FIVE

 

Lance knew the reasons that he wasn’t supposed to do this. He could have listed them all off, but he didn’t want to. Not right then. He could kick himself for this weakness later after this was all over.

The truth was, Lance had been wondering what it would be like to kiss this man from the moment they’d literally run into each other the day before. Jamie had not been far from his mind from that moment, and as wild as his imagination had run before he reined it back in, nothing could compare to actually being here.

Consequences be damned. He’d deal with them. Right now, all there was was Jamie, lips and hot, slender body, the little moans that the other man made into his mouth as they kissed. Slowly, Lance raised his hips, and the tentative movement was met enthusiastically when Jamie let himself grind down on Lance. Jamie pressed himself so close that Lance could feel the hard line of his cock as it pressed against his stomach, that round, firm, sweet little ass rubbing against Lance’s own aching erection.

Slowly, at first, they rubbed against each other, but slow couldn’t last. Not when Lance was sure that he had never been this hard in his life, that he’d never wanted anyone like he wanted Jamie. It was probably a good thing that there were clothes in the way …

Just as he thought that, he felt Jamie’s warm, sweet little hands on him. He felt it as they slid up under his shirt, and tugged it in one smooth motion over his head. Just like that, Lance was half naked, and without that layer of cloth in the way, he could feel the heat, the wetness, of the precome that was leaking right through Jamie’s sweats as his cock rubbed against Lance’s belly.

It was far too easy to slip off Jamie’s shirt, in return. For one of them to take a step, to lead the way to new levels of intimacy, and for the other to follow, until they were frantically grinding against each other, shirts off, sweats tugged down and out of the way but not actually off of their bodies.

They would have to separate for a few seconds to get completely naked, and Lance couldn’t make himself stop touching Jamie long enough to get that separation.

For what could have been hours but somehow wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, they kissed, and that was as far as it went. But Lance’s body was humming with lust, singing with desire, and he moaned as he slipped off of the bench, going onto the hardwood floor and pushing Jamie off of himself.

Not for long, though. Just long enough that he finally slid the soft material of the other man’s sweats down his long legs and away, leaving Jamie bare all over, naked for Lance. Long enough that Jamie, fully cooperative, could tug Lance’s pants off, as well, so that they were both nude.

As soon as that had happened, Lance was back on Jamie, kissing him again, this time skin to skin as he slotted his hips against Jamie’s and let their erections glide together. Just enough friction to provide stimulation but not enough to actually be painful, Lance couldn’t get enough, and every thrust was harder, more demanding, than the one before.

And the really incredible thing was that Jamie was under him, writhing and moaning, rocking up toward him and taking everything that he had to give, that Jamie seemed to need this just as badly as Lance had. They’d met less than twenty-four hours ago, and already they were pressing close, bringing each other pleasure, kissing each other.

He hadn’t even been able to resist Jamie for a full day. Ken was going to kill him. Forget Ken, Lester was going to kill him. Though at least Jamie was a man, which might make a difference.

The truth was, he couldn’t resist. When he looked down into Jamie’s flushed face, and he gazed into his lovely eyes and saw them shooting bright white-hot sparks at him, he swore he could actually feel the pleasure building in Jamie’s body from the way it tensed under him, and the way his movements got even more hurried.

It was all so frantic, two people desperate to get closer to each other, so desperate that they were even doing it on the floor when technically, someone could walk in at any moment. Maybe it wasn’t likely, but the doors weren’t locked, and Lance didn’t expect any of his friends to come in, but it wasn’t impossible.

His own body clenched up at the thought. He would be in so much trouble, but even just thinking about someone seeing this had him right on the edge. And then Jamie rolled his hips in the exact right way, and starbursts of pleasure exploded through Lance’s whole body as his lips captured Jamie’s once more.

As he kissed him, he let himself go. He spilled his seed onto Jamie’s cock, which only made things more slippery, made them glide together a bit more erratically as Lance hunched his body up toward the stimulation, the last remnants of his pleasure lingering in his blood as his muscles slowly relaxed.

As the last traces of his release faded, he got to watch as Jamie’s whole body clenched, as the beautiful man thrust up against him a few more times and then there was the slippery, salty wetness coating them again as Jamie came, too.

There had never been a sight as beautiful in the whole entire world as Jamie’s face when he was taken over by pleasure. Lance found himself glad that he’d come first, that he’d been able to take the time, in the afterglow of his own release, to just watch Jamie. It was like shutters came down from behind his eyes, like his face lit up from within, like, for a moment, just a split second, there were no barriers between them at all.

And then, the moment was over. The change was gradual, but those shutters closed again, and Jamie’s face become closed off once more. It was funny because Lance hadn’t even known that Jamie was wearing the mask at all, not until he let it slip.

The man that he saw under there, Lance would swear, was different from how he chose to present himself to the world. The question was, why? Lance was far too interested in figuring that out, considering that this man was still not someone that he could even be with.

But he could be his friend, right? Lance rolled off of Jamie, lying on his back on the floor, feeling the cool, glossy wood warm as it rested against the sweaty, heated skin of his back. He kept his arm around Jamie’s shoulders, though it probably wasn’t a good idea to cuddle. He couldn’t help it. He was a cuddly person.

“So … if your relationship with Ken is fake,” Jamie slowly commented, as he rested his head lightly, his reddish curls just barely brushing over Lance’s chest, almost, but not quite, resting against him. “Then what happens if you and I got caught doing this?”

The question felt like a blow to the stomach, or maybe more like the sharp point of a knife scratching against his heart. Not because Jamie sounded upset, because he didn’t. Jamie was just pointing something out that should have been obvious to Lance, which would have been obvious to him if he hadn’t been so damn caught up in his own pleasure.

“Lester could fire me,” Lance whispered, stricken by what he had just mindlessly done without thinking about it nearly enough. He had taken such a huge risk, and the hell of it was, he had gotten off on the very uncertainty of it. On the fact that he could be caught.

God, what was wrong with him?

“He even talked about suing me for breach of contract,” Lance continued, and he felt Jamie shifting beside him, rolling onto his side, but he deliberately avoided meeting his gaze. For whatever reason, this was already hard enough to come to grips with.

Damn it. The first person that he’d been seriously interested in since Amy, and he couldn’t have him. It hardly seemed fair, but then, losing Amy hadn’t been all that fair to start with, he supposed.

“Right,” Jamie’s voice was smooth but unrelenting, and it forced Lance to see things the way they were, just by how matter of fact he was. “So this, what just happened, it can’t happen again. You know that, right?”

Lance did know it. He might not like it, in fact, with how intense what they’d done had been, he definitely didn’t like the thought of not doing it again, but he couldn’t deny that Jamie was right. The worst thing he could do would be to let himself get attached, and with sex like that, who could blame him?

“Yeah,” Lance admitted, forcing his voice to come out strong and sure, instead of how reluctant he actually felt. He still couldn’t make himself look at Jamie. He didn’t dare, not when the eye contact that they shared was more intense than full-on screwing was with most people. “Yeah, I know.”

Jamie let out a soft sigh, and then his weight—as tentative and slight as it had been—was gone. Lance finally dared to look at him, at the back of his tousled auburn head, and the sight of his slender back and freckled shoulders, with the ends of his hair just kissing them, was devastating enough.

Why did it have to be so good to be around this guy? Why did the orgasm that he’d had have to be more satisfying than any other that he could ever remember having? Or was it just his stupid infatuation which made him feel that way?

The fact was, he had known this man for such a short time. It should be relatively easy to just not go there. They’d had this one time, and that should be enough to get the heat, the pressure, out of their systems.

Holding onto those thoughts firmly, Lance sat up, too, and started to collect his clothes. Silently, they both got dressed, and that silence stretched between them, a sensation hanging in the air between them that was almost palpable.

It wasn’t something that was bearable for Lance, so he forced a smile on his face and forced himself to look at Jamie professionally. They’d both cleaned up, and the sad thing was that there wasn’t even really any sign that anything had happened between them at all. It was once and done, really and truly, and in some way that made him sad even as he knew it was the only choice.

“Okay. We’d better get to work,” Lance said, making his voice cheerful and upbeat. Trying to pretend, even to himself, that what had happened between them didn’t mean anything to him.

It was impossible for anything to work, and if it felt difficult to him, well, he was just going to have to fake it until he made it, as the tired old saying went.

If he did it long enough, and with enough determination, surely it would eventually work? Surely he’d be able to forget that brief, vulnerable look that he’d been so sure that he’d seen on Jamie’s face?