Bas’s tattoo parlor had never been so packed. Nor so festive.
Alex and Dane had moved out from Colorado the day after Christmas and spent the past week ignoring the moving boxes in their new place by stringing all manner of New Year’s decorations around Bas’s. Both in the shop and in his apartment upstairs.
“Gotta make a good impression for the pup,” Dane had said, grinning as he and Alex bustled around. A giant red-headed elf hanging gold and silver streamers and tinsel, while his dark-haired Santa washed the sheets and left lube and a Costco-sized box of condoms on the freshly made bed.
Not that Bas didn’t appreciate it. He had plans to put the bed and condoms to good use. It’d been October since he’d seen his boyfriend—a trip out to Texas for Jacob’s birthday—and no amount of Skype or FaceTime calls since could make up for the real thing.
And it was real.
Bas believed that now, about Alex and Dane, and about him and Jacob. Five months ago, he’d been running as fast as he could away from Jacob, trying to protect them both, and now all he wanted to do was run to him, the safest place for both of them. He wanted Jacob in his arms again, under him, writhing. So what the fuck had made him think it was a good idea to invite the whole team here and delay their reunion?
Oh right, he hadn’t thought that. Dane had, and as was his way since that night he’d come out to the team, he’d rallied everyone behind him. A New Year’s party for the squad, a housewarming for him and Alex, and a chance for Bas to ink their team tattoos. Even Mo was flying out, through Vegas, where he’d connected on the same flight with Jacob. They’d sent Bas a selfie from the plane—Mo ruffling the curls his boyfriend had grown back, at Bas’s urging. Bas couldn’t wait to weave his fingers through the dirty-blond tangles, draw Jacob’s face in close, taste his—
“Mind out of the gutter, Stewart.”
Bas looked up from the table of supplies he was preparing and glared at his best friend. “I’m wishing evil thoughts on your boy right now.”
Alex leaned against the chair, hands splayed. “You could have said no.”
Bas’s gaze skated over Alex’s shoulder, to Kevin and Mike pulling bottles of champagne out of the fridge, to Leah, Sean, and Natalie standing nearby chatting, to their other teammates wandering around, talking and admiring the tattoo designs that covered the shop walls. They weren’t all getting inked tonight, that’d be too much work, but they’d be in town for the week, dropping in and hanging out, celebrating their victories. And tonight, on New Year’s Eve, celebrating the end of one year and the start of the next.
No, he couldn’t have said no. Bas wouldn’t have wanted to pass this up. Or the chance to hold Alex to his promise. Bas accepting Dane’s party idea was as much about peer pressure as anything.
“You really going to let me ink you?” Bas said.
“We made a deal, didn’t we? We won the gold.” Alex crossed his arms, fingers digging into his biceps. Yes, they’d made a deal, but obviously Alex still didn’t like the idea. Terrified of needles, he’d avoided the tattoo tradition through college and the last Olympics.
“We did make a deal,” Bas said. “But I know this—” he lifted the tattoo machine “—is not your idea of fun.”
Alex shook his head. “We’ve won, in the pool and out of it.” Smiling, he glanced over his shoulder at Dane, who was at the center of the melee up front. “We’ve all conquered fears this year,” he said, turning his dark eyes back to Bas. “Think it’s time I conquered my last one too.”
Bas walked around the end of the chair and yanked his best friend into a hug. “All right, then. You wanna go first? Get it over with?”
Alex paled but nodded. “Think that’s probably best.”
“You are the captain.” Bas grabbed the tattoo machine and slapped Alex’s shoulder. The sound was echoed up front by the pop of champagne corks.
“What are you fools doing?” Alex shouted, sounding exactly like Coach. “You’re not supposed to do that until everyone is here.”
Sean lifted his arm, the one not curled around Natalie, and pointed at the door. “Everyone is here.”
Bas had missed the jingle of the doorbell, its tinkling muffled by the crowd noise. Teammates parting, Bas saw Dane and his mentor, Mo, clenched in a hug. The door closed and out from behind them stepped Jacob.
Motionless by the chair, Bas swept his eyes over his boyfriend. Dressed in jeans, a hoodie, and the I am the Real Dread Pirate Roberts T-shirt Bas had given him for his birthday, Jacob looked beautiful and rested, not strung out like he had been in October, juggling Bas’s visit with midterms. Things were good at home with his family too, Bas knew, from their nightly calls.
Eyes trained on Bas, Jacob smiled big, flashing his adorably crooked front teeth. Standing there, his face lit with the twinkling Christmas lights Dane had strung and the flashing neon Tattoo sign in the front window, Jacob looked at home.
In Bas’s home.
This was the start of their story.
Alex slipped the tattoo machine from his hand and slapped his ass. “Go.”
Bas made it two steps before Jacob dropped his bags and lunged, slamming into him and going right for a kiss. Bas ignored the whistles and catcalls of his teammates, enthusiastically returning his boyfriend’s greeting.
“I missed you,” Jacob mumbled against his lips.
“I missed you too.” Parting, Bas framed Jacob’s beautiful face in his hands, thumbs brushing over scruffy cheeks. “It’s good seeing you here.”
“It’s good to be here.”
More champagne corks popped. “Let’s get this party started,” Dane declared.
The team cheered in agreement, and Jacob dropped another quick kiss on Bas’s lips. “Work fast,” he said, eyes heating.
“You got it.” Bas turned and took the machine back from a grinning Alex. “Cap’s up first.”
Party winding down, Jacob snuck into the dressing room at the rear of Bas’s shop. Back turned to the mirror, he untaped the bandage and admired the new ink on his right delt. The same style as his other tattoo, this one—a red, white, and blue war eagle with Olympic rings stretched between its wings—was an ode to their captain’s Mexican-American heritage and also to the war they’d waged to finally get the gold. It was meaningful and perfect, something he could show others with pride, just like his Longhorn tattoo. Josh had been right. The ink had drastically increased Jacob’s coolness factor this past semester. Or maybe that had more to do with his three Olympic medals. Or his gorgeous boyfriend who’d shown up midsemester and whisked Jacob away to his hotel room between exams.
Just thinking about that week—a whirlwind of torturous midterms, Bas making sure he ate and slept, and then, when his tests were over, torture of a different, much better, sort—made Jacob’s already hard problem even harder.
Jacob wanted that again, the glasses of champagne he’d guzzled before straddling the tattoo chair only adding fuel to the fire. But he didn’t want to pressure Bas, who’d worked for hours on the first round of team tattoos. Instead of worrying about where his dick was going to go, Jacob should be massaging the broad shoulders that had started to slump under the ink-stained T-shirt, or helping pull up the dreads that had come loose from Bas’s topknot, or making a run to In-N-Out for food.
He glanced down at his tented jeans. Er, maybe not yet.
“All right, all right.” Dane’s extra-long, champagne-slurred drawl echoed from the front of the shop, as did the answering laughs. “Let’s get out of here and leave the lovebirds to it. Brunch at our place in the morning.”
“I can’t promise it’s unpacked,” Alex added.
According to Bas, it wasn’t unpacked at all, except the kitchen. For Dane’s home cooking, Jacob would gladly eat off boxes. Hell, he’d even help unpack a few.
“Anyone need me to write down the address?” Alex said.
“You emailed it to us, Cap,” Sean replied, as the bell over the front door jingled, again and again, the team filing out.
“Night, Pup,” Dane hollered.
Jacob poked his head and arm out from between the dressing room curtains, waving. “See you tomorrow.”
He slipped back into the dressing room, fixed the bandage on his delt, and unbuttoned his jeans, attempting to fix something else. Only to have the curtain wrenched open midadjustment. Jacob’s eyes darted up and met Bas’s in the mirror, just as they had that night five months ago. Different mirror, different color on the walls and curtains, but Bas’s eyes were the same blazing blue as they had been then.
“Problem?” he asked.
Jacob’s confidence, between then and now, was also radically different. He still blushed, no help for that, but he made no bones about his invitation. “Not uncommon, I understand. Want to help me solve it?”
Bas accepted the invite, closing the distance between them and laying a hand on his back. “Pull it out,” he rumbled in Jacob’s ear.
Pushing his jeans and boxers down, waistbands half over his ass, Jacob reached his other hand in and freed his cock, stroking himself and letting his boyfriend see what he’d done to him.
Bas reached a hand around, covering Jacob’s and stroking him together. “You were so fucking beautiful that night.” His other hand caressed the dimples in his back, then drifted down, teasing his crack. “Tonight too.”
Jacob rested his head on Bas’s shoulder and kissed the underside of his jaw. “When you caught me that night, I was imagining this.” He thrust into their grip, moisture coating their fingers and slicking the strokes.
Bending his head, Bas licked and nibbled at the crook of his neck. “How’s the real thing compare?”
“Better.” But there was something better still. Moving a hand behind him, he palmed Bas’s cock through his jeans, gliding up and down the hard length. “It’d be even better if you fucked me.”
Groaning, Bas dragged his open mouth up Jacob’s neck, to his mouth, before he rotated Jacob and dove into a kiss that left Jacob weak, only Bas’s arms around him holding him up. When Bas stepped back to drop his pants and boxer-briefs and roll on a condom, Jacob slouched against the wall and enjoyed the view, so much better in person than on Skype. Until Bas tossed his shirt and Jacob’s attention was drawn to the bandage over his left pec.
“Your team tattoo?” he ventured. Bas usually reserved his arms, shoulders, and back for those, the only ink on the left side of his chest the JE tattoo Jacob had made peace with. But maybe this summer had changed that.
Bas shook his head. “I’ll get one of my staff to do the team tat.”
“Then what’s—”
His words died as Bas removed the bandage, exposing the tattoo underneath. If Jacob thought his head was spinning before, it was a tilt-a-whirl now. He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him, but he had to get a closer look, touch what his eyes could hardly believe. He reached out a shaking hand, and gently traced the lines of the familiar design, still a little pink around the edges. He must have had it done a couple of weeks ago.
Hand to his cheek, Bas brushed a kiss against his temple. “It’s okay, Pup?”
At a loss for words, Jacob nodded, eyes blurring as they drifted again to the J and B stenciled into the snout of the Longhorn tattoo, an otherwise perfect match to his own. Right over where the previous two letters had been inked.
Over Bas’s heart.
A breathy “Bas” was all Jacob could manage.
“I know you’re young,” Bas said, caressing his cheek. “And this, us, is young. We don’t know where it’ll lead.” He lowered his hand, covering Jacob’s where it rested just to the side of the new tattoo. “But I want you here. I love you, Jacob.”
They’d never said the words. Jacob had felt them—in Madrid over the summer, in Texas this past fall, in his own heart and in Bas’s kisses, and in the way Bas made love to him—but Jacob had held back from saying them, still cautious of asking too much, from Bas and himself. They had committed to giving this thing between them a shot. To stay. With Bas’s words now, and with the manifestation of that love inked on his skin, Jacob, filled with confidence, decided to risk asking for more.
“I have enough credits to graduate early, at the end of this summer. I talked to Dane, and with my CompSci degree, I’m going to come work for him, at his new programming company.”
“Come work for him?”
“Here, in LA.” Jacob glanced up from the tattoo, meeting Bas’s wide eyes. “If that’s okay with you?”
“But what about Davis? I can’t take you away from him if he needs you.”
Bas and Davis had clicked from first meeting, his dad confessing he’d known there was more between them as far back as Madrid, having noticed his dog tags around Bas’s neck that day on the phone. Now, Bas asked about his dad on every call, understanding how important he was to Jacob. It meant the world to Jacob that Bas would sacrifice his own happiness for Jacob’s father’s. He—they—didn’t have to, though.
“My father has PTSD,” Jacob said. “He’s doing well, not a single flashback the past six months. And he has a new fiancée, who also happens to be a nurse.”
“He and Darlene made it official?”
Jacob nodded, smiling. “‘Didn’t want to waste any more time,’ he said. And Josh’s parents are right across the street too. My dad’s in good hands.”
Bas lifted his own, framing Jacob’s face. “Will you be? Are you sure?”
Angling his face, Jacob kissed first one, then the other of Bas’s palms, loving how Bas always held him so gently, so safely. He craved that strong, gentle hold every day. “I may be young,” he said, “but I love you, Sebastian, and I want to be with you, here. Can I stay?”
Arms wrapping around him, one hand cradling his head, the other protecting the tender spot on his shoulder, Bas pushed him back against the wall and kissed him long and deep. Jacob groaned into his mouth, lifting a leg over his hip and grinding their cocks together. Bas slid a hand around, teasing open Jacob’s hole, readying him. Several minutes and two fingers later, Jacob ripped his mouth away, head falling back in Bas’s hand. “Is that a yes?”
Bas righted his face, pressing their foreheads together. “Fuck yes, I want you here. Move in with me.”
He dove for another kiss, and Jacob dodged. “On one condition.” Bas lifted a brow, and Jacob lowered his hand over Bas’s heart and the new tattoo. “Add your initials to mine too. Mark me. Claim what’s yours.”
Growling, Bas hauled him up, then slowly slid inside him, controlling Jacob’s descent so the pressure wouldn’t burn too much. Always looking out for him, always keeping him safe.
Jacob wound his arms around Bas’s neck, gaining leverage to pull himself up and drop back down, riding Bas’s cock. “Will you do that for me?” He loosened Bas’s dreads, and they fell around them, creating the cocoon Jacob loved so much.
Bas kissed him rough, thrusting up and hitting that spot inside of Jacob. “Yeah, I’ll mark you.” He kissed him deeper, thrusting faster, neither of them able to hold out long for this first reunion. “I’ll claim you.” Wrapping a hand around Jacob’s cock, he stroked him right to the edge, hips pumping in time. “Just like you’ve claimed me. I love you, Jacob.”
“Love you too,” tumbled from Jacob’s lips as he came.