Room at the Top

by Jane Davitt

  “Sorry.” Jay knelt to pick them up, then slid the stack closer to the wall.

  Austin shut the door and banged his head against it, despising himself just a little bit. “No, don’t be sorry. I’m an asshole. Come here.” They were barely in the door, and here he was snapping at his boyfriend.

  “I don’t mean to bring home so many,” Jay murmured against Austin’s neck, hugging him tightly. “And you’re not an asshole.”

  “Sometimes I am.”

  “Sometimes everyone is, I guess, but you, no. You’re perfect.”

  Austin couldn’t help laughing. “You work at a library, and you think I’m perfect? Doesn’t it have a dictionary? Because I’m pretty sure my picture isn’t next to that word.”

  “You take care of me,” Jay said with a simple trust that made Austin feel like driving back to Niall’s and punching him, hard. Jay wasn’t naive exactly, but he tended to believe the best about people. That a dom wouldn’t listen to a safe word would never have occurred to him before tonight, and Austin wasn’t sure how Jay would process Niall’s inability to follow such a basic, necessary rule. “You take care of your family too. Assholes don’t care about anyone but themselves.”

  Jay’s voice was muffled, but Austin heard every word.

  “I love you.” He didn’t say that often enough. Jay shivered with pleasure and pressed a kiss against Austin’s neck, unerringly finding the precise spot to make Austin’s eyes squeeze tightly closed as his body responded.

  Jay kissed him again, this time adding a nip from his teeth. “Want to salvage something from tonight?”

  “Yes.” There were a lot of other things Austin wanted to say, but he rarely shared more than a fraction of the thoughts that flitted through his head. He was the kind of guy who did what was needed and didn’t talk about it. “Shower okay?”

  That was the kind of thing he wouldn’t put into words—the need to make Jay’s skin his again, to erase any lingering memory of Niall’s touch and put his on Jay instead. Austin wanted to touch every inch of Jay. He wanted to wash him clean and then take him to bed and fuck him, long and slow and careful.

  The bathtub was an old claw-foot with a shower curtain that didn’t really do the job. Long before Austin had moved in, Jay had bought a collection of bath mats and spread them on the floor all around the tub to soak up the inevitable flood. The mats didn’t always dry out between showers, so Austin had insisted on a strict schedule of trips through the washer and dryer that was tiresome but necessary, like so many other things in life.

  Austin was grateful every day that his relationship with Jay was the complete opposite of tiresome. He was still in awe of Jay’s skin, of the light freckles that decorated Jay’s shoulders and the smooth silkiness of Jay’s lower back. Every smile Jay directed toward him was like an amazing gift. Sure, the piles of books and the clutter got on his nerves, but none of that was important when compared to Jay’s loving, generous spirit.

  Aware he was getting lost in thought, Austin forced himself to focus on the moment. He reached for the soap and a washcloth. “Turn around,” he said softly.

  Jay obeyed at once. Austin supposed both of them were inclined to do that in certain circumstances—and naked, wet, and horny definitely qualified—but now that they were floating, no hand on the rudder since Patrick had left, it always seemed to be him giving the orders. He didn’t want to, though. It didn’t feel right. God, this was so messed up.

  He glanced down at Jay’s ass, mottled faintly with rising bruises, the pale skin splotched with scarlet. If Patrick had made it look like that, Jay would’ve been twisting around to stare at it in the mirror every chance he got until the marks faded, touching the tender skin and loving every twinge. Austin got a kick out of Jay’s wholehearted enjoyment of the aftermath of a scene. It was so rare to see him exuberant. Jay’s happiness ran more to a steady glow than a blaze.

  With his finger, he traced around a particularly dark patch of skin. Niall must’ve struck it repeatedly. That could feel intense in the moment, as Austin knew from experience, but it hurt like hell too. Jay hadn’t been anything like ready for that level of pain so early in the session. No wonder he’d safe worded. Austin had been there, lost in the pain, unable to use it to guide him to any kind of emotional resolution. Patrick had picked up his confusion and eased back at once, so by the time the spanking was over, Austin had been sobbing with relief, not panic.

  “Throbs,” Jay said, a plaintive note in his voice.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty raw there,” Austin said, not sugarcoating it. Jay would see it for himself, if not tonight, tomorrow. “The skin’s not broken, though.”

  “Scrub it,” Jay said. His hands were flat against the tiled wall, but as he spoke, they tightened into fists. “Scrub it clean, Austin.”

  It was his thoughts given words, but Austin hesitated.

  “Hurt me,” Jay begged, his voice breaking. “Not much, but I need—I need to feel it from you. From someone I trust. I can remember him behind me, and God, I can still smell him on me. He reeked.”

  Austin wrinkled his nose sympathetically. Niall had been wearing cologne, the scent musky and thick enough to make his throat close up at first, though he’d gotten used to it after a while and tuned it out. Jay tended to react badly to certain odors, and strong perfumes were high on the list.

  “I want to forget him,” Jay said. “Make me. Please, Austin?”

  Austin went to his knees. There was no way he could ignore the appeal in Jay’s voice, not tonight. Not ever.

  The slippery surface, hard, unyielding, hurt his knees, but he’d learned how to push discomfort aside when it wasn’t important. Nothing mattered but giving Jay the reassurance he needed.

  He worked up a thick lather on the washcloth and then applied it to Jay’s skin, too gently at first. It made him angry if he thought about it too much, knowing Jay needed things he wasn’t capable of giving. He wanted to give Jay everything, and he couldn’t. It sucked. Austin tried to channel that anger into his hands, turning them rough and scrubbing the area that was already the sorest if Jay’s breathing had anything to say about it.

  “Yeah.” Jay’s voice broke again. It was almost a sob. “Like that. Little harder.”

  Austin did as he’d been told, feeling emotion choking him, his eyes stinging and the back of his throat tight and thick with it. “There,” he said, scrubbing harder. “You’re clean. Feel it? Nothing but soap and skin.”

  “Want you.” Jay was trembling, and on instinct Austin slid the washcloth up between Jay’s thighs and gripped his cock with it. He knew the cloth was rough and soapy and could imagine how it felt, the sheer fucking relief of pressure and stimulation on an erection that wanted to explode.

  He leaned in and kissed Jay’s soap-slick ass, and Jay gasped, hips rocking.

  “Good? Can you come like this?” It was an awkward position, but the panted sounds of Jay’s pleasure would have kept Austin going even if it had hurt.

  “Ah. God. So close.”

  “I know.” Austin slid his pinky finger, still sudsy, between the rounded globes of Jay’s ass and teased his hole. He was hard himself, turned on by Jay’s arousal, and, like Jay, with a lot of built-up heat from the scene. Kneeling, his ass as tender as Jay’s—though Niall had done a better job of spreading out the strokes—Austin focused on how good it’d felt to bend over, cry out, to kneel, waiting, holding position, and ruthlessly edited Niall out of the picture.

  He worked his finger deeper, Jay trembling but holding still when Austin could tell he wanted to bear down. So good, so fucking obedient. They both were, but it was wasted because they had no one to be good for.

  He nudged Jay with his shoulder, moving him so the soft rain of water from the shower rinsed Jay’s ass clean of soap on one side at least. One cheek was still marbled with white swirls, creamy against the flushed red skin. He kissed the clean, wet cheek, feeling the heat of the punished flesh against his lips, and moaned as he remembered the sound of t
he leather against his ass. His fingers tightened reflexively around Jay’s cock, and Jay whimpered, a frantic, imploring sound.

  Austin wanted to make this last, use the waiting to take Jay deeper, but Jay was sobbing now, breathless incoherencies spilling from lips so ready to smile at him. He couldn’t hold back. He bit and licked Jay’s ass, his hands busy now, his finger knuckle-deep in the tight, clinging channel. Jay’s skin tasted of water and nothing else, no one else.

  He knew thirty seconds before Jay came that it was imminent—he could feel it in the way his body mirrored Jay’s, and as soon as the pulse of Jay’s cock began, he dropped his other hand to his dick and stroked it fast and hard. It wasn’t a great orgasm—not even close—but it was still a relief to let go of the tension.

  In the aftermath, they were both quiet, breathing heavily. The sound of the water hitting skin, cast iron, and the plastic shower curtain liner was almost hypnotic, and Austin felt lulled by it. If he hadn’t been aware the water was going to turn cold sooner rather than later, he would have been tempted to lie down right there on the floor of the bathtub and go to sleep. Instead he leaned his forehead against Jay’s ass and mumbled, “Sleepy.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Jay shut off the water and urged Austin to his feet, and somehow they managed to dry themselves off and stumble to the bedroom.

  Austin face-planted into his pillow. “This is good.”

  Jay mumbled something Austin didn’t bother to translate. Too sleepy to do more than curve his body into the position he liked to start the night in, though he always woke on his back, he let the day slip away from him.

  Chapter Two

  “Jay, you’re going to be late. If you’re not on the road by eight, you won’t make it, not now they’re digging up Lockwood. It’s down to one lane there, and the traffic gets backed up at rush hour. You know that.”

  Austin sounded stressed as he headed toward the door, and Jay hated that. Being late mattered; he knew it did. It was just so difficult to focus first thing in the morning. The library opened at nine thirty, but the employees were supposed to be there an hour earlier. It was easier when he was on the shift that stayed until the library closed at eight. He didn’t have to go in until noon then. The trade-off was less time in the evening with Austin, though, and that sucked.

  He set his coffee mug down on the small kitchen table, moving aside a magazine he’d been reading to make room for it. The table was sticky, and he decided to make an effort when he got home and do some tidying. Austin liked it neat. Austin’s room, tiny, used mostly for storage though there was a bed in it, was spotless, an oasis of order in the middle of Jay’s chaos. Jay walked over to the door, automatically swerving to avoid a pile of laundry. He’d meant to put it away, but the phone had rung and he’d gotten distracted. He wasn’t letting Austin leave without saying good-bye properly.

  “Late,” Austin repeated, but he returned Jay’s hug, the two of them carving out a moment of peace. Austin’s blond hair needed cutting, his bangs drifting down over his blue eyes, but Jay loved playing with it, running his fingers through it, messing it up, and he never told Austin it was time to get it trimmed.

  “How’s your ass?”

  Austin shrugged, his hand sliding down to cup Jay’s ass. The touch felt good, but Jay tried not to let it get him worked up. No time to do anything with Austin, and if he jerked off after Austin left, he really would be late. “Sore. Yours?”

  “Same. Why do we both have jobs that mean we’re sitting down all day?”

  “Bad planning?” Austin shook his head as soon as he’d said it, a smile appearing. “Hell, who’re we kidding? You know we both like the reminder.” His smile faded. “Usually.”

  “Forget about it,” Jay said, knowing Austin would be worrying about him all day. If he let himself think about Niall, his skin felt creepy-crawly, but he hadn’t been tied down and Austin had been right there. Nothing bad could’ve happened, not really. He had to remember that. Even if part of him was still shocked and bruised at Niall’s decision to ignore him, like he didn’t matter, like he didn’t count. Not cool. Not cool at all. “It’s over. We move on. Right?”

  “Right.” Austin kissed the edge of his ear, and Jay knew from the way he did it that he was going to be stewing about the situation for the rest of the day.

  He knew just as certainly there was nothing he could say to change that.

  * * *

  Unsurprisingly Jay was late to work, but not late enough that anyone would say anything about it. There was a bag of books next to the return slot, so he snagged it on his way into the library, knowing Nancy would have meant to come back for it but forgotten in the face of all the other things on her plate.

  People were always donating books—sometimes they put them into the book slot with the returns, which always resulted in a moment’s confusion when they were discovered—and Jay was always claiming some of them as his. That was how he ended up with so many stacks of them at home.

  “Oh, thanks,” Nancy said as he brought the bag into the office.

  “No problem.”

  “Anything good?” Nancy was sorting mail into a couple of different piles that no doubt made perfect sense to her but would be incomprehensible to Jay.

  “Haven’t looked yet.” He was itching to, though. Who knew what might be in there? He knew realistically that finding a signed first edition of The Hobbit wasn’t going to happen, but among the generic thrillers and tattered children’s books, he might find something interesting. His first love was fantasy, but he read too much, too quickly to confine himself to one genre.

  “Do it, and if there’s nothing you want, sort through them. Any that are in good enough condition can go for the book sale. The rest—”

  “Not the recycle bin,” Jay said. He hated throwing books away. It felt wrong, like littering or chopping down trees.

  Nancy gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry. Has to be done. We can’t use them, and no one will buy them.”

  “I could take them to the thrift store,” Jay said, bargaining for their survival like he always did, even though it would add fifteen minutes to his journey home.

  “They don’t mind being recycled,” Nancy said absently, her attention back on her mail. “Back to their roots. Circle of life. Ashes to ashes, pulp to pulp.”

  Jay set the bag down under his desk, out of the way. If they didn’t mind, he did.

  After a busy morning dealing with a stack of interlibrary loan requests, he ate his lunch outside. Spring had been slow in arriving this year, but the grass of Madison was finally green, not brown, and the small garden outside the library, city-maintained, was bright with tulips in candy pink and yellow. Jay found a bench and opened his book along with his box of sandwiches, carefully setting his watch to beep at him when it was time to go back to work. Once, two years ago, he’d forgotten to do that, and only the splash of raindrops on the pages had broken the spell of the story he was reading.

  Nancy had been less than pleased with him, but he’d met Austin at the library that afternoon, and there was nothing about that day he wanted to change, ever.

  He’d noticed the young man wandering the stacks with a scrap of paper in one hand and a couple of books tucked under his arm. It would have been hard not to notice him with his curly blond hair and blue eyes…

  * * *

  “Can I help you find something?” Jay finally asked when the blond appeared a fourth time.

  “I don’t know? Maybe. I mean…the computer says this book is checked in, but I can’t find it.”

  “The computer is usually right,” Jay told him, moving around the main desk and heading toward him. “Sometimes people put books back where they don’t belong. And sometimes people steal them, of course, but that’s usually certain titles.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Here, let me see.” Jay took the piece of paper and frowned. “Huh, yeah, this should be here.” He moved to where the book should have been shelved and crouched down
. “Well, The Guinness Book of World Records, for one.”

  “Seriously? Are people trying to break the record for that too?” The young man sounded as amused as Jay had been the first time he heard it.

  “Maybe. And Abbie Hoffman, of course. Oh, here it is.” The missing book, Marijuana—What’s a Parent to Believe?, had been pushed back behind the row, and its front cover was bent. Smoothing it, Jay stood. “You have kids?”

  “What? Oh, no. Younger sister.” The blond reached for the book. “Thanks. Abbie Hoffman?”

  Jay hadn’t let go, which meant they were both holding it. “He wrote a book called Steal This Book,” he explained. “Political thing. Was there, um, anything else you were looking for?”

  “No, just this. And these, but I found these. Obviously.”

  Reluctantly Jay let go of the book and gestured toward the main desk. “I could check you out?”

  “I kind of hoped you already were,” the blond said, grinning. He tucked the book in with the others he had and offered Jay his hand. “I’m Austin.”

  Jay took Austin’s hand. He’d always wanted to possess some sort of psychic ability. At the age of eleven, he’d wanted to be a wizard, but he’d let that go. Telekinesis would’ve been cool, but the idea of telepathy kind of freaked him out. Minds were full of dark places. With Austin’s palm warm against his, he just knew this was going to work out. It might not be a genuine psychic flash, but he was willing to count it.

  “Jay.”

  “You’re new here, aren’t you? I come in a lot, and I’ve never seen you.”

  Cute, gay, and into reading? Jay felt his smile start on the inside, a happy glow. Okay, this was too good to be true, but he was going to trust to fate and not start looking for flaws in a pretty perfect picture.

  “Started two months ago, but this is the first week I’ve been out here. They’ve kept me busy in the processing office sticking on bar codes and entering books into the system.”