Page 14 of Finding Jeremy
He’d always been a restless sleeper, something his old man had complained about more than once, when he’d come in to wake him up only to find Jeremy half hanging off the bed.
Gonna wind up giving yourself a concussion in your sleep!
While he never had, his old man had taken great pleasure in giving him shit for it and in warning Haven to wear a helmet when they’d had sleepovers and shared a bed or laid out their sleeping bags side by side in the living room on movie marathon nights. Never had he been offered the promise of a reward for his restless sleeping the way Gray had done.
Not that he’d have been able to keep from wiggling; he was asleep for fuck’s sake. But if unconscious wiggling was going to be viewed as unintentional foreplay, he could get down with that.
He nearly tangled himself in his t-shirt when he ripped it off over his head; he was in such a big hurry to do as he’d been told.
Gray would probably have laughed his ass off to see Jeremy with his t-shirt caught on a piercing while he hopped around on one foot trying to get his sleep pants off. It was a hot mess, but he got himself free of his clothing and his body on the bed before the big man returned. The early morning chill lingered in the room, raising goosebumps along his arms, but the thought ofpulling the covers up and missing the look on Gray’s face when he came in and saw him sprawled out in his naked glory made it easier to brave the cold.
He'd be warm soon enough and in the most delightfully wicked of ways too. Heavy footsteps in the hallway alerted him to Gray’s approach, and he preened, knees spread wide, one hand trailing over the front of his body as Gray pushed open the door.
“If this is how mornings with you are going to go, I’m gonna start setting the alarm for an hour earlier just so I can take the time to enjoy you before we have to be at work.”
“Think Haven would accept‘Sorry, we’re late ‘cause Gray had me pinned to the bed'as a proper excuse for being late?” Jeremy asked, only half joking.
The thing was, he knew his best friend would accept the excuse, as Haven had admitted to him and Maddox both being late opening their shops on several occasions over the past few months because they couldn’t keep their hands off one another. Setting the alarm an hour earlier would at least give them somewhat of a fighting chance of getting there on time.
Gray sputtered, then let out a bark of laughter as he stripped off his clothes and dumped them in the corner on top of Jeremy’s.
“Your snark was the first thing I fell in love with,” Gray grumbled as he crawled up on the bed beside him. “The fact that you could make me laugh despite the Plexiglas and bars was something I always appreciated. You’ve got a talent for picking the perfect moment to say outrageous things, but right now, I’m more interested in what other talents that mouth of yours is hiding.”
“Been told I’ve got a nice smile,” Jeremy said, grinning and even winking at him, which just made Gray laugh harder. “And I’ve had more than a few people admire my tongue piercings.”
As if to emphasize them, he flicked it out, showing off the double piercing, one in front of the other, punctuated by the tiny rainbow charm he had hanging off the first one.
Gray smacked a hand to his face, shaking it, his whole body quaking as he laughed harder.
“I never got the hang of tying a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue though,” Jeremy remarked, flicking and curling it as he went cross-eyed trying to stare at it too. “But practicing is a hell of a lot of fun.”
“Like cherries, do you?”
“Uh-huh,” Jeremy said. “Pops used to buy them all the time and get pissed because I’d go through a whole jar so fast there were never any left for making sundaes, so he started making his own. Said it cost less than having me gut the shelf at the store.”
Everything he said just prompted Gray into another round of laughter.
“All those cherries and not a single knot?”
“Came close a couple times,” Jeremy admitted with a shrug. “Was just as much fun trying and absolutely delicious too.”
“I bet.”
“This one night, Pops walked into the kitchen, and I swore he was gonna lose his shit when he found me standing there with the refrigerator door open, eating cherries from the jar in between squirts of whipped cream. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and reached past me, grabbed a bottle of chocolate syrup and the milk, and grumbled about the kitchen not needing any extra air-conditioning.”
Groaning, Gray flopped on his side and draped an arm over Jeremy, his hair tickling Jeremy’s side as he laughed into the sheets.
“Life with you is never gonna be boring,” Gray muttered, the words a little difficult to make out.
Jeremy giggled and squirmed a little, not that Gray’s heavy arm allowed him to get very far.
“I mean, I could try to tone it down a little,” Jeremy replied, deliberately teasing because no, no he couldn’t, and trying would likely result in disaster. “Buy a couple button-down shirts, start watching documentaries on the fall of the Roman Empire, and maybe even learn how to speak Latin. I hear it’s hard to learn a new language if you don’t have anyone to speak it to though, so you might have to learn with me. I wonder if there is a Latin manual of motorcycle parts? Ohh, I bet there is; there are books about everything. Let me grab my phone and see what I can find online.”
He should have expected to be tickled and braced for it, but no, he was too busy mentally congratulating himself for his quick wit to recognize the danger he was in, pinned the way he was. Gray’s fingers skimmed up his side, hitting all the ticklish spots even as his weight lifted just enough to allow him to straddle Jeremy’s legs, pinning him to the bed.
“Shit, fuck, goddammit!” Jeremy squealed as Gray got his other hand involved, tickling both sides now, while Jeremy kicked his feet and grasped around for a pillow to smack him with.
The moment his fingers skimmed the pillowcase and grabbed hold, Gray pinned his wrists to the bed, still tickling his other side while Jeremy squealed and tried in vain to free himself, which so wasn’t even close to happening. He was gasping by the time the tickling stopped, and he felt Gray’s warm breath on the back of his neck as he nuzzled the skin there and licked over it.
