Page 58 of Soulmates

“Oh. True. Can we discuss while snuggling?”

“When I touch you, I can’t think. I just…want you,” Maddox admitted.

“Me too.”

“Do you like sex?” Maddox blurted, then seemed horrified as he turned away from Jake and covered his face in both hands with a muffled “Oh my Gods, what the fuck.”

Jake pressed his lips together, desperately trying not to laugh. “Um.” Jake’s voice trembled with laughter. “We’ve had sex multiple times.”

Maddox whirled on him. “I know that. I meant, I guess, penetrative sex. Because I don’t have much experience in that and I just didn’t know what you expected or wanted and I want to do it but I don’t want you to have any expectations that I’ll be super good at it or whatever and I didn’t think it was all that great before but I was always kind of standing in a laundry room and then I was in cars the few times I even tried and I didn’t hate it but I don’t kno—”

“Woah, woah, Maddy,” Jake whispered, running his hand over Maddox’s shoulder. “Take a breath, baby.”

Jake wasn’t sure if Maddox was going to hyperventilate or burst into tears, but he wanted to avoid either. “Another,” he whispered, and Maddox nodded, inhaling and then letting it out in a huff. “Easy. Another.” Maddox shook his head and exhaled sharply. “Breathe out slower,” Jake reminded. “For me.”

Maddox calmed down from his panicked tirade after several minutes of mimicking Jake’s steady breaths.

“I actually think this might be better while snuggling.”

“Fine,” Maddox said, his breathing evened out.

He grabbed Maddox’s hand and tugged him over to the bed and got them both settled under the covers and sharing a pillow. Jake kissed Maddox’s lips softly, getting a small smile out of his lover.

“We don’t have to have penetrative sex for it to be sex.”

Maddox opened his mouth, probably to tell Jake he didn’t need a sex ed class, but Jake held his hand up.

“We don’t have to have penetrative sex tonight or ever—I’m more than happy with everything we’ve done so far.” Jake punctuated this point with another featherlight kiss. “If you want to try it, I want to try it. If you don’t want to bottom, we can try that too. I want you to be comfortable.”

“I just don’t know exactly what I will like when it comes to that. I don’t think I want to top.”

Jake wrapped his arms tighter around Maddox. “Baby…if we decide we want to do either of those, we can. Or it can wait. I just want to be near you.”

“Can we do it if I want to? Do you want to?”

He smiled. “Yes, Maddy. We can if you want to. I want to if you want to.”

“Can we try?”

Jake answered with a kiss. Or maybe Maddox did. It was hard to tell. They moved together so seamlessly, completely drawn together in a tangle of limbs and tongues and teeth. He’d never kissed like this. Kissing had always been a necessary prelude to sex, but this was different. He could kiss Maddox all night and go to sleep happy. Maddox’s lips were swollen and red by the time he pulled back.

“We don’t have supplies.” Maddox gasped, though whether that was a gasp of realization or being out of breath from kissing, he wasn’t sure.

“If I know Santiago, we have supplies.” And sure enough, Jake opened the nightstand to find a bottle of lube and three boxes of condoms.

“Well, isn’t she ambitious on our behalf?” Maddox said from where he perched over Jake’s shoulder.

“She’s a jackass.”

“Agreed.”

Jake pushed Maddox back down, this time to lie on his back. He bracketed his hands on either side of Maddox’s head and looked at the debauched picture before him.

He lifted Maddox’s arms back up over his head and said against his mouth, “Leave them there.”

Maddox shuddered. Jake smiled. Maddox glared a little, but it was more like a kitten glare, though Jake didn’t dare say so.

He kissed his way down Maddox’s body, pausing at each nipple to lick and scrape his teeth against the sensitive skin. Each time Maddox brought his hands to Jake’s head, Jake stopped until Maddox put them back where Jake had placed them. He smiled at Maddox’s quick obedience.

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