by Tessa Bailey
Jamie couldn’t regain control of the situation. It felt too fucking good. If he was honest with himself for once, he’d been hate-jerking to this moment for months. Fuck it, since three summers ago when the big, loudmouth had swaggered into the locker room and looked immediately startled to find himself checking out Jamie. Why couldn’t Jamie keep away from someone who had bad decision written all over him?
That was a problem for another time because Marcus was using his grip on Jamie’s waistband to rock them together. They were now openly dry fucking on public transportation, Marcus grunting into the space above where Jamie’s neck curved, pumping his hips against Jamie’s. Jamie’s sac started to tighten and he knew much more of his cock grinding against Marcus’s would make him come. Can’t do that. He could not do that.
He also couldn’t say the words to make Marcus stop.
Instead, he turned his head and sank his teeth into Marcus’s stubble-covered jaw. “Go ahead,” he rasped, licking the marks he’d left behind. “Blame it on the train. I dare you.”
Marcus made a choked sound and stepped back as much as he could, which was only a matter of a couple inches. Enough that their lower bodies continued to brush together with the train’s movements. Marcus dropped his forehead to the plastic partition beside Jamie’s head and sucked in shaking breath after shaking breath. Jamie, also attempting to recover, watched Marcus with a growing weight in his chest.
“Marcus, listen to me. Everything is going to be okay. You are okay.” Jamie swallowed and looked away. “Find someone who can help guide you with this. It…look, it just can’t be me.”
Thank God the train doors chose that moment to open, announcing their arrival in Long Beach. Jamie wove his way through the other passengers, his cock still digging into his zipper. Needing the man he could hear walking behind him along the platform. He found no relief for his condition in the hot July air, but he kept moving, descending the stairs in record time. He was about to cross the street when Marcus gripped his elbow and turned him around.
“Jamie…” The poor guy looked shell shocked. “I don’t know what just happened.”
“Yes, you do, Marcus.” Jamie centered himself with a slow breath. “Listen to me. We didn’t do anything wrong. There is nothing wrong about you.”
“Why does it feel like there is?”
A spike twisted in Jamie’s side hearing Marcus say what they’d done felt wrong. Stupid, so stupid, to take it personally. But he’d heard it before. He’d been blindsided and almost killed over someone feeling wrong about what they’d done. It cut so much deeper coming from Marcus and that scared the shit out of him.
“I have to go,” Jamie said. But he didn’t move.
Marcus took off his hat and twisted it in his hands, leaving his hair in disarray on top of his head. “Did you have a good time?”
That wasn’t an innocuous question and they both knew it. The importance of Jamie’s answer was proven in the way they both held their breath. If Jamie said he didn’t have a good time, Marcus would stop asking to have his chair assigned next to Jamie. He could cut the time they spent near each other in half with one word.
And he couldn’t do it. Because he would have been lying.
“I had a great time, Diesel.”
The last thing he saw before turning and heading home was Marcus’s face splitting into a grin—and the image stayed with him until the very last second when he fell asleep that night.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Okay,” Marcus muttered under his breath, arranging the laptop on his coffee table at the perfect angle. “Might be gay. Might be gay.”
It would come as a surprise to no one that watching porn was one of his favorite pastimes. He’d always felt kind of awkward and bumbling while talking to girls, and porn was safer. No one rolled their eyes or laughed at him. Don’t get him wrong, he’d hooked up with a respectable number or girls, but they always seemed to evacuate the premises like it was on fire when he tried to have an actual conversation with them.
His go-to videos were bookmarked, but it had been a while since he’d watched them. Over a month. They’d been replaced at the top of his favorites list by juice recipes and fitness websites. Clean eating. Drink Your Immunities. Calves That’ll Stop Traffic.
Fuck, he’d gotten boring.
Marcus clicked on a video he’d watched upwards of a hundred times. Two men, one woman. She was on her hands and knees, servicing one of them with her mouth. The other dude thrust into her from behind, his mouth dropped open on a groan. Marcus wasn’t inspired to reach into his workout pants yet. No, his dick didn’t even get hard until he’d almost reached the end of the video and the two men leaned forward and kissed over the top of the woman’s head. It was hesitant at the start, like maybe it was the first time, but as the kiss deepened, both men started driving their hips faster, faster, their tongues sliding in and out of one another’s mouths, the woman moaning between them.
Marcus looked down to find his cock in his hand, the naked woman on his forearm flexing as he gave a tight stroke, root to tip.
Still, it wasn’t just right. He was swollen and aching, but his head wasn’t in it.
With a hard swallow, Marcus shoved himself back into the same sweatpants he’d worn to the gym that morning and scrolled through the videos. All the same. Two men, one woman. Every last fucking one of them. Had he ever truly focused on the woman or just the guys?
Admit the answer. Admit it.
He shook his head vigorously and slammed the laptop shut.
Marcus O’Shaughnessy wasn’t scared of anything. He was six foot four and he could probably bench press a medium-sized gorilla. He’d been raised by sanitation workers and they were salty motherfuckers who’d passed on their balls of steel. His size had made him the target of countless scrapes growing up. Yet touching Jamie Prince had made him feel stronger and more himself, more real than his intimidating size or anything in his past.
Yeah, he wasn’t scared of anything. But that.
The possibility that…maybe he didn’t know himself at all.
Marcus closed his eyes and fell back against the couch, his callused fingertips moving over the bite marks on his cheek, remembering how he’d almost ejaculated in his pants when it happened. With Jamie pressed up against him on the train, he hadn’t been worrying about his technique or if he’d maintain his erection—or if he’d crush Jamie to death—things he worried about when he occasionally hooked up with girls. Being with Jamie was like…breathing. In and out. Nothing else to worry about, except maybe having to stop.
God, he’d never needed someone more in his life as he had on that train. Until Sunday night, he wasn’t even aware need could be focused so firmly on a person and not the act.
He draped his left forearm over his eyes, as if hiding his face might make his thoughts invisible. It’s just a phase. It’s just a man crush. Shit he’d been telling himself for what felt like forever. His mental denial of his attraction to Jamie made guilt spring up inside of Marcus. And he didn’t fully understand why, but he felt as though that denial was fulfilling Jamie’s expectations. As if pretending what happened between them was a fluke had the power to make Jamie sad, even though Jamie couldn’t overhear Marcus’s thoughts.
The guilt couldn’t override his lust, though. It never could. Marcus’s right hand shoved down the waistband of his sweats and took out his dick. With his left forearm wrapped tightly around his face to trap the thoughts, he put himself back on the train with Jamie, but this time their mouths were engaged. With his tongue fucking into Jamie’s panting mouth, Marcus reached between their lower bodies and jerked down the zipper that had been molded to Jamie’s cock all day, driving him out of his goddamn mind.
“You advertising this cock?” Marcus growled as he started to beat Jamie off. “You want people to think it’s available when it’s not?”
Jamie smirked at him, but his dilated pupils and sweaty upper lip said he wasn’t unaffected. “What if I am, Diesel? Wh
at are you going to do about it?” He propped his hands behind his head on the partition, tongue tucked into his cheek. Christ, so hot. He’s so hot. “Convince me to make it unavailable to anyone but you, Marcus. Can you do that for me?” He angled his hips out. “I’ll keep myself just for this mouth if you admit you like doing bad things with me. It’ll be our little secret.”
Marcus was already on his knees in the train car, closing his mouth around Jamie’s cock, using handfuls of his tight ass to pull him deep, deep down his throat. The imaginary satisfaction in Jamie’s moan tugged a very real spurt of come from Marcus’s dick, lubricating his grip where it rode quickerquickerquicker up and down his shaft, filling his small living room with the sound of squelching flesh. Oh fuck. He loved this part. Making Jamie Prince moan.
Jesus Christ. He’d do anything to know what it sounded like in real life.
Not in real life. It has to stay in your head.
Even if he was brave enough to explore this part of himself…Jamie didn’t want him. He liked older men. Men who knew exactly what they wanted. He’d said so.
Imaginary Jamie did want Marcus, though. Focus on that.
Jamie’s fingers speared into Marcus’s hair. He used his mouth, groaning as he fucked it and every once in a while, he brushed a thumb over Marcus’s brow, letting him know he was doing it right. A good job. “What are we going to do with you, Marcus?” Jamie rasped above him. “When you finish me off, you’ll still have that big tent in your pants, won’t you? Are you going to pull my jeans down and push that huge thing inside me?”
“Yeah, babe,” Marcus breathed, getting close to the end. “It is pretty huge.”
Jamie slipped from his mouth and turned around, the sound of his belt clinking bringing Marcus to his feet, panting, unzipping his own pants. He looked around the train at all the passengers. “Right here in front of everyone?”
“Please, I can’t wait.”
Marcus growled, dragging the head of his cock through the split of Jamie’s ass. “Me either. I need you. I hurt all the fucking time—”
The sound of keys sliding into the lock of Marcus’s apartment door was like an atom bomb being dropped. He was so immersed in the fantasy, it took him a moment to believe it was real. No. If the person on the other side of the door had keys, it had to be his brother or father. No no no. His gaze flew around the room as if evidence of what he’d been thinking was visible. It wasn’t. Swallowing the golf ball in his throat, he stowed his protesting cock, got up from the couch and locked himself in the bathroom.
“Where you at, bro?”
Joey.
Marcus pressed his forehead against the closed door and released a long exhale. “I’ll be out in a second, asshole. You forget how to knock?”
“Since when does that bother you?” Joey called. “It’s not like you’ve ever got a girl in here or something.”
“Maybe one smelled you coming up the stairs and climbed out the window to escape.”
“I smell like an honest day’s work,” Joey said, the sound of his boots on the coffee table making Marcus roll his eyes. “Kickstarts a woman’s pheromones like a jumper cable.”
His cock was almost back to its usual size, but he gave it look that said speed it along, bitch. “What are you doing here?”
“Pop is bringing a pizza. The Mets are on.”
This was how he would die. From a brutal case of blue balls. Couldn’t a man get some peace and quiet to rub one out to a guy he was pretending he didn’t want to fuck more than life itself?
He didn’t even know how to fuck a dude.
Like, he understood the logistics, but it had been a solid hell no every time he suggested the back entrance to a girl. No help there. And if what happened on the train with Jamie was any indication, sex with him wouldn’t feel remotely close to being with a girl anyway.
Marcus cursed when he realized his dick was getting hard again.
He banged his head against the door.
“You okay in there, bro?” Joey asked. “Not for nothing, but you’ve been acting a little weird lately.”
“Weird?” Marcus’s head shot up. “Weird how?”
Joey laughed at Marcus’s too fast-question. “You’re never around, you avoid me on the street. What’s up? You got girl trouble?”
Marcus turned and leaned back against the door, glad he could finally answer a question truthfully. He sucked at lying. To everyone but himself, apparently. “Nope. No girl trouble.”
“Maybe you need a little in your life,” Joey said dryly. “I was already divorced by the time I was your age, man. You’re way behind.”
“I like being single.”
“Single means dating. When is the last time you were out with a woman? Or got laid?”
Christ. Same conversation every time. Not only with Joey or his old man, but with his friends at the gym. Been out with any girls? You talking to anyone? Look at this girl I met on Tinder. You’d hit that. You know you’d hit that. It never ended. The pressure never ended.
“Grab a beer,” Marcus said quietly. “I’ll be out in a second.”
A long pause. “All right then.”
The longer Marcus stood there in the dark, the more something became obvious.
He needed to stop this phony bullshit with Jamie. Right now.
Not because he wanted to stop hanging out with him. God knew that wasn’t it. His best memories so far of this summer involved the middle Prince brother. Walking with him toward their chairs on the boardwalk, just talking. Occasionally arguing. Watching Jamie work at the bar, making sure no one hassled him. The bets.
The train.
“Christ,” he whispered, twisting his balls to keep his erection down. “Don’t think about the train.”
He needed to stop the nonsense because he was doing Jamie a disservice. Jamie deserved someone who wouldn’t pretend his feelings weren’t real. Or that he wasn’t attracted to him. Marcus couldn’t even admit to himself that Jamie meant more than a friend to him. The idea of bringing Jamie around his family made him break out in a cold sweat. It wasn’t fair.
Jamie deserved better.
And Jamie might have been tightlipped about whatever had happened in his past, but even Marcus could deduce that Jamie had been down this road before—and didn’t want to go there again. That was his right and Marcus needed to stop foisting his infatuation on Jamie. There was even a possibility that Jamie’s hesitation to be around Marcus had something to do with the incident, which frankly, was something Marcus couldn’t even think about without wanting to commit murder.
Jamie had asked him several times to stop hanging around.
He finally needed to listen.
With a bowling ball in his stomach, Marcus unlocked the bathroom door and, ignoring his brother’s look of concern, went to go drink his first of many beers.
CHAPTER SIX
Everything was off.
It was Tuesday morning and Jamie stood in front of his locker, waiting for Marcus’s paw to grip his shoulder and shake him. Bring over one of his juice concoctions. Or shout, “Go ahead and check me out, Jamie Prince. I know you wanna.” Jamie was waiting for anything really. It was so quiet in the Hut, you could hear the metallic zing of his hoodie being unzipped and hung on the hook. The other lifeguards chatted among themselves, but it was as though they could sense a disturbance in the force.
Marcus was being quiet.
The loudest motherfucker in the beach hadn’t said a word since he walked into the Hut and there should have been a gospel choir singing praises inside Jamie’s head. Instead, all he could hear was the rapid thudding of his own heart.
Jamie stripped off his shirt, folded it and placed it neatly on the top shelf of his locker, tossing the silver whistle around his neck. He’d been doing a pretty good job so far of acting like he wasn’t shook over Marcus’s sudden, monk-like presence, but he couldn’t stop himself from leaning a shoulder against his closed locker and frowning over at the silent giant. Look at m
e.
If Marcus heard Jamie’s mental command, he gave no indication. No, he performed his usual routine of doffing his sweatpants, revealing red trunks beneath. He kicked off his flip flops, losing his balance a little in the process and catching himself with a hand on the bench, before sniffing and lifting his chin like he’d meant to do it.
Why did that make Jamie’s throat hurt?
Stupid. So stupid. Because it was pretty clear that one of two things was going on here.
One. Marcus wanted to pretend like that train ride had never happened, so he was ignoring Jamie and thus his own emerging sexuality. Avoidance: Helping curious straight men cope for thousands of years.
That brought Jamie to the second possibility for Marcus’s sudden withdrawal. Perhaps what happened between them on the train had been an experiment. Marcus’s curiosity had gotten the better of him, it had been explored…and deemed inadequate. Yeah, wasn’t it totally possible touching another man hadn’t lived up to his expectations? Maybe he was embarrassed and didn’t know how to tell Jamie it just hadn’t worked for him.
Was this a hint Jamie should take?
Yes.
Of course it was. He’d been trying to get Marcus to stop playing his shadow since summer started. The big guy was simply giving him what he wanted.
So why was he so cold?
Marcus cut a blank look over at him and Jamie held his breath, waiting for Marcus to say something idiotic so they could get back on track and everything could go back to normal. But it never happened. Marcus returned his attention to the ground, quickly finishing a quick application of sunscreen before he turned and lumbered out of the Hut.
Rory shoulder-bumped Jamie on the way to the door. “You ready, man?”
“Yeah.” Jamie cleared the cobwebs from his throat. “Right behind you.”
“Everything okay?”
Jamie scoffed. “Okay? Did you hear how quiet it was in here? I’m starting the day without a headache for once,” he lied, adding unnecessarily, “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
