Tipping Point

by Helena Maeve

  The elevator disgorged him onto the landing at a sluggish pace. Elijah refused to admit that he was dragging his feet. He had nothing to fear. Nate had been—more than kind. More than hospitable. He’d offered Elijah the comforts of home and the patience of a saint, and in return, all Elijah could think of was that glimpse of him feigning to speak into a telephone that didn’t work.

  “Nate?” he called, smothering the uneasy feeling churning in his gut.

  No answer came from the depths of the apartment. It took a moment for Elijah’s ears to pick up the dull spattering rush of water on tile.

  He let out a sigh of relief.

  You have no proof that he’s up to anything illicit. This is all guesswork and Jules’ say-so.

  She’s been wrong before.

  The scolding saw him through the by-now routine task of toeing off shoes—knowing they would be where he’d left them when he was ready to slide them on again—and doffing his jacket. He ventured into the kitchen with lingering trepidation. He’d spent too long in a place where self-service was explicitly against the rules. Anxiety had to be carefully excised before he worked up the nerve to pry a mug out of the washing machine and pour himself a lukewarm cup of coffee.

  The thought of hunting for vanilla essence shot through him, but Elijah refrained. He didn’t want to start going through Nate’s cupboards again.

  The last time, he’d found a whole arsenal.

  He started when the muffled echo of the shower faded to silence. A moment later, the bathroom door swung open. It was probably his imagination, but Elijah could almost swear he smelled the spicy, fresh scent of Nate’s body wash all the way in the kitchen.

  Some distant flicker of dizzy panic froze him in place when he glimpsed a flash of movement at the corner of his eye. The bedroom door gaped wide and the floor plan was such that from one end of the apartment to the other, Elijah had a perfect sight line.

  Nate had just noticed the same thing.

  Their eyes met across some thirty feet of empty space. Elijah tightened his hold around the coffee mug for fear of letting it slip and shatter.

  Nate anchored a hand over the towel knotted at his waist. “I didn’t hear you come in…”

  Elijah hunted for something to say that wouldn’t be yet another ‘I’m sorry’. He wished he could figure out a way to stop staring at Nate’s naked torso. It was easier said than done.

  He’d been right to assume that the fitted shirts and bespoke suits concealed more than pallid skin. Nate must’ve worked out, before Elijah was hurtled into his life. His biceps curved handsomely with the suggestion of weightlifting or tooth-grinding pull-ups. His stomach was flat, but the muscle definition was faint, more suggestion than protein shake ad. His chest was almost hairless, something Elijah had never found attractive in men before but was fast learning to appreciate.

  He found himself appreciating a lot about Nate—even the crease between his eyebrows when he was concerned.

  “Everything okay?” Nate wondered.

  “No.” It really wasn’t.

  Elijah relinquished his coffee to the island and strode forward. He didn’t know precisely where he was headed until his feet had carried him all the way into Nate’s bedroom, planting him just inside the threshold.

  Nate opened his mouth to speak—perhaps to ask what Elijah wanted—but he didn’t get the words out in time. Elijah cupped his cheeks and pressed their lips together.

  The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t fraught with maybes and half measures. Their teeth clashed, lips snagging on sharp canines. Elijah didn’t pull away until his lungs were burning for air. Heat flooded his face. He was suffocating under the collar of his—borrowed—shirt, so he tugged it up and over his head. There. Now they were in the same predicament, albeit with nothing but a towel to preserve Nate’s decency.

  “Is this what you want?” he wondered, when Elijah made to lean back in again.

  Elijah heard the hesitation that underpinned that softly worded question. Are you sure? Are you about to lose it again?

  Thoughts sparked and floundered between his ears. A whole litany of reasons why this was a terrible, reckless idea crashed into the uncanny surge of want throbbing in his veins. In the ensuing cacophony, Elijah picked out a single point of certainty.

  “Yeah,” he panted. “Yes. Please—”

  Nate kissed him before he could sink as low as begging.

  They clasped each other tightly, hungry for contact and control.

  Elijah couldn’t say who had the upper hand anymore. He swiftly lost track of his aspirations. He was only aware of Nate scraping his fingertips down his spine—a stroke that riddled his flesh with goosebumps—as he felt Nate’s dick through the towel, stiff and long, and his to fondle as he wished. That vivid notion faded, too, once Nate palmed his ass with spread digits and pulled him close.

  The sensation was breathtaking. Elijah’s jeans pulled even tighter around his cock, turning sweet friction to vaguely uncomfortable chafing.

  Elijah hissed through his teeth, bowing his head to Nate’s shoulder in an effort to get his feet back under him. They were moving so fast. This was the time to lean on the brakes, maybe remind Nate that he wasn’t operating at full capacity.

  The last thing Elijah wanted was to let prison-born neuroses infest the timid flame of desire flickering between them. In a moment of bravery, he caught one of Nate’s hands and directed it to the front of his jeans. There could be no invitation clearer than that.

  Nate made quick work of the zipper, shoving at stiff denim until the pants rolled down Elijah’s thighs to pool around his feet. He stepped out of them hastily, boxers following suit. It took a moment for the penny to drop, to realize that he was naked in front of Nate, that every blemish and mark was suddenly full on display.

  He dreaded meeting Nate’s gaze—a fear that fizzled out as soon as it had formed. Nate fastened his lips to the base of Elijah’s neck in a wicked, distracting move.

  “Fuck, you’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen…”

  Coherent thought fizzled out like champagne bubbles, usurped by pure, carnal need.

  Elijah couldn’t help it. He gasped when Nate curled a hand around his half-hard length. He tilted his head back to give better access to the wet, prickly bites Nate deigned to bestow.

  He pleaded with hands flexing in Nate’s hair, too far gone to muster words. Kissing the long line of his throat in turn was his way of evening the stakes. Yet Nate’s skin was delicate and soft, no stubble to scrape Elijah’s lips. It was a clean break with the past, grounding him in time and place.

  He’d been touched like this before—manhandled without his consent, chewed on as though he was a rubber toy. But prison wasn’t where his needs had crystallized into a love of whips and chains, of lovers strong enough to pin him down or hold his wrists while he struggled.

  The line between the two was just wide enough to dance along comfortably.

  Elijah knew he was on the right side of it when Nate guided him to the bed instead of shoving him down. That came later, with the distant thud of drawers being pulled open and shut, with the weight of Nate’s body astride his legs and a hand in his hair, pinning him to the mattress.

  Shivers rippled across his skin as Nate bent down to press a kiss between his shoulder blades. Elijah heard a soft, reedy moan ricochet off the bare walls—it was his, traitorously escaping his wide-open mouth and bouncing off the walls like a stray balloon. He waited for fear to strike down as Nate kneaded into his shoulders, but there was none.

  Nate didn’t need to be careful with him. Elijah wasn’t broken.

  Air seemed suddenly in short supply. Nate slid farther down his body, kissing and licking at the ugly swirls of ink etched into his skin. Don’t ask, don’t ask…

  Elijah’s silent prayers panned out. Nate didn’t stop for ancient history or breathless, perfunctory chatter. He didn’t ask if Elijah was sure—an oversight that sparked a blaze of gratitude in Elijah’s chest. He wasn’
t sure of anything anymore. He could barely recall how he’d wound up here, in Nate’s bed, at his mercy.

  The touch of fingertips dragging over his hole in a not-so-accidental caress rooted his focus.

  Elijah buried his face in the pillow. This was happening. They were going there.

  He concentrated on keeping his breaths under control, terrified of suddenly careering into a panic attack and spoiling everything.

  He didn’t want Nate to stop, not when his hands were dry and delicate and certainly not when he slicked his fingers and began prepping him in earnest.

  It had been so long since he’d wanted to be fucked and the moment seemed so fragile, so utterly flammable. One glint of trepidation and they’d be contending with a goddamn blaze. Elijah rutted against the bed sheets, friction curling his toes and substituting frustration for dread.

  “Yeah,” Nate purred in his ear, teeth nipping at the shell. “There you are, love… Take what you need.”

  Elijah wasn’t sure how he was taking anything, how the weight of Nate’s body bearing him down into the mattress allowed room for anything but surrender, but he went on rubbing himself like that, thrusting back onto Nate’s single digit. It made him a whore. It made him eager for the hands that once held him down when he was shaking, because how could there be a difference between one and the other?

  How could he want this and revile what went on in lockup?

  Suddenly the pleasure he felt took on a dangerous, guilt-ridden cast. He whimpered when Nate worked in a second finger. There was no sharp burn, no awful sense of being split open, but still Elijah couldn’t seem to unclench his fingers from the sheets. He knew he was stronger. He knew he had upper body strength on Nate and could flip them over if he wanted to.

  And a small, terror-stricken part of him wanted nothing more than to tear loose.

  Elijah resisted the impulse.

  “Wait,” he rasped. “Wait, I can’t…” Do this. Stop. I can’t decide. He chanced a glance over his shoulder.

  It wasn’t enough to see a sliver of Nate’s face and know he was in safe hands.

  “Can— Can I turn around?”

  Nate nodded. “Yeah, go on.” He shifted to the side and eased his fingers free in one smooth motion, no more confused than if Elijah had asked for another serving at dinner.

  Elijah had thought being with Nate was overwhelming before, but actually watching as Nate settled between his thighs, as he pushed up Elijah’s knees up and hooked his ankles over his shoulders, was at once better and worse. Elijah both saw and felt the wide tip of his latex-covered erection as Nate eased into him. He anchored both hands behind Nate’s elbows as a point of contact, just in case he needed to stop or throw him off balance.

  It was one last precaution to maneuver around a man who didn’t call for any.

  Nate pressed a kiss to the inside of his knee and slid home, breath fanning over Elijah’s feverish skin.

  “Fuck, that’s good…”

  Nate shuffled his knees up until they were all the way propped under Elijah’s hips. The angle of their bodies shifted fractionally, but it was enough for Nate to nudge his prostate on the next thrust.

  An inhuman cry escaped Elijah’s lips. He’d been here before—splayed open, pinned down, used—but it had been a while since a lover had taken pains to acquaint him with that electric jolt of sensation, that too-much, not-enough burst of pleasure that made the room seem at odds hazy and overly sharp at the corners of his vision. Elijah sucked in a breath, anticipating the second, glancing thrust. He wasn’t disappointed.

  Nate set a frantic pace, his earlier care vanishing beneath the intensity of his own desire. He folded over Elijah as he pumped his hips fast but not recklessly, holding him by the throat without squeezing down.

  “Keep your eyes on me,” he demanded, biting out the words as though it was physically painful to speak. “Don’t you dare look away.”

  Elijah whimpered, doing his best to obey.

  “Oh fuck, I’m close… I’m so close, Christ, I can’t—” He squirmed, but it was useless—his writhing attempts yielded no reprieve.

  Nate doubled down on his ferocious rhythm, glancing off his prostate now with every other stroke. “Come on,” he growled. “You like that? Come for me…”

  Orgasm wound tightly through Elijah’s body, starting in his extremities and flowing back from the tips of his fingers and toes, through aching muscle and quivering nerve, all the way to the pit of his stomach. Bliss skittered up his spine, flooding his vision with white. It was a first. He’d never come without touching himself before.

  As his body convulsed and squeezed down around Nate, he was distantly aware of his moans acquiring a guttural, desperate cadence. The final handful of thrusts jostled Elijah up the bed, wrinkled sheets scraping his aching spine.

  Abruptly, Nate went still above him and all the air rushed from his lungs.

  He slid out at once, holding the condom in place with one hand until he was free of the clutch of Elijah’s body. There was something about seeing him collapse in a sweaty, flushed heap that plucked a cord in Elijah’s chest.

  It was almost enough to mitigate that strange emptiness—that oddly bereft sensation that always gripped him in the aftermath of a good fuck. Elijah dragged a hand down his body, wrinkling his nose at the mess of sticky cum and unctuous lubricant, and pressed two fingers to his hole.

  “You okay?” Nate panted.

  Elijah turned his head on the pillow.

  Nate’s hair stuck out at all angles, sweat-damp and drooping into his eyes. He’d bitten into his bottom lip hard enough to leave a dent. Handsome didn’t begin to cover it.

  “Yeah,” Elijah breathed. He was. He felt as if he’d been left gaping open, maybe even worried a little that after so much hard use his body could no longer recover. It wasn’t the case. His muscles fluttered a little at the touch of fingers and everything below the belt was slightly oversensitive, but soreness hadn’t set in yet. “Yeah,” he repeated, too worn-out to school bewilderment from his voice, “I’m good.”

  Even if this was just a one-off, even if Nate chalked it up to an error of judgment and it never happened again, Elijah decided then and there that it would be worth awkwardness and heartache. It was enough to discover that prison hadn’t rotted away the parts of him that could still feel—and give—pleasure.

  Nate laid a hand on his thigh, smile widening when he felt the quaking muscle beneath. “Good.”

  A wicked gleam in his dark eyes was almost enough to engender thoughts of round two.

  Elijah pinned an elbow to the mattress and slowly rolled himself into the crook of Nate’s arm. He was tentative about the approach, telegraphing every moment so Nate would be able to extricate himself in case he didn’t want to indulge him.

  When Nate didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, Elijah rested his head on the broad shelf of his shoulder. Delight thickened in his chest as Nate knotted a hand in his hair, securing him in place.

  Please don’t be what I think you are. Don’t let Jules be right about you.

  Please.

  * * * *

  Sleep claimed Nate after a while, breaths evening out and his rib cage rising and falling softly under Elijah’s cheek. His features were so peaceful in sleep that he seemed almost angelic.

  Elijah had only to recall what they’d done minutes earlier to banish the thought.

  It wasn’t just a matter of casting his mind back in time, but of how far.

  Jules’ stony dismissal still echoed in his ears. A brush-off didn’t mean she’d sit back and wait for Nate to make the right call. It didn’t imply an amiable separation if he chose wrongly.

  Elijah raked a hand through his hair. He needed a shower more than he needed to wrestle with questions of allegiance, but the latter had sunk their claws into his flesh and wouldn’t let go.

  He disentangled himself carefully from Nate’s arms and padded into the bathroom.

  A closed door between them did litt
le to divorce Elijah’s thoughts from the man he’d left behind, gloriously nude and pleasantly warm.

  He showered quickly, scrubbing his hair with the same shampoo Nate used. He needed a haircut to avoid trailing shower water into the bedroom, but like most things about his current situation, it wasn’t a priority. Few things were, beyond food and shelter—and now protecting Nate, a man who clearly didn’t need protecting.

  Elijah opted against unpacking that particular impulse.

  Nate was still out like a light when he ventured back into the bedroom to fetch his clothes.

  For a long moment, all Elijah could do was watch him in his comfortable, lazy sprawl. He had turned in his slumber, rolling over on his belly and stretching out an arm to the side of the bed where Elijah should have lain. That crooked, too-small cavity in his chest constricted at the sight.

  Quietly, so as not to wake him, Elijah padded out of the bedroom and carefully drew the door shut in his wake. He didn’t close it completely. He already knew that Nate was a light sleeper.

  He dressed furtively, in the living room, heart rattling impatiently. Competing urges clashed for the upper hand. A not so small part of Elijah wanted nothing more than to get back to Nate’s bed, to put aside suspicion and let events take their natural course.

  Another, larger part of him demanded answers.

  Elijah had spent too long atoning for the mistakes of the past to stumble headfirst into another. At least, if his fears were confirmed, he could add them to all those prudent and logical reasons to escape from under Jules’ pointy heel and spare himself the inevitable heartache.

  The closed laptop on the coffee table beckoned like a treasure chest. Elijah shot one last glance down the hall before making up his mind.

  Seven years in computer innovation was a long time, but Apple MacBooks hadn’t evolved so much as to be unintelligible. The login screen was still the same. So, too, was the boot jingle once he guessed the right password—Miami. He cringed at the loud burst of noise, sweat prickling at the back of his neck.