Feet
The first thing that surprised Mac about weeks three and four of his training at The Gym was that it wasn’t the clients he had to worry about.
“Man, I’m fucking dying here,” he panted, fighting the very real urge to vomit.
“Don’t be a tiny little baby, Mac. You can do one more, and then I’ll let you cool down.”
“I would kick your sorry ass right now. If I could breathe. Or see.”
Travis laughed.
Weight training on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He was supposed to be doing cardio on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but at this point he was happy when he could stay upright for a whole shift.
“You’ll get used to it,” Travis told him on Wednesday, when they were finishing up. He patted Mac’s thigh. “We’ll get you built and then you’ll know exactly what all the pain was for.”
“Is Mac questioning your methods?” Coach called over.
“He look dumb to you, Coach?”
“Nope.”
Coach’s voice had an unexpectedly hot effect on Mac’s guts, and he was glad he’d been lifting hard enough to hide whatever was happening on his skin right now. He’d hardly seen Coach since he left last Friday, and it was stupid, but he missed Coach’s voice. Missed his everything.
“Looking good, Mac,” Coach said, walking over to offer a hand.
“Thanks, Coach.”
Travis laughed again. “Coach, you’re such a fucking slut. Let’s do this again Friday, Mac.”
“Yes, drill sergeant.” When Travis’s face fell, Mac remembered. “Aw, shit, I didn’t mean—”
“I know. It’s cool. Drill sergeants are supposed to be pretty ruthless, so it’s really a compliment. Don’t worry about it.” He waved and walked toward the hall and Mac didn’t even realize he’d clenched his fists until Coach held out a hand, flat, in front of his eyes.
“His fear is not on you.”
“Well, the fact that right now he’s thinking about his brother dying on a front line somewhere’s at least a little on me.”
“He’s also aware that you respect him, and that you pay close enough attention to apologize for reminding him.”
Mac shook his head. “You want me to tell you it’s cool I just made Travis think about his brother when his head should be here, or at least at home?”
“I want you to understand that you don’t have control over other people’s emotional responses.”
“You know when you say shit like that I hear blah blah blah, right?”
Coach smiled. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks, Mac.”
“Me too.” Oh fuck. “I mean—”
Maintenance started setting stuff up, chatting to each other. Jem appeared, grinned, and went to the touch screen on the wall inside the arch to activate the computers so clients could start logging in.
“Check in with me after shift,” Coach said.
“Uh, sure.”
He rolled his eyes and called, “Jem? Make sure your roommate checks in with me after shift.”
“He’s my ride home, so I can do that for you, Coach.”
“Sharing a commute?”
“Seems stupid not to,” Mac muttered. “I gotta go shower.”
“Don’t forget to smoke first.”
He shot Coach a sour look and escaped.
The roof was, as ever, peaceful. Halfway through his cigarette Lupe arrived, and stood beside him at the wall, looking up into the sky.
“You buff yet, hermanito?”
“Bite me, Lupe.”
She laughed, blowing smoke into the wind. “Everything’s going well, as far as I can see. You’re performing when you need to, engaged when you can be.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Good boy.”
This wasn’t the paternal thing Coach did, it was something else, and Mac let himself accept it.
“You’ve been watching?”
“Honey, everyone’s been watching.”
“Do they always do that?” It was his least favorite part. Staying on the floor right now was his insurance, the way that The Gym protected him before he was free to go into the private rooms with clients, but Mac could hardly wait to be free of the floor. Eyes everywhere.
Lupe took another drag before answering. “Yes. We always watch the new people, both for entertainment, and because it’s the way Coach and the Professor ensure that when you are most vulnerable, you are also most supervised.”
“I’m getting a real but on the end of that sentence, sister.”
She pressed her lips to her fingers and touched his heart tattoo. “You are already the man who moved into Jem’s house. You are the man who didn’t bat an eyelash when you found out my dirty little secret.” She paused. “Well. Hardly little.”
“I thought women say size doesn’t matter.”
“The right man can make his size a non-issue. But a little bit of size can make up for a whole lot of wrong in a man.” She waved her cigarette and continued. “There is a rumor that you went into a rage and yelled at the Professor, which is intriguing for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that the people in a position to know you were even mad at her would not be spreading that story.”
No. Lupe and Jem would never say anything like that. “I guess Punky knew I was pissed that night.”
“And if she did, than others may have as well. When you didn’t return to the floor, perhaps the myth formed itself. In any case, it adds to your mystique.”
“Huh.”
“No one’s saying much about Coach, which—given how devoted he is to your training—is even more interesting.”
“Wait, what?”
She only smiled. “Do not act dumb with me. You aren’t tripping over his heels in puppy mode the way Jem did, but when he says ‘jump,” you jump.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Oh, Coach. Coach is the point. It’s pretty rare he tells anyone to jump, honey. That makes you special, but he’s been careful to hide it, which is good for you.”
Mac contemplated this as he finished his cigarette—the entire cigarette, now that he had a little bit of money to his name—but he couldn’t come up with anything clever to say. Or anything real. So he said nothing at all and waited until Lupe was done to follow her back down to the locker room.
His clients had mostly been cool. Walking through the arch on Wednesday was the most relaxed he’d been since he started working there, and he was ready for almost anything.
Or so he thought, for most of his shift. Blowjobs, hand jobs, rub downs, teasing, “helping” in a way that left him open for fondling (which he pretended not to notice). All pretty common stuff. When a guy bent him over and fucked him, Mac was momentarily panicked, but the guy took his time, and Jem made sure he was directly in Mac’s line of sight until they were through.
Being fucked in the ass on the floor? Not really something he looked forward to doing again, but then again, not nearly as difficult as he’d thought it would be. And the guy, Joey, shook his hand before heading to the showers. “Good fuck, man.”
“You too,” Mac replied, automatically, about thirty seconds before he understood he almost meant it.
Jem squeezed both of his shoulders as he walked past, on the way to a private room with a client Mac thought might be the famous Malcolm, though he wasn’t sure. Travis definitely nodded approval.
Right. Travis probably knew exactly. Because he was straight and married, and he still let clients bend him over on the floor. Because that was the job, and it was a pretty damn good job.
Mac stood a little straighter and went back to work.
Everything was totally cool until the last hour. Which was when a skinny lady with blond hair in a ponytail approached him. “Hey, new guy.”
The opening was a variation on what pretty much everyone had been saying this week.
“I’m Mac,” he said.
“I’m Seely. Um, you’re not allowed in the private rooms yet, right?”
“Not yet. A week and a half, though.”
“Oh, um, sure.” She giggled. “I don’t even know why I led with that. I actually like staying out here.”
Mac raised his eyebrows. He’d been working on being flirtatious, even though he felt like an idiot. He’d picked up the eyebrow-raise from Jem, and it worked like a charm on Seely.
She giggled again. “Can I take your shoes off?” His confusion must have showed, because she added, “I like feet.”
“Oh. Sure.” She likes feet. Right. What does that mean? “Should I sit down, or—”
“Yeah. You have to sit down. I usually take the bench, there.”
“Okay.”
Mac sat down and she lifted each foot with reverence, untying his shoes, carefully peeling down his socks. He wanted to apologize for any foot odor, except before he’d figured out how to do that flirtatiously, she began to lick him.
His foot. Specifically his toes.
Mac squirmed, but Seely only held tighter.
Okay, seriously, what the fuck?
“Your feet are so fucking sexy,” she whispered, just before taking his big toe into her mouth and sucking on it.
It probably should have been hot—this woman sucking any part of his body should have been hot—but Mac’s brain was so totally shocked and flustered his dick wasn’t exactly showing up for duty.
He wanted to stop her, but obviously this was also the job. And it wasn’t making him uncomfortable like he felt like she was taking advantage; it was making him uncomfortable like he couldn’t decide if he was going to laugh or cry or scream.
Seely, oblivious, continued to tongue-fuck his toes. And moan. She’d started moaning.
Mac tried to get the look off his face that must be broadcasting how horrified he was, but it was fucking hard, because now she seemed to be bathing his toes. With her tongue. And lips. And ohfuck, god, no, not his arch, no, he couldn’t laugh, but it tickled, fuck—
“Oh man, your foot is so fucking hard,” she said, and began undressing the other one.
Seely eventually came rubbing one of his feet against her crotch while sucking the toes of the other one. He had to prop himself backwards on the bench to make it work, and he was seriously regretting all those squats Travis made him do. But at least she seemed happy, and she put his shoes and socks back on with reverence.
“Thanks, new guy. See you around.”
Oh, I sincerely hope not.
It was probably bad form to avoid clients, right? Then again, the floor was pretty open, so aside from hiding out in the pool area, there wasn’t really anywhere to go.
A guy he barely knew approached. When he spoke, his voice was low. “You’re done. Come on.”
He was done in a lot of ways, not the least in his head, because some lady just spent ages sucking on his fucking toes, so Mac followed the guy upstairs. He wasn’t exactly shocked when the guy kind of placed him in the kitchen.
“I’m Rhys again.”
“Mac.”
Rhys nodded. “I know.”
“Yeah. Right. Uh.” Mac didn’t know what to say. And he didn’t want to talk shit about clients—both because it was tacky, and because Coach was kind of a bitch about it—but…shit. Toes.
People started filling the kitchen and the locker room, but for the most part Mac just sat there until Jem arrived.
“What’s up with Mac?”
“Seely,” Rhys said. (Rhys was still there? Mac had lost track of him while contemplating his toes, now covered in saliva, which was definitely not something that had ever happened before.)
A chorus of “oh” and “ah” met the woman’s name, and Mac finally looked up.
“She fuck your feet?” Travis asked.
“Um. I guess?”
“Nah, then she didn’t. You’d know if she had.”
“Hey, it was their first time. Seely doesn’t go all in until at least the third time,” one of the other guys said.
“She had me and Trav tag-team her last time. Remember, Trav?”
“Yeah. She fucked my feet while she blew you. I’m just saying, one of us got—”
“My happy little family, all gathered in one place to support their newest arrival,” Coach said, and who knew how long he’d been standing there.
Travis dropped his eyes. “Anyway, she’s all right, as long as you don’t laugh.”
“I couldn’t fucking help it,” yet another guy said, this one was named Miller, Mac thought. “I’m super ticklish. It’s not my fault!”
“Mac did good,” Rhys said. “Though you’ll probably want to look a little less like you’re getting an enema next time. Seely doesn’t notice, but some of the fetish clients need you to look really into it.”
Mac nodded, a little numbly, because this was a pretty fucking surreal conversation.
People started clearing out, since Coach’s presence meant the conversation wasn’t going to any really exciting places. (Jem had explained this to Mac over the weekend, after they’d talked about Coach, and the Professor thinking maybe he was taking Mac home. “Coach isn’t as much of a wet blanket as the Professor, as far as the staff’s concerned, but he’s still The Man.” When Mac had only shaken his head, dumbfounded, Jem had kissed his cheek. “You and me both, Mac.” They didn’t go into it, but Jem wouldn’t have been real shocked about his slip earlier, admitting he sort of missed Coach.)
And anyway, on the subject of missing Coach, there he went, to his office.
Jem winked across the table. “We should take showers.”
Showered and fresh, they met back at their lockers.
“I’ll wait here,” Jem said.
“Why? Come with me.”
“Coach didn’t invite me.”
“I’m just checking in or something, Jem. And I’m clocked out. Come on.” Also, it would have been seriously fucked up to leave Jem, who considered Coach family, out in the locker room. When he still looked like he needed convincing, Mac rolled his eyes. “Coach will kick you out if he wants to, right? Nothing to lose.”
“That sounds familiar. Like I might have said it last week.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
Jem seemed to debate putting up more of a fuss, but decide against it. “Okay. We’ll see if he minds.”
“Uh huh.”
Coach, naturally, did not mind.
“My boys.” He smiled at them from his desk. “Come in. Talk amongst yourselves for a minute.”
“Talk amongst ourselves, ha, Coach.” Jem tugged him across to a couch. “So, Seely.”
Mac shuddered. “Dude. Don’t remind me.”
“Do you not like anyone touching your feet? Or do you just object to someone with a fetish touching your feet?”
“You think there’s a difference?”
“Hm.” Jem laid his head back to stare at the ceiling. Beyond him, Coach glanced over. “For me, yeah. I don’t have a problem with fetishes or people who have fetishes, but some of them—huh. That’s so weird. I guess it feels like some of them take something that should be intimate and make it cheap. But I don’t want to feel that way. I didn’t know I did feel that way.”
Mac considered it, but he didn’t have a huge frame of reference. “I don’t think I want anyone touching my feet, but then again, no one does.”
“I touched your feet.” Coach sat down across from them.
“Yeah, well, you don’t count.”
He smiled, but didn’t allow the distraction. “Was it different with me?”
“Coach, this woman, like, licked them. And sucked my toes.” Mac shuddered again.
“Hmm. I wonder if we should do a little experiment.” Coach stood up and reseated himself on the coffee table thing. When he reached for one of Mac’s legs, Mac shook his head.
“Uh. I don’t think, um, I’m not sure—”
Jem interrupted. “Coach, you sit on the other side. You, Mac, come here.”
“Where?”
Jem pulled him insistently down, until he was lying with his head on Jem’s thigh. He still tensed up when Coach moved.
“Hey.” Jem carded fingers through his hair. (Which, to be fair, was something Jem really liked to do at home, when they cuddled and steadfastly did not kiss.) “It’s not good for me with clients. Not the foot thing. But with people I care about, that changes. You want to try it?”
Not fair. Not fair when Coach was already pulling his feet over so he was lying across both of them.
“Jem could do this side and I could do the soothing comfort thing,” Coach offered.
“How would that help?” Mac stared at him through slitted eyes.
“The power dynamic’s different. You might be more willing to accept pleasure from someone you don’t see as having power over you.”
“I’ve accepted pleasure from you before, Coach.”
“Bet your ass you have.”
Jem laughed. “Next time, you guys should invite me to play, too. Sounds hot.”
“Oh, Mac is definitely hot.” Coach pulled off his shoes. “Yes or no, Mac?”
“It’s not a commitment,” Jem said, still playing with his hair. “If it freaks you out more than it turns you on, we’ll stop.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s always true. It’s just that usually the stuff we try turns you on more than it freaks you out.”
“Shut up, Jem.”
Jem leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I like it when you let us in.”
“So do I,” Coach added, fingers toying with his socks, massaging the skin beneath them.
Bastards. “You guys don’t play fair.” Mac pulled Jem’s arm down over his eyes. “Fine,” he mumbled.
“If Mac had a higher level of training, we could restrain him and give him a real blindfold.”
Mac groaned.
“We’re off the clock, Coach—”
“No, Jem. We are not restraining Mac.” Mac had time to think Thank god before Coach added, “That’s a different kink. Tonight we’re doing feet.”
Did that mean they’d restrain him some other night? Oh shit.
Coach’s hands, sure and strong, kept massaging him through his socks. “I don’t have a foot fetish. But I do delight in my partner’s body.”
“Do you have any actual fetishes, Coach?” Jem asked. “I don’t think I have any, like, real fetishes.”
“None that I have yet discovered.”
“I think it sounds kind of interesting, having a fetish.” Jem’s fingers felt so fucking good it made Mac ashamed he couldn’t possibly give this comfort, which was more about affection than sex, back to him. “But all the things I thought I needed to get off—I kind of don’t. Like dick, you know?”
This wasn’t a joke. And Coach didn’t treat it like one.
“The Professor thinks this place is my fetish.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, she doesn’t mean as a judgement. She’s trying to be helpful.”
“Uh, really?”
“She made that observation after I hadn’t gone back to the house in a few days. Now I go back to the house, and she keeps her observations to herself about how much I need The Gym to survive.”
Mac pushed away Jem’s arm and opened his eyes. “You go to the house by yourself, Coach?”
“Mm, that’s an irritating insightful streak of yours, Mac. Yeah, that was her point. This is the only place I can claim to have companionship of any kind, barring the clerk at the grocery store, and all of you work for me.”
“We clocked out,” Jem said.
Coach sighed. “You don’t count, my Jem.”
“Thank god for that. I was about to be offended. You know you can’t get rid of me, right? Like, you could fire me, but I’d probably still hang around your truck after shift and force you to interact with me.”
But Coach didn’t exactly believe that. He smiled and didn’t argue, but Mac thought he was still thinking about the Professor’s words, whatever they’d been.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
Instead of rushing it, Mac considered. The only way to get a real answer out of Coach was to be very specific, or he’d dodge. But if Mac asked the wrong question, he’d declare it off limits.
“Why do you go home alone? The Professor stays here, and she obviously wanted you to take me with you so she’s not possessive. So why do you go home alone, if that’s not what you want?”
“How do you know it isn’t?”
Jem made a noise in the back of his throat. “Obviously if the Professor’s on your ass about it, it can’t be.”
One of Coach’s hands began massaging Mac’s calf while the other peeled off his sock. “Finding lovers—even finding casual partners—takes time and energy I’d rather not spend. This place is not my fetish. I’m useful here, and it will take all the time and energy I allow it.”
“Hm,” Jem murmured. “I’m hearing that we’re really serving Coach’s need for intimacy right now. Is that what you’re hearing, Mac?”
But Mac couldn’t speak because Coach leaned down to suck his big toe, and he almost scrambled off the couch.
“Whoa, boy.” Jem’s hands held his shoulders. “So no feet for you.”
“Oh god, that’s so fucking horrible.” Mac tried not to jerk his legs into the fetal position and hide his face, but it was hard.
Coach shifted, placing both of his hands over Mac’s jeans-covered thighs and leaving them there. “I have another idea. This one I know you have some interest in, and while it isn’t as common as a foot fetish, we do see it from time to time.” He reached out. It took Mac maybe thirty entire seconds to realize Coach was waiting for his hand, and then to un-latch it from the protective comfort of Jem’s arm.
“What’re you gonna do?” he asked. Okay, whispered.
“Show you something new. Well. Newish.” Coach pressed his lips to Mac’d palm—no—to the part of his palm that formed the base of his middle finger.
Warmth. Hint of wet.
He kissed, then stayed, lips moving just slightly. Looking right at Mac, gaze so fucking intense Mac could hardly breathe.
Coach’s tongue snaked down and began to play with the sensitive center of his palm, and Mac gasped.
That, that, was incredible. Coach was tongue-fucking his goddamn palm right now, both sensual and obscene, and Mac bit his lip to keep from begging.
Then Coach’s tongue moved up, wrapped around his middle finger, bathed the space between his middle and index fingers, and shit, yeah, okay, feet were a definite no, but hands were a definite maybe.
“Oh damn,” Jem breathed. “That’s so fucking hot. I may have to take it back, about not having a fetish.”
Without even knowing he was about to speak, Mac said, “Me too.”
Coach sucked each of his fingers like little dicks, but when he got to Mac’s thumb, he bit the pad of it, teeth flashing, and Mac groaned.
He couldn’t look away. If Vesuvius blew right now, beside them, Mac figured he’d turn to ash just like this, with Coach’s teeth framing a very small patch of his skin, and Coach’s tongue fucking it.
“Guh.” Jem tugged his hair. “Like this is good because it’s Coach, but if a client was doing that to you right now I’d be ‘meh’ about it.”
Mac had no idea how he’d feel about a client, but he knew damn well no client would look at him like his desires were written on his skin, and more than that, they were deliverable.
He used his other hand to pull Coach toward him, and when Coach let go of his thumb, Mac kissed him.
“Point taken,” he mumbled, shying away from the kiss, even though he’d started it.
“I assume you do not want to come that way.”
“No.”
Coach used his own thumb to draw a line across Mac’s lips. “How’s training, Mac?”
“Travis is basically a sadist.”
“Oh yeah. Hold no prisoners, that’s Trav.” Coach straightened up and Mac lay back down on Jem, who kissed his forehead.
“I think I’m good, though Jem probably knows better than I do.”
“You’re doing good. You’re still twitchy, but it’s starting to disappear with people you’ve met before. I would have sworn you were actually happy to see Edward.”
Edward, the only guy he’d fucked on the floor. The guy who’d let Lupe do him in front of Mac.
“I’m glad he didn’t want me to play boxing coach. I think he was okay with the, uh, sex part.”
“Oh, he’ll be okay with you forever. He loves Lupe. If you’d, y’know, fucked that whole thing up, Edward would have hit you.”
“Which would have been tragic, because we have a good working relationship with him,” Coach said, hands back to a light massage on Mac’s calves and feet.
Mac eyed him. “Did the Professor talk to whoever she was going to talk to, last week?”
“Above your pay grade, Mac.”
Tension ran through Jem’s body. “Kind of at mine, though, don’t you think?”
“Judge DeSoto’s been one of ours since very early on, and has a deep interest in maintaining our happy home. I trust that between he and the Professor, we won’t have any trouble.”
A non-answer. But it seemed to make Jem feel better, so Mac didn’t push it.
“Everything going well at the house?” Coach asked, with a way too subtle eye-gesture at the two of them.
“Just cuddling. We have a rule.”
“And no dating staff,” Mac added, then realized what that sounded like. “I mean, not that—not that we’d—”
Jem pinched his ear lightly. “Hold it right there, Mac. Let me dream, okay?”
“Dammit. I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, don’t be so touchy. I don’t want to date anyone. But if you were just a shade more gay—and if I was a shade more of a drunk—we would totally be fucking. Every day. Possibly multiple times, you know, so I could show you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about sex.”
“Um.” Would that be so bad? Mac didn’t want to date, either. But sex with Jem—
“No.”
“Okay, jeez.”
Jem rolled his eyes. “See that wounded puppy dog thing that just happened in your face? If we started up anything at the house, I’d be in love with you inside of five minutes, Mac. Drama. So no.”
Coach must have felt the way his whole body wigged. “Oh, you scared him, Jem.”
“I fall in love with everyone who treats me not like a piece of trash. Don’t worry about it.”
Except it wasn’t so much that he was worried, but that he hadn’t known that existed, like an idiot. He hadn’t even thought about sex and love and whatever it was that made being “in” love different than simply feeling love for someone.
Not that he felt love for Jem. Then again, not that he didn’t.
“So what about here, then?” he asked, looking up. “Coach is chaperoning. No drama.” When Jem said nothing, he got nervous. “Fine, whatever. Just, if you wanted to kiss me, you could.”
“Mac, of course I want to kiss you.” And, leaning down, he did, an awkward upside down kiss that still made Mac arch slightly into it, chasing Jem’s lips. “Exactly how straight are you?”
“Fuck. Never mind.”
“I just kissed you. Right now. And I could actually fall in love, see, which gives you a lot of power if this is just a ‘you’ll do guys if they happen to be standing in front of you’ thing.”
“You’re not standing.”
Jem kissed him again, and Mac opened for him, wishing words were as easy as kissing. His face was bracketed between Jem’s hands. “A hundred percent?” Jem sounded breathless now. “Fifty? How straight are you, roomie?”
“I never had sex with guys before here.”
“I’m not asking about sex. Being gay isn’t about sex. Or at least, I can have pretty good sex with women, but I can’t fall for one.” Jem laid a hand over his heart. “Did you fall in love with girls, Mac?”
“Fuck no.”
“What, never?”
Mac swallowed. “Whatever, Jem.”
“Did you fall in love with guys?”
“Jem, shut up.” Mac allowed himself to be distracted by Coach’s fingers, giving a dry massage now, digging into his arch. He couldn’t look at Coach, who always saw too much. He didn’t want to know.
“Monkey see, monkey do,” Coach said. “Take Jem’s hand, Mac.”
Yeah, okay. Because this was just training, and because Jem was right, all of it was a pretty bad idea outside The Gym, but inside all bets were off.
He reached for Jem’s hand and brought it to his lips. Jem’s hands were built like the rest of him: pale, and slender, and stronger than they looked. Mac kissed the heel of his hand and let his lips drag over to Jem’s pinky, trying to curl his tongue around the sexy way Coach had done, which felt a little like being blown and a little like being kissed, all at once.
Jem tasted like himself. No fruit, no flavors from his soap, just the earthy real taste of Jem, and Mac closed his eyes so they couldn’t see that even though he was sucking on a pinky finger, he was thinking about how much stronger Jem would taste if this was his cock.
He kept going, taking his time, finishing all the fingers before tonguing Jem’s palm with a lot less finesse than Coach. When he moved to Jem’s thumb, sucking in only the tip, Jem’s breath caught.
“Jesus.”
Good, yeah, someone else should be undone for once.
Mac nibbled, sucked, ran his tongue up and down the length of Jem’s thumb until Jem moved, restlessly shifting, breaths rasping in the otherwise quiet room.
He pulled off, slowly, lingering over the tip of Jem’s thumb again like it was his cock, not quite kissing it. Except that without the focus of fingers and skin, Mac didn’t know where to look.
“Jesus, Mac.” Jem kissed him, his lips, his cheek, his forehead. “I’m gonna have wet dreams about you having sex with my hand.”
Mac flushed. “Shut up.”
“Huh uh. No. That was hot. I’m so hard I can feel my pulse in my dick.” His thigh shifted again. “Jesus.”
His dick, so close to Mac’s head; all he’d have to do was turn over. “Do you want me to—I mean—” He broke off.
“Do I want you to what?” Jem asked, eyes narrow.
Coach’s hands shifted, digging into the meat of his calf, and Mac chose to take that as encouragement.
“I could suck you off. I kind of—for a minute, I pretended that’s what I was doing.”
“Yeah, no, so did I. Oh my god.” Another kiss and Jem lingered, face close. “If you blow me, I control it.”
“Um.” What did that mean? “You gonna skull-fuck me, like—”
Jem’s thumb slid back into his mouth, pressing down on his tongue. “No. I’m gonna show you what I want and you’re gonna let me.”
The words you’re gonna let me shot straight to Mac’s sex brain, making his dick hard. Right, Jem was toppy, now he remembered. Jem didn’t want to lie back while someone slowly took him apart. He wanted to direct it.
Hell if Mac didn’t want to let him.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Oh god. This is a supremely bad idea.” Jem brushed his wet thumb down Mac’s lower lip, pressing him open. “We can never do this at the house, do you understand?”
Mac nodded.
“On your knees.”
At some point, Mac was really going to have to face facts about how much he liked to be ordered, at least by Coach and Jem. And probably Lupe.
Not now, though. Now, he was going to suck Jem’s cock. Right. Just another normal day at The Gym.
“Coach, if you want to call this off, now’s the time.”
Coach gave Mac back his feet, then waited until he’d knelt before moving the coffee table back and settling on it again. Just behind Mac.
He was now kneeling between both of them. Mac bit down on his tongue, shoulders hunching a little. At least until Coach squeezed them.
“I don’t want to call it off. Be sweet to our boy, Jem.”
Mac shivered. A dozen distant memories tumbled through his mind—all the times he’d imagined being on his knees in front of a man and lashed out, as if it was the fault of beautiful men that they made him feel this way—but right now aggression was so far from him that he could barely remember it. He leaned into Coach’s hands.
“Yes?” Coach asked, sounding amused.
It took Mac a second to realize that was directed at him.
“Why don’t I want to kick Jem’s ass right now?”
“Mm. Violence is seductive, but so is desire. Right now you desire him more than you fear him.” His presence grew closer. He might have actually kissed Mac’s hair. “Desire has a better long term payoff, Mac, though the high of attack and retreat may always call to you. You can find me if it ever gets unmanageable.”
“Definitely do not attack me,” Jem added. He lifted his ass off the couch and pulled down his pants, pulling them entirely off.
Jem’s cock. He was hard, real hard, and his cock kind of slanted off to the right. He tugged a few times and Mac watched, wondering if Jem always used his left hand, or if he was now because that’s the hand Mac had—sucked, and tongued, and played with.
“Kneel up.” Jem’s voice was pebbled with restraint.
He rose, no longer at eye level, but Jem reached a hand to his hair.
“Will you take off your shirt? I love your ink, Mac. I love the stories you tell with your skin. Like Coach.”
“Such a good idea.” Coach’s shirt landed off to the side, and it wasn’t really a surprise when his hands gripped Mac’s and pulled up.
“Hey. Mac.” Jem paused. “Yes or no?”
What Lupe had asked.
Mac looked up. “Yes. Can we do this now? Please?”
“You want me to be gentle?”
“You want me to kick your ass?”
Jem grinned, and they were back to normal. Then Jem grabbed his face with one hand and pulled it closer, which wasn’t exactly normal, but was good.
Damn good. Especially when Jem said, “Open your mouth.”
He opened, but Jem didn’t give it to him right away. He made Mac kneel there, with his mouth hanging open, staring at Jem’s cock. He could sense it on his tongue, not as a taste, as a scent.
“You want it? You want me to fuck your face?”
Mac swallowed. Shit. But when a sharp tug on his hair forced his eyes up, Jem was smiling. “Come on. Make it good. Tell me how much you want it. It’ll make it better for both of us.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jem. His friend. Yeah, he could probably say this, if it’d please Jem.
“Fuck my face,” Mac mumbled. “Fuck my throat, Jem.”
“I might. If I think you’ve earned it. Open your mouth again.”
He obeyed, grateful for the pressure of Coach’s hands, never leaving his shoulders.
Jem stroked his dick, pulling Mac closer. “Let me see your tongue.”
Mac obeyed, glancing up, and shit, Jem was flushed, eyes wide looking down.
Right, yeah, this was Jem. The guy who said he could take more from someone he cared about than he could from just anyone with a fetish. The guy who’d been crazy turned on from Mac sucking on his fingers.
Mac leaned forward and tried to lick Jem’s cock, but Jem tightened the hand in his hair and pulled him back.
“Naughty boy. Naughty little cocksucker.”
Oh god, that felt so fucked up and so right, in Jem’s voice, with Coach’s hands holding him still.
“Let’s see what you can do with your mouth, Mac.”
Jem tasted like he smelled, with a deeper hit of salt and spice that had to be precome. Had he made Jem so hard he’d been leaking? The thought turned Mac on and he sucked, but Jem didn’t want him to suck on his own. Jem wanted him to follow orders.
“Open your throat to me. Just breathe, and relax, and you’ll open without trying.”
He breathed through his nose and Jem nudged deeper, rearranging himself on the couch, moving forward to get leverage.
“This is a horrible, wonderful idea,” he murmured, pressing past Mac’s lips again. “God. I love, like so much, the way you’re holding your hands back for me.”
He hadn’t done it intentionally. It seemed like the obvious thing, since Jem wanted to control what they were doing.
Jem groaned, and the weight of his cock felt good on Mac’s tongue. He sucked a little, making Jem groan again, making his hands tighten in Mac’s hair.
“You’re incredible. Oh, fuck. Breathe nice and deep, okay? I’m—”
Yeah, yeah, Jem was pushing in more now, so much that he stopped talking to be still, trembling. Mac closed his eyes and breathed and tried to be pliant between them, which wasn’t as hard as it should have been.
Jem’s cock opened his throat and he gagged, but Jem didn’t pull out.
“Shh, hey, look at me.”
Mac looked, trying not to swallow again, afraid to gag. He breathed shallowly through his nose.
“You could finish me off right now. Is that what you want?”
I don’t want to gag. I don’t want to disappoint you.
Christ, when had he ever in his life worried about that?
“The thing is, gagging’s kind of hot, when the right guy does it for you.” Jem smiled his cheeky, lopsided smile. “Right, Coach?”
“Mm hm.”
Coach, yeah, Coach knew from gagging. Mac had seen it. He subtly pushed into Coach’s hands, and Coach kissed the back of his neck.
“Oh god. If you guys just want to make out, I’ll get off that way.”
“No, give Mac a little bit more. He wants to do it for you. Yes, Mac?”
Yes. Damn this desire to please, to pleasure. What the fuck was this place doing to him?
Jem’s other hand—the one not in his hair—caressed his throat. “Good boy. Relax again for me.”
Inhales and exhales and Jem’s blood pounding against his tongue, cock not moving, both of them looking at each other like they could stay like this forever, like turning to ash would be acceptable if it meant this moment never ended.
Then Jem pushed in again and Mac gagged, but he didn’t pull back, he tried to go deeper, tried to fight his own body to bring pleasure to Jem’s, and Jem cried out like it was ripping him apart.
“Whoa, tiger,” Coach murmured, right beside his ear as he gagged again. “Jem, come.”
Toppy, yeah, maybe, but Jem obeyed every bit as easily as Mac did, a bum rush of intensity as he shot down Mac’s throat while Mac swallowed and swallowed and choked and swallowed, trying to catch it all.
Salty, with a sweet edge and a bitter tang, leaving him licking his gums, hunting down the flavor of Jem in his mouth.
“Jesus, Mac. Oh my god.” Jem withdrew and slid to the floor, legs wide, to bury his head in Mac’s neck. “Oh my god,” he murmured again. “Fuck. You should not be that good at sucking cock, roomie. It’s criminal.”
Mac cleared his throat, bringing his arms tentatively around Jem’s back. “Sorry.” His voice croaked. You know. Because he’d just swallowed a huge load. Right.
Jem hugged him tighter and sighed. “I’m glad you’re at least hard. Makes me feel like I wasn’t just taking advantage of you.”
“You think I sucked your cock for shits and giggles?”
A huff against the sweaty skin of his throat. “I don’t even know how to think right now. Thank you.” Jem pressed a kiss, right there, where his lips happened to be. “Shit. That is so not how I thought tonight would go.”
“Me neither.”
Coach’s thumbs dug small circles into his shoulders. “I had some ideas when the two of you walked in.”
“God,” Jem murmured, like he still couldn’t believe it. “How do you want it, Mac? How do you want us? You want Coach to fuck you? You want to fuck me again? I could blow you, or Coach could.”
Yes? No? What did he want? Mac couldn’t make any of it make sense. But when Coach leaned over to kiss him, he kissed back, eyes shut, hoping Coach would understand whatever it was he couldn’t say.
“You taste like Jem.”
Mac swallowed.
“Lie back. Let us take care of you. Let us make you feel good, and even if it’s fleeting, you can remember that it was real.”
“Yeah. Lie back. Coach and I will take care of everything.”
He let them guide him back and closed his eyes, catching only body parts he could identify, letting them have him at their mercy, and they returned to his hands toward the end. They made him feel like his hands were the sexiest parts of his body. He’d been hard for so long his orgasm felt like a high wave he rode, and rode, and rode, until it finally dropped him on the shore, panting and crying out.
Their murmurs carried him through the aftershocks, kept him from drifting too far away.
“He’s so beautiful like this.” Jem.
“Courage is certainly a turn-on for me.” Coach.
“Am I a fool, Coach?”
“No, my Jem.”
“It’s just…he could hurt me so fucking badly.”
“And you are so brave to risk pain. C’mere.”
Mac imagined them kissing, but they might have only embraced.
“Anything we can do to service you, Coach?”
“I’m good.”
“You’re hard.”
“Sure am.”
Jem sighed. Mac found himself sighing as well, and slitting his eyes open to look at them.
“Sleeping Beauty awakes,” Coach said, hands all over Jem’s back.
“Sleeping Beauty wants to know why you won’t let us get you off. Right, Mac?”
He met Coach’s eyes, thinking I’m you. You’re me. You hold us at arm’s length. “What’re you afraid of?”
“Maybe I’m afraid of drama, like Jem is.”
Jem snorted. “You think Mac and I are gonna fall in love with you outside The Gym more than inside it?”
But the truth, suddenly stark, was right there on Coach’s face. He blinked and it disappeared, but not before Mac understood.
Coach could hide in his role at The Gym. But outside? The Professor didn’t want him to take Mac home for sex, or at least not only for sex. She wanted him to find companionship.
Maybe she didn’t want him to fall in love specifically, but she had to know it was a possibility. And she still wanted him to take someone home.
“I’m not worried about anything,” Coach said, releasing Jem. “Thank you for an excellent night of service, boys.”
“One of these days I’m not gonna let you off so easily.” Jem bent down to sort their clothes into piles. “Here, roomie.”
“Thanks.”
Most of what he was doing on the floor these days didn’t require a lot of dressing and undressing. It was still awkward, under Coach’s gaze, to pull his boxers on, his jeans, his shirt. He was ready first and when Coach beckoned him, he went, relaxing into the feel of Coach’s hands on his shoulders.
“You’re doing damn good this week. How do you feel?”
“Good. More confident.”
“Glad to hear it.” A squeeze. “Go get some breakfast before bed, you two.”
Before he could pull away, Mac clamped down on his hands. “Is it that you don’t want to take us home? Or that you want to but the risk’s too high?”
“Above your pay grade, Mac.”
Mac didn’t let go, searching Coach’s face for the truth.
After a second, Coach relented. “Two devoted, vulnerable young men, who let me see them even when they want to pull away? Of course I want to take you home. But that’s not your role, and shouldn’t be mine.” He squeezed once more, and this time pulled away for real. “Goodnight, you two. Feel free to drop by Friday to celebrate Mac’s third week of training.”
Jem laughed, though it sounded a little forced. “Oh, you know we will. Come on, roomie.”
Everyone on staff had cleared out. No one saw them leave Coach’s office. They clocked out at the back door and trudged through the lot to Mac’s car, breaths white in the air.
“I wish he’d let us in,” Jem said.
“He wants to.”
“But he won’t.”
Mac wasn’t so sure of that. “Taco Bell?”
“Hell yes.”
Good. Food was good. And eating tacos on Mac’s floor erased any potential for awkwardness between them.