Junk (18 page)

Lewis’s hands moved against him, went to wrap themselves around his waist. It was all the invitation Jasper needed.

They met in a crush of hungry mouths. Lewis tasted fresh, like toothpaste. Jasper licked the flavour out of him, trying to get at the real taste hiding beneath.

Lewis moaned and arched his back, pressing the whole length of his body against Jasper’s. Jasper could feel every button on Lewis’s shirt digging into his chest. He wanted to rip it off, but it was new, and Lewis loved his clothes. Instead, he pushed it up, his hands exploring Lewis’s ribs.

Lewis wriggled. Ticklish? Maybe. Jasper made his touch firmer, dragging his fingertips down towards Lewis’s waistband. Lewis was hard too; he could feel their erections bumping together as their bodies moved.

Any minute now, Lewis was going to tell him they couldn’t do this. That it was unprofessional. But it felt so right. Jasper pushed his hand lower, under Lewis’s waistband, delving into humid heat. Lewis made a sound in his throat. Protest or bliss? Jasper couldn’t tell from the sound alone, but Lewis’s hands were engaged in their own dance down to his arse, pulling Jasper to him, groin to groin.

Too much clothing in the way.

Jasper pushed up onto his knees, keeping Lewis pressed to the ground with his relentless kiss. There wasn’t a moment to waste. This had to happen before either of them had second thoughts.

He scrabbled with his zip. With Lewis’s. The first touch of their swollen cocks made his breath catch. Jasper wrapped a hand around them both, too urgent for finesse. But Lewis kept kissing him. Kept groping his arse. Kept making those gorgeous, needy sounds in his throat.

Jasper wanted to make it last, but every moment they lingered gave Lewis a chance to back out. He picked up his pace instead, lost in the sensation of them rubbing together, skin on skin.

Wet heat burst across Jasper’s hand, his chest, Lewis gasping into his mouth. Gliding on Lewis’s come, Jasper rutted against him. Everything intensified. The breeze across his back. The buzz of insects and the rustle of leaves. The scent of Lewis’s release exhilarating him. Impossible to hold back.

A sunburst of colours wiped out his mind as a rush like champagne fizzed from his balls to his dick, spurting out between them.

Breathing heavily, Jasper propped himself up on his hands. He watched Lewis’s face, memorising the way he looked after orgasm. Eyes half-lidded, swollen lips parted and spots of colour high on his cheeks. The sheer beauty of it made him want to write a poem. To capture the moment and keep it forever, locked in the perfect arrangement of words.

It was because he was studying Lewis’s face so intently that he saw it. A tightening of his lips. A focusing of his eyes. A wary drawing back.

The moment Lewis started to regret it.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Lewis whispered.

Chapter Seventeen

Jasper rolled off him, trying to ignore the pain in his chest. He wanted to lick his fingers clean. To discover how Lewis tasted and savour what should have been postcoital bliss. But instead he wiped his hand on the long grasses, wincing as the edge of a blade cut his finger. He wasn’t about to bitch about it, though, because if he let out his frustration, he’d probably end up saying something he regretted. Something sure to drive Lewis away for good.

So instead he looked around, blinking. Where the hell were his glasses? He pushed himself up on one hand, feeling a disquieting crunch underneath him. “Oh, bugger.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Jasper picked up his glasses and examined them. The lenses were intact, which was a relief.

“Are they broken?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Unlike the way Jasper felt inside. One of the slender wire arms was bent at an angle, but he yanked it back into place and shoved them on his face. They had a smear of grass sap obscuring his vision and weren’t sitting right, he could tell, but at least he could now see well enough to locate his discarded T-shirt. He wiped his belly clean with it before handing it to Lewis. “Here,” he said, his voice alarmingly rough.

“Thanks.”

Jasper turned to face the fruit bushes while he tucked himself away and zipped his shorts up. He could hear the rustlings of Lewis doing the same behind him. He could even feel the weight of Lewis’s gaze against the back of his head.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Lewis said.

“Why?” he snapped. “Is this part of our session? Because I don’t think it should be counted.” Sex with Lewis while he paid for the privilege of his time felt wrong. And it shouldn’t have been wrong. Damn Lewis and his stupid scruples for spoiling a good thing. A beautiful thing.

“No. You’re right, it shouldn’t be counted, and it shouldn’t have happened. Sorry. I’m as much to blame as you are. It’s just… It’s been a while. You’re attractive, and I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s this heat. Makes my judgment fuzzy.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better, is it?” Jasper barely recognised his own voice beneath the acidity. The fruit bushes blurred into a watery green mess. Jasper sniffed hard. Not in front of Lewis. He was buggered if he was going to make any more of a fool of himself than he already had.

A weight landed on his shoulder. Lewis’s chin. Jasper stiffened, but Lewis’s arms wrapped around him anyway.

“Jasper, I’m really, really sorry. I never meant to hurt you. That’s what I meant when I said it shouldn’t have happened. I know you want more from me than I’m able to give you right now.”

“All I wanted was a chance to lie there and kiss some more,” Jasper whispered, the fact Lewis couldn’t see his face somehow making it easier to confess.

“Really? That’s all? I thought you wanted a relationship.”

“I’ll take what I can get.” Whatever scraps of affection Lewis was willing to share. Now he understood what Mas must have gone through. God, he hoped he’d never made him feel like this.

Like his heart had been ripped out and chucked carelessly onto the compost heap.

Thinking of which… Jasper looked around and located the offending T-shirt, now draped over the branch of an apple tree. He shook off Lewis’s arms and walked over to it, lifting the soft black cotton, now splattered with their come. Part of him wanted to keep it as a memento, but it would be a bittersweet token, stirring up as much of the hurt as the passion. No. Better to let it rot away and turn into something useful.

He marched off to the compost heap.

“Jasper? What are you doing?” Lewis sounded like he was struggling to keep up with him as Jasper dodged around the familiar obstacles of Mama’s vegetable patch.

“What you said. I’m getting rid of something I don’t need.”

“Listen, Jasper, I really am sorry. Truly. Please, will you just look at me?”

“Why?” Jasper spun around, angry now. “So you can get a look at how screwed up I am? Pining after a man who doesn’t want anything to do with me? I’d rather keep that to myself, thanks.”

“I do want something to do with you.”

“Yes, but what? Just a working relationship, right? Nothing meaningful. Nothing closer.”

“I want us to be friends.”

“Friends? How do you think that’s going to work? I hang around mooning after you, waiting for you to notice me? We could be so good together. You’ve just seen it. Felt it. Or was that just me and my crazy brain again, imagining things that weren’t actually there?”

“There was something there. I’m not denying it. I’m just saying you need to wait. I can’t rush into a relationship like this. I can’t build a life with someone who’s going through so much change. You might be a different person in a couple of months’ time.”

“It wouldn’t have to be a serious relationship.” Felt like ripping a scab off a wound, revealing his naked desperation. “I’d settle for friends with benefits.”

“You shouldn’t have to settle for anything. You deserve to be with someone who thinks the world of you.”

“And as we’ve already established, that isn’t you.”

“Jasper—” Lewis’s hand landed on his shoulder again, but this time Jasper shook it off savagely and stepped away from him.

When Lewis next spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically subdued. “I think I should get going now. I’ll be back on Monday, but in the meantime, if you want to talk about anything with me—I mean anything—just call me.”

Jasper didn’t answer. Didn’t trust his voice not to break, and eventually he heard the sound of Lewis trudging back up through the garden. Only then did he let the tears stinging his eyes roll down his cheeks.

Books were no comfort for a broken heart, Jasper was beginning to realise. Oh, he could probably find something here that would offer some solace if he could bring himself to focus on the text, to string together the phonemes into words and sentences that made sense and filled his mind with pictures. But he couldn’t even do that. The words danced away, teasing him.

He’d spent his Saturday alone and now he needed a person to talk to. Someone who knew him and could listen. Or even just sit there with him, silent together.

He chucked his book back on the nearest pile he could still reach the top of and headed out the door.

He was halfway down the hill when he realised he wasn’t carrying his bag. Bizarre. He hadn’t missed it. What would Lewis ask him right now? He’d probably want to know where Jasper was on that anxiety scale he loved so much. So where was he?

Maybe a thirty. For the bag, anyway. The whole general situation was about as close to a hundred as you could get, but the bag no longer seemed terribly important.

Maybe he’d just needed something to put it all into perspective. For God’s sake, how bad could it really be to see his house emptied of all those books again? It was what he wanted, ultimately, wasn’t it?

He reached the Copper Kettle and peered in. Good, almost empty. It was that Sunday morning lull when the morning coffee customers had left, but before the lunchtime rush. Yusef was sitting on his favourite barstool, and rather than head over to the middle of the counter like he usually did, Jasper perched on the one next to him. Yusef glanced up for just a moment, his thick fingers still dancing away with his knitting needles and fine, bright pink yarn.

“I just need to reach the end of this row and then I’ll get your coffee. The usual?”

“Sounds good.” Jasper watched Yusef’s fingers some more, marvelling at how deftly they could move. “What are you making?” It looked like a fine cobweb of pink lace, and quite unlike the usual chunky, earthy-coloured things he worked on.

“I wanted to make a pretty scarf for Yasmina. A going-away present. She got in at the Royal Dental College. Starts in September.”

“That’s wonderful news! She must be over the moon.”

Yusef gave a lopsided smile. “She’s trying to play it cool like teenagers do, but yes, she’s excited. I can tell.”

“Little Mina, all grown up.” Jasper shook his head, hardly able to believe it. She didn’t seem old enough to be moving away from home. Oh. He looked closer at Yusef, noticing the sadness mingled in with the parental pride. “You’ll miss her.”

“Of course. But I knew it would happen one day. Children leave the nest and fly out into the world.”

“I never did.”

“You had reason to stick around. You’re a good man, Jasper.”

Was he? Jasper considered it carefully while running his fingers along the woodgrain of the counter. “I don’t feel like it. Didn’t, even at the time. I resented her for stealing all my chances. For pressuring me to have grandchildren.”

“I think all parents want to see their children settled in a family. It’s only natural.”

“Not if you’re gay.”

Yusef tutted. “Being gay shouldn’t stop you, if that’s what you want.”

“I’d be an awful parent.”

“You were a great babysitter.”

A memory of jumping on the sofa with two small, giggling children hijacked Jasper’s mind. Okay, maybe he’d been good with Yusef’s kids, but that didn’t mean he wanted his own. “It’s too much responsibility. I feel guilty about everything as it is. I feel guilty for not being straight like Mama wanted. I feel guilty for hating the way she screwed up my chance of a normal life. I meant to move away, you know? I had plans.”

“But that’s what makes you a good man, you see? You could have still gone away, but you chose to stick around. There was no law saying you had to stay on as Layla’s carer. She would have understood.”

“How could I have left her? She was sick.”

Yusef set down his knitting and got down from his stool with a groan. “Like I said, you’re a good man. Not every teenager would stick around to nurse a sick parent. You should be proud of yourself, not wallowing in your grief.”

“I’m not grieving anymore.”

“Then why do you live like you’ve given up hope? I’ve seen your house, Jasper. I walk past it every day. That’s the house of someone who’s depressed. Who doesn’t have the energy to try anymore.”

“I…I have been trying. Recently.”

Yusef turned away to tend to the coffee machine. “This Lewis,” he called out over the noise of the grinder. “He’s been helping you?”

“Yes.” When Yusef didn’t respond, Jasper raised his voice. “Yes, he has. He’s full of good ideas.”