Page 56 of Jacked
SLATER
We have to stop holding hands when we reach our building so I can fish my keys out of my pocket. We race up the stairs with our grocery bags swinging and our footsteps thundering. If I had to guess, our neighbors probably hate us. Oops.
Inside our apartment, we kick off our shoes and he follows me into the kitchen where we unpack the bags and I pull up the recipe again, determined to follow it to a T and cook him something edible for a change. I turn on the faucet and wash my hands, shooting AJ a look over my shoulder.
“Basic hygiene, very impressive,” he jokes.
I flick my fingers at him, showering him with droplets of water that cling to his furry cleavage and leave dark spots on his tank top. I stare at the mesmerizing path they find through his chest hair, trickling down until they disappear into the round curve of his full pecs.
“I can’t believe how long it took me to figure out that suffocating between a pair of beefy man titties is definitely the way I want to die.”
AJ makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a moan, and flexes his pecs like the filthy tease he is. My cock swells and I groan before forcing my attention away from his glorious chest and back to the task at hand. I’m going to impress him with dinner if it kills me. Less ogling, more cooking.
AJ plants himself on the stool on the other side of the island, dragging the bag with the other odds and ends over. While I study the recipe carefully again, he rifles through the bag for a second before pulling out the nail polish. I don’t want to put any extra pressure on him, but it makes my insides all warm and fluttery to watch him roll the bottle between his hands, staring at it so intently as he works through whatever’s going on inside his head. I know enough to know that presentation has absolutely zero to do with gender or sexuality. Straight dudes can dress in drag, gay dudes can be masc to the max—it doesn’t matter.But there’s something special about getting to watch AJ explore things he’s deemed “too gay” to enjoy until now.
Is there anything like that on my end? I puzzle over the question as I start to carefully chop the eggplant into evenly sized pieces. Unlike AJ, my parents have always been open minded and liberal as hell. Long before Cas came out, they were taking us to Pride parades and advocating for marriage equality. They weren’t hung up on gender roles or anything like that either. I smile at a stray memory of my dad in the kitchen on Sunday mornings growing up, wearing a pink apron while making us pancakes.
“What are you thinking about that’s making you smile that hard?” AJ asks curiously.
I look up to see him watching me while he unscrews and rescrews the lid of the polish.
“My dad. When we were kids, he had this weekend tradition of making pancakes for us. He would always ask us what shape we wanted, but no matter what you said, they always came out the same misshapen, long legged horror creature.” I laugh at the memory. “It became a running joke. Cas and I would ask for a Christmas tree or a Ferrari or a star, and he would make this nightmare horse every damn time.”
AJ laughs along with me for a second, then sobers.
“Were they cool when your brother came out?” It’s easy to tell that he’s thinking about his own dad again and how he’ll react if and when AJ comes out to him.
“Yeah, they were great. I figure I’ll tell them at Christmas or whenever I see them next.” I shrug. I could text them like I texted Cas and Nolan, but I don’t see any reason to rush it when I can just tell them in person eventually. Maybe I’ll get funny t-shirts made to give them or something.
He nods and unscrews the nail polish top again, this time pulling the brush all the way out. It drips with a glob ofshimmery blue paint that he manages to wipe on the lip of the bottle before it breaks free from the brush. He finally drags the brush over his wide thumbnail with careful movements, and I duck my head to hide my proud smile.
While I cook, he paints the rest of his nails and tells me about the crazy-pants fanfic Fender apparently writes. By the time I slide the dish into the oven, I’m fairly confident I managed to not fuck it up too badly. It might actually turn out edible. I set the timer and then turn back to AJ. He’s finished painting his nails now and looks pleased as he checks to make sure they’re dry.
“It looks good on you.” I nod at his hands and he wiggles his fingers, still studying them like he can’t decide just yet whether they feel like him or not. That’s okay. Like I told him at the store, it’s fine to test things out and decide if they fit or not.
After a second, he nods and then stands up. His gaze flickers to the time on the over timer and then back to me.
“Half an hour, huh?” His eyes darken as they drop to my mouth.
I dart my tongue out to wet my lips and nod. “Yup,” I agree breathlessly, my cock already swelling again at the heated implication.
He stalks around the counter and everything inside of me turns to molten heat, searing through my veins and making sweat bead on the back of my neck. He backs me up against the opposite counter, caging me in with his broad shoulders and muscled body, bracing his hands on either side of me as he brings his face close to mine. Our noses bump and I shamelessly grind my hardening cock against his through our clothes.
“My thoughts have been stuck on you all damn day,” he growls in a low, hungry voice, brushing his mouth against mine in a teasingly brief almost-kiss. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to bark encouragement at a client when my dick won’t stop aching for you?”
I half chuckle, half moan, sliding my hand between us to cup his cock. I can feel the heat radiating off of it through the layers of his clothes, the weighty, girthy shape already familiar in my palm even though I’ve only touched it a couple of times.
I hum sympathetically, nuzzling our noses together and massaging his shaft. “It must have beenveryhard.”
He groans out a laugh and humps into my grip. I squeeze him just a little harder and when his lips part on a gasp, I thrust my tongue between them in a needy, ravenous kiss. I swallow his muffled moans as our tongues slide and tangle. The heat of his mouth could burn me to the fucking ground and I’d be the happiest pile of ashes on the goddamn planet.
Nolan’s words from earlier echo in the back of my head, but I don’t let myself focus on them. I don’t want to waste energy worrying about things I can’t control, like whether AJ will want to fuck other people. I just want to be in the moment with him.Thismoment, where our mouths are warm and wet against each other and his body is pressed up against mine.
He breaks away from my mouth and his moans vibrate against my skin as he kisses along my jaw and down my throat. He doesn’t stop there, lifting my arm and nuzzling his nose into my armpit with a horny groan. His exhale through my armpit hair makes me laugh and squirm, but then he drags his tongue through the sweaty patch of hair and my cock jerks so hard that being ticklish is thelastthing on my mind.
“Fuck, bro.” I moan, thrusting against him.
“I think I’ve always wanted to do this,” he confesses in a gruff voice, burying his nose deeper into my armpit hair again and shivering with a groan.
