worry about how he would walk through that brothel door in twelve hours time, Jarrod realized. This place, this bed, this moment mattered far more.
“I’m ready to ask for something for myself,” Jarrod whispered, and he lifted his face to look up at me.
There was a doubt in my eyes, and I said, “Are you sure? We don’t have to…”
Jarrod chuckled. “I’m not offering you sex. I want you to suck me. Think you’re interested?”
“Absolutely,” I said, and then we tangled together again, kissing, and Jarrod’s mouth was obliterating everything from my mind. Damn, he could kiss; knowing just when to stop invading my mouth, when to change to slow, wet kisses, then when to concentrate on my lips, and it left me breathless every time.
I returned the affection. Attempting to leave him as breathless as he left me. I concentrated on how I used my lips, my tongue. My hands too; the way I touched Jarrod’s belly, slid my hands under Jarrod’s T-shirt, stroked his back, and now cupped Jarrod’s groin through the soft material of his borrowed sweatpants. Jarrod had known my hands first, it had been that first massage that had started all of this, and it would be my hands that unraveled Jarrod every time.
My hands were gentle now, peeling down the material was in the way, brushing over Jarrod’s cock, and cupping his balls, then I straightened up and reached out for the drawers in the nightstand.
“No,” Jarrod said. “Please, I want to feel you.”
I hesitated, and Jarrod could understand, but he never had unprotected oral sex with anyone anymore and didn’t think for a moment he was putting me at any risk.
I nodded and Jarrod propped himself up a little and watched as I leaned forward and slid Jarrod’s cock into my mouth.
Waves of pleasure washed through Jarrod, and he let himself feel what I was doing, let the slow wet slide of my mouth become everything. He moaned, and it was a real moan, not part of a role he was playing. He hadn’t let someone please him like this for such a long time, not let it be more than mechanical, but I was inside his head now, inside his fantasies and his dreams.
Jarrod closed his eyes, and it became about being able to trust his own mind to be in the present too. No images, no memories, just the good feeling of me sucking his cock, and Jarrod clawed at the sheets beneath him.
He wouldn’t be able to come, he was too tired and drained, but he didn’t care about that, not when I was making him moan steadily.
There came a point when he couldn’t take any more, and he opened his eyes again and touched my shoulder. “Stop?” he said, and it came out as a question.
When I lifted his head, his mouth was wet and red and open, and I licked his lips and said, “If you want me to?”
Jarrod nodded, and I crawled back up the bed and kissed Jarrod, then Jarrod settled back on his shoulder again. “Do you want to make yourself come?” I asked, kissing Jarrod’s scalp through his curls.
“No… too tired,” Jarrod said. “Maybe later; need to sleep now.”
I turned the light off and slid down the bed, and Jarrod curled up behind me, one arm still flung across my chest.