by A J Lange
They ate burgers and bits of cheese at the wide kitchen table, eyes meeting over their plates while they made small talk. Zane didn’t quite know how to reconcile this Gray, the penthouse version of him, sexy and sophisticated and different. It suited him in a way Zane discovered he wasn’t entirely surprised to find, but he still preferred the absent-minded professor, lying in a dirty square of earth, infinitely patient as he used a toothbrush to comb away centuries of time to unveil a tiny shard of bone.
Zane didn’t cry, but it was a fine burger. He might have qualified it as one of the best he had ever eaten, if he had been able to pay more than scant attention to it. He was too busy watching Gray, enjoying the high flush in his cheekbones, and the way his eyes fell to Zane’s mouth whenever he spoke. It augmented the potent hum of electricity that floated between them, making Zane restless and jittery.
After they had eaten and transferred their plates to the dishwasher, Zane nodded to the piano. “Play something for me?”
Gray bit his lip. “You know I’m rusty, I told you that.”
Zane shook his head. “Uh huh. Sure you are, Professor. Go on with you.” He gave Gray’s back a nudge, hand too low to be decent, but he was fast approaching his limit of decency when it came to Gray. At least if he was playing, Zane wouldn’t be ripping his clothes off, and frankly, he wasn’t sure he was prepared yet for the inferno he could feel threatening to erupt with each lingering glance.
Gray flexed his fingers and sat on the glossy bench, and when he began to play, the sad, melancholy strains of Moonlight Sonata filled the apartment. Zane smiled. Gray remembered too.
He made himself comfortable in one of the deep leather chairs, watching those beautiful hands glide over the ivories, but the way Gray’s back and shoulders flexed under the blue shirt drove him back to his feet. He approached slowly, careful not to interrupt, until he stood directly behind the bench. He lay a palm lightly at the center of Gray’s back, and Gray stiffened but continued to play.
Encouraged, his hand began to move, trailing up to Gray’s neck, where he gently pulled the collar aside, just enough so he could place his lips on the warm skin. Gray’s fingers wavered then, missing a key. Zane reached around to unbutton two buttons of Gray’s shirt, pushing the collar lower, revealing more delectable skin. He worked his way to an earlobe and sucked it between his teeth, smiling when a note held a beat too long.
Zane dragged his lips along the faint stubble shadowing Gray’s cheek, feeling it clench in response, until his control slipped and he gripped Gray’s chin, tipping his head back so he could slot their mouths together. The last chord hung in the air, flat.
Gray swung off the bench and stood, grabbing Zane by the hips and pulling him close, searing him all the way to his toes with a blistering kiss.
So hot, was Zane’s only coherent thought as his fists twisted the silky fabric under his hands. His fingers faltered when he tried to undo the buttons.
Goddamn slippery dress shirt anyway, he thought, inexplicably irritated. He gave up and ripped the shirt open, buttons pinging on the hardwood floor when they fell.
“Zane,” Gray chastised, but it ended on a low-pitched moan when Zane’s teeth latched onto his neck.
“Bed,” Zane growled against his skin.
Gray shoved him backward, both of them gasping for air when they broke apart. Zane’s hands scrambled for purchase, any distance between them suddenly too great, and he sighed when his lips found Gray’s again. He relished the access the partially open shirt provided, fingers digging into the tight V of muscle above Gray’s hipbones, closing his eyes and trusting Gray to navigate the narrow hall to the bedroom. When the back of his legs hit the bed, he fell back, taking Gray with him.
He rolled them, sitting up to unbutton his shirt, and the picture Gray made, nestled between his legs, took his breath away. His lips were reddened, pupils blown, and Zane could see the evidence of his arousal through the fine fabric of his trousers. He still wore the dress shirt, and Zane had a fleeting desire to leave it, splayed open and inviting, reminding him of the staid, proper professor he knew lurked so close to the surface.
He groaned when Gray reached up to palm the bulge straining his jeans. “Zane,” he commanded, low and gruff.
Zane fumbled with his cuffs, wrenching the shirt off in a frenzy, scraping a knuckle raw in his haste. “Yeah, Professor?” he asked, voice throaty and deep, eager to press his mouth to all the bare skin he could reach.
Gray’s hands ran greedily over his chest, fingernails raking low across his stomach. He unbuckled Zane’s belt and unbuttoned his jeans, pushing them off his hips. Zane kicked them free of his legs, chuckling darkly at Gray’s moan of frustration when he resisted attempts to pull him flush. He rather liked Gray needy and panting beneath him; he could get used to that.
Gray retaliated by dipping a finger below the elastic of Zane's boxers, teasing the sensitive skin there until Zane ducked his head, arms straining, and flicked his tongue across Gray's reddened lower lip. Gray followed when he retreated, capturing his mouth in a sloppy, wet kiss as he yanked his boxers unceremoniously to his knees. When Zane finally lowered his naked body to Gray’s mostly clothed one, he sighed; the friction of fabric against his oversensitive skin was pure bliss.
Gray petted him, mapping all of him with his hands, pretty fingers playing a song on his skin every bit as beautiful the one on that baby grand. Zane kissed him, overwhelmed and needy, until he was impatient, fumbling with Gray’s zipper, fucking craving skin on skin. He grunted, tugging fruitlessly at the remaining buttons until Gray, laughing softly, rolled them and straddled his hips. Zane relaxed, enjoying the view as Gray took his sweet time finishing with the cuffs. Then the shirt was sliding off his shoulders and pooling at his waist, and Zane dragged it away, sitting up to press them, finally, together.
He hissed at the first touch of skin on skin. Dear God, he may never let Gray get dressed again. Pubs, archaeology digs, fuck them all. Someone else could dust off the old bones and serve tequila to bridesmaids; Gray was getting chained to Zane’s bed.
Gray shoved him back into the mattress and Zane snickered at the quick work he made of his pants, but then he was naked on top of him and Zane’s brain short circuited. Their bodies aligned with a symmetry he had never known before, and he gritted his teeth at the unbelievably hot sensation of cock on cock. Gray’s hips undulated, sliding them together slowly, showing Zane what felt good, learning which movements drew the strongest gasps. He caught Zane’s lips in a gentle kiss.
Zane’s breath stuttered and he stilled.
“What,” Gray whispered, lips ghosting over his eyelids, his cheeks. “What is it?”
Zane hid his face in Gray’s neck, breathing deep. “I’ve never done this before,” he mumbled against the hot skin. His tongue darted out to taste a bead of sweat.
“You mean to tell me,” Gray arched his neck to grant Zane more access, breath catching. “That Zane drawer full of condoms Nolan is a virgin,” he managed to tease before inhaling sharply when Zane bit his throat.
Zane huffed a laugh, kissing the bite mark gently. “No, this,” he said insistently, rolling his hips gently, nosing at the shell of Gray’s ear, still hiding. “This is different.”
“Mmm,” Gray hummed as he rocked against him, nudging Zane’s chin so he could see his face. “Okay, if not sex then what do you mean? I, uh,” he actually blushed, faltering, and Zane’s heart constricted. God, he was gorgeous.
Gray blinked slowly and stilled. “I guess you’ve never been with a man? Should we have talked about this?”
Zane forced himself to meet those lovely eyes, impossibly dark, almost navy now, and held him close in reassurance. “No, but I don’t mean that. I don’t care about that,” Zane said honestly. He hesitated, biting his lip. “This isn’t just sex for me.”
Gray’s expression changed, eyes wide with wonder as he understood Zane’s meaning, and then he was kissing him, tongue teasing across the seam of his mouth, sighin
g when Zane opened, drinking him in. He started to move again, frustratingly slow, holding Zane’s face captive in his strong hands. Zane appeased his need for touch by running his hands up and down the length of Gray’s body, as far as he could reach, then back up between his shoulder blades, and further still to tug at the unruly shock of dark hair, pulling those full lips back to his when they strayed too far. Gray sucked at his tongue, taking time to explore there too, until Zane was panting with pure want.
“Gray, baby, come on,” he pleaded, starting to squirm, trying to wedge a hand between their hips to stroke himself, Gray, both of them, something, but Gray had other plans and pressed his hips hard against him, flattening him into the bed, denying him the touch he most wanted. He began to kiss his way down his torso, and Zane shivered, muscles jumping as Gray’s mouth trailed hot and wet across the sensitive skin of his stomach.
When his lips finally closed around the head of Zane’s cock, suckling gently, tongue swirling about the head, Zane cried out. “Jesus fuck,” he gasped.
Gray responded by pushing his knees open wide, and Zane let him, feeling wanton and free and like he’d never had sex before, and he hadn’t, not like this. He gripped the sheets, handfuls of expensive cotton, damp with their sweat, moaning low in his throat when Gray lifted one knee to hook it over his shoulder, giving himself clearer access to all of him.
“Zane,” Gray whispered, laying feather-light kisses along his inner thigh, one hand wrapped tight around his length, keeping a steady rhythm to the thrust of Zane’s hips. Zane thought he could come just from watching Gray watch him fuck into his fist. Then Gray bent low and blew softly across the head, stilling his movements, and Zane shuddered.
“What do you want, Zane?” Gray asked, placing a kiss, gentle, on the slit. “Show me what you like.”
Zane’s mouth worked as he shook his head from side to side, because he had no more words, his mind blessedly empty of everything except the hot, wet, suction of Gray’s mouth. He spread his knees further still and urged Gray down again, hand in his hair. Gray raked his stubbled chin up and down his sensitive cock and Zane clamped his teeth together, repeating “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” until Gray retreated, returning to tease at the slit with his tongue, before sucking him down, hard and fast. He repeated the process over and over again, the abrupt changes keeping Zane on a razor’s edge, until he was babbling, incoherent, fingers pulling at Gray’s hair.
“Gray,” Zane ground out. “Please.” He tightened his knee around Gray’s shoulder, heel digging into his back.
“I’ve waited so long for this, Zane,” Gray murmured, before lowering his head, hollowing his cheeks, and Zane came, suffused with pleasure so bright his vision whited out. Gray eased him back to consciousness with gentle, soothing kisses everywhere, until Zane could focus again, warm and pliant on the mattress. Gray maneuvered him, kissing the flushed skin of his torso, tonguing his belly button, sucking the pad of a fingertip between his teeth, brushing their mouths together, tongue scraping against the roof of Zane’s mouth. Zane could taste himself there and it was hot, hotter than any kiss he’d ever had before.
He could feel Gray’s hardness pressing insistently against his thigh, and he moved over him, energized, mouthing his way down Gray’s neck. “Okay, Professor, let’s see how good your teaching skills really are.” Zane’s grin was feral and Gray gasped when his teeth closed gently around a nipple.
Gray’s body was different and awesome, all sinewy muscle and toned, golden skin. Zane liked the feel of it under his hands, the way it quaked when he touched his lips to a sensitive spot, the way goosebumps peppered the skin when he tongued the spaces between his ribs. He especially liked the sounds Gray made while he explored, breathy little moans and sighs, punctuated by the whispered plea of Zane’s name when he did something that felt especially good.
When he had kissed his way to the juncture of Gray’s thigh, Zane swallowed hard, nervous. “I’ve never done this before,” he murmured, then tentatively ran his tongue along the smooth underside of Gray’s cock. It twitched, hard, in response.
Gray exhaled sharply, “Oh God, you can’t tell…” He groaned, closing his eyes.
Zane took a deep breath and then fit his mouth around the head, sucking experimentally, the taste foreign but not entirely unpleasant. The weight of Gray on his tongue, velvety and hard, was heady, and Zane gripped his hips when they started to stutter, holding him motionless so he could maintain control. Gray breathed his name, eyes tightly closed and Zane released him.
“Gray, look at me,” he said. He wanted to watch those blue eyes spark with lust, greedy to know Gray’s face when he came. “Open your eyes,” he whispered, waiting.
“Fuck, Zane,” Gray groaned, but he obeyed, and Zane lowered his mouth again, holding his gaze, searing this image into his brain, loving the way Gray’s whole body arched off the bed when he came moments later, one hand finding Zane’s to lace their fingers tight. Gray collapsed against the sheets, a faint pink flush coating his skin. Zane mouthed the smoothness of his inner thigh, lips absorbing the fine quiver that lingered there, and smiled. He did that. Broke Gray apart into a million tiny pieces. He kissed his way back up to Gray’s lips. Now he was going to put him back together again.
Chapter 9
Zane watched Gray wake in stages. He reacted to the brief pinch of pain when Zane gently bit the pad of his ring finger, shaking the offended hand and tucking it under his pillow. Zane smiled to himself, inching closer with careful, quiet movements. Gray breathed deep and even, soft inhalations that Zane could hear faintly whistling when he was close enough to his handsome face. Gray’s brow furrowed, then relaxed, and Zane wondered what he was dreaming, if it was of him. He felt as though he had been dreaming of Gray since long before the night he had walked into Joe’s, long before he smashed Zane’s carefully ordered existence into a thousand pieces of beautiful chaos. Zane had spent his whole life searching for something, waiting, an empty space carved into his day that could never be filled, not with monotony or order, not with job or family or friends. Yet, without trying, Gray fit. And it scared the hell out of him.
Zane lifted Gray’s other hand and pressed his lips to the palm, placing it gently beside his head on the white cotton of the pillowcase. He stilled when Gray twitched and murmured, then moved instinctively closer to Zane’s body heat. He smoothed a caress across Gray’s stomach, lightly feathering fingertips over the dips and shadows, and bent to press a kiss there, low. He glanced up to find Gray awake, eyes heavy-lidded and drowsy. He hadn’t been sure where he was going to take this, the morning after sex, (the morning after, period), until he saw that flash of sleepy blue disappear behind fluttering, dark lashes with every swipe of his tongue.
Then what he wanted most was to linger, unhurried, to press chaste, and not-so-chaste, kisses along the length of Gray's body, to memorize every hitch of breath, every tremble and gasp, then repeat all of the things that prompted the most exquisite sounds. Gray kicked the remnants of the sheets free and spread his knees so Zane could settle between them, and Zane lowered his mouth, applying slow, wet suction until Gray’s head fell back against the pillows, the arch of his neck lovely in its unfettered bliss. All pretense of sleep now gone, Gray cried out, clutching the sheets when Zane hollowed his cheeks. Gray's desperate fingers dug into Zane’s shoulders, pulling him up the length of his body, and Zane followed, of course he did; he would follow Gray into hell he was so entangled, captive. Gray was the moon and Zane was the ocean, and Zane knew he would willingly spend an eternity crashing into him, pulled along by his tidal force.
◆◆◆
They showered together, and Zane found it cute as fuck that it wasn’t awkward. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone in the history of ever. But goddamn, Gray was adorable. He washed Zane’s hair, then his own, conditioned both, letting the creamy liquid soak in before methodically rinsing it out. And Zane let him, enjoying his ministrations, especially the very thorough washing his dick got in the pro
cess, because it left his own hands and mouth free to explore Gray’s much neglected earlobes and neck and back. He was growing increasingly enamored of the way Gray’s back narrowed at his waist, above a really delectable ass, and the way his hipbones shadowed the divots low on his stomach.
Zane announced he was closing the bar for a week, because they were most definitely not leaving this apartment in the foreseen future. This would work nicely with his master plan of not letting Gray wear clothes. The fridge was stocked, the beer was plenty, and there was a fifty-two inch flatscreen in the living room with three hundred plus channels to amuse him should he ever, in fact, grow tired of Gray’s body (debatable).
Zane didn’t see the problem with an impromptu siesta from his life.
His happy bubble was burst mightily right after breakfast when Gray informed him that yes, Zane did have to go back to work that afternoon, and Gray did have to make an appearance at his dig site to supervise or some such shit that Zane was completely and wholly unconvinced was important. As far as he was concerned, the rest of the world could take care of their own problems for a day or two, minimum, and let Zane have this tiny, miniscule, sex-filled-vacation with one very hot professor. He never asked for much from the universe; he figured he was due.
Gray, in that quietly sexy, frustrating way of his, stuck his tongue down Zane's throat until somehow Zane found himself back in the car, fully dressed, traveling southwest to Lawrence by midmorning.
It was really rather annoying.
◆◆◆
For a first argument, it definitely wasn’t the worst Zane could have imagined. That didn’t make it sting any less when it happened, however.
Gray had a sister, Alanna, who was newly engaged, and this meant he was required to make an appearance at a formal dinner in celebration of the upcoming nuptials. He wanted Zane to go with him, but Zane was hesitant. He wasn’t sure he was ready for so ‘public’ a step yet. It would be hard enough, meeting Gray’s family and friends for the first time, in any situation. A big, fancy party was never going to be Zane’s style, and if there was one thing he needed right now, it was the comfort of familiarity. He thought Gray understood that, so maybe he was a little defensive when Gray seemed perplexed by his indecision. He wanted Gray to himself for a while longer, to keep what they had so recently fashioned between them protected. He was loathe to allow strangers pick it apart, to pick Zane apart.
