Junk (29 page)

He was still pondering the potential hazards of grease and paper when he heard the front door opening. It was an unfamiliar sound, now there wasn’t a tonne of books to deaden the click of the lock and the protest of the hinges. Did he have any oil for those anywhere? Did he even care, when Lewis was just in the next room?

And they were just about to have sex?

Oh…fuck.

“Jasper?”

“In here.” He couldn’t move. His insides had transformed into seasick butterflies, and if he took a step, he just knew he’d probably spew. What had happened to his determination to take the upper hand? To seduce Lewis and convince him to stay the night.

“You look lost,” Lewis said from the doorway, a tentative smile on his face.

“I don’t recognise my own house.” He wasn’t sure he recognised Lewis either, in his soft loose shirt and trousers. He must have been home to shower and change, as his hair was damp too.

“Come on, I’ll show you the rest.” Lewis extended his hand, and when Jasper took hold of it, the butterflies settled. “You have Yusef and Carroll to thank for this. I never thought I’d see anyone who could take her on at speed cleaning, but that man has a talent.”

“Must come from working in a busy café.”

“That’s what he said. Now, I reckon this room cleaned up pretty well and there’s not going to be too much repair work needed. Maybe a fresh lick of paint as there was a bit of mildew on the outside wall, but the rest is in pretty good nick.”

Jasper noted the niff of bleach and a faint greyish stain by the back door where Lewis indicated, but wasn’t particularly perturbed. “Looks fine to me. I can live with it.” He’d always rather liked the yellow his mama had chosen for this room.

Lewis gave him a lopsided smile. “That’s fine, then, and it’s going to make your life easier if you have a base room that doesn’t need too much work doing to it. Have you looked into the front two rooms yet?” A frown creased Lewis’s brow.

“Not yet.”

“I’m warning you now, it probably looks worse than it is, so don’t freak. You are definitely going to need to redecorate both those rooms, though. You might need to get in a plasterer too.”

“Oh, okay.” Jasper let himself be led through towards the living room. With his hand on the doorknob, Lewis shot him a worried look.

“Also, we took an executive decision and removed the curtains. Don’t worry, we didn’t chuck them. We moved them to the warehouse. But I don’t think they’d be good for anything anymore.”

Was it really going to be that bad? Lewis opened the door, and Jasper stepped inside.

“Oh God.” He turned on the spot, taking it all in. The room was far larger than he’d ever remembered, but the wall around the window looked…ominous. Maybe it was simply the dim lighting making things look dilapidated. He went to flick the overhead light on and gasped.

“It’s worse on the outside wall,” Lewis said, tugging him in that direction. “I think you must have had a leak in the window frame, so those might need replacing, which could be pricey, but as far as we can see, everything else is superficial damage.”

Superficial? The wallpaper was bubbled and curling back at the edges all over the room, but on this wall it was almost falling off. And he was fairly sure plaster shouldn’t be that blackish colour. When he got closer, the black resolved itself into patches of mildew. Ugh.

Jasper reached out and tugged at a strip of paper. The whole piece fell down, revealing damp plaster covered in blooms of mould.

“What are you thinking?” Lewis asked, his voice betraying a nervousness Jasper had never before heard from him.

“I’ve never seen so many different-coloured moulds before.” He might have been familiar with the black mildew spots, but here were patches of mottled yellow, orange, blue, green and even some white fluffy stuff that looked like it should be growing on leftovers in the fridge. Not that he let the contents of his fridge get into that state. Well, not all that often, anyway. “It’s kind of beautiful, in a strange way.”

“Beautiful? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call mould beautiful.”

“Sorry. It’s just so colourful.”

“Hey, no need to apologise. I like that you can see something special in everything. You really notice things. The details. So many people are so focused on the big picture they never take time to stop and look around them.”

“And I just get stuck on the details.” Like those times he’d tried to throw out newspapers and been distracted by reading the articles.

“You’re getting better.”

Was he really? Jasper supposed he must be if they’d even got this far. The prospect of working through all the contents of the warehouse, though? The very idea made dread settle in his guts. Then a thought wormed its way up into his conscious mind on a wave of bile. “Oh God, the mould. Did it spread? Is my stuff okay? The books?”

Lewis’s face twisted. “I’m not going to lie to you. There were a few piles of books that I don’t think are fit for anything other than landfill. And a few pieces of wooden furniture that were up against the outside walls are looking pretty bad, but I think they’re salvageable. Also, some leatherworking stuff and an old slipper we found behind your sofa. Leather is one of those materials that just seems to attract mould.”

Jasper listened with a sick feeling. “You chucked it all out?”

“No! Of course not. I promised we wouldn’t, didn’t I? We’ve taped out a new area in the warehouse for stuff that’s badly damaged, but it’s up to you to decide what goes. Hey, come on, it’s not so bad, really.” Lewis put an arm around Jasper’s shoulders. “It’s only stuff. There are much more important things out there.”

“Like what?”

“Like people.”

Jasper leaned his head against Lewis’s, savouring the closeness. Yes, people were much more important. He hadn’t had enough of them in his life for far too long now, and he didn’t want his fear to ruin a chance at what he craved. He craned his neck to get a look at Lewis’s face. “Lewis, I…I wanted to ask, will you stay. Tonight?”

Lewis’s fingers plucked at the front of Jasper’s T-shirt. “I think it’s probably inevitable. I’m so knackered, I think I’m going to pass out as soon as my head hits a pillow.”

“I’m kind of hoping you won’t.”

“Got plans for me, have you?” Lewis’s tone stayed light, but his fingers kneaded the fabric of Jasper’s shirt possessively, brushing his nipple in a most distracting way.

“I’ve got plans for both of us.”

Jasper turned Lewis to face him, and slowly—slow enough for Lewis to stop him if it wasn’t what he wanted—he leaned in to claim his lips.

For a kiss that started so politely, it soon turned messy. Teeth clashed and tongues grappled. Jasper’s hands found their way down to Lewis’s arse and lifted him. The pressure of Lewis’s erection against his made him gasp. But when Lewis groped between them, Jasper grabbed his wrist.

“Not here.” He didn’t want another quick fumble in a ravaged room. He wanted to lay out a naked Lewis and take his time getting to know him. “On my bed.”

Lewis nodded, spots of colour high on his cheeks.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

This time, Jasper led the way, pulling Lewis behind him.

“You want to look in the dining room?” Lewis asked.

“Not really.” But as he hadn’t been inside the room for years, he poked his head around the door. It was a square room with a bay window and two outside walls, and he always remembered it feeling cold, but perhaps he’d find a use for it one day. Right now, though, his mind was on other things. “Come on. Upstairs. I vacuumed my room for you and everything.”

“I feel honoured,” Lewis said, his solemn tones not giving anything away. It was hard to tell if that was sarcasm or a genuine sentiment, but Jasper didn’t let the doubt slow him down.

When he opened the door, pink light flooded out.

“Wow,” Lewis breathed, tugging Jasper over to the window and climbing up onto the bed to get a better view. “What a sunset.”

The sky was strung with little puffy clouds and softer, gauzy ones behind them, all glowing shades of fiery peach, orange and gold. Lewis’s hair shone like a corkscrew halo, picking up the warm light and dazzling Jasper. He could still see it shining even when he took his glasses off and laid them on the bedside table.

He climbed onto the bed where Lewis kneeled and moved behind him, fitting his knees between Lewis’s legs and wrapping his arms around that lean waist. He pulled Lewis back a little so his weight was resting on Jasper’s lap. Lewis’s neck was right there, begging to be lavished with kisses. The skin was smooth, freshly shaven, and Lewis moaned as Jasper scraped his own stubbly skin over it in search of Lewis’s pulse. He licked over the fluttering skin of Lewis’s neck. Tasted warm man under the hint of shaving soap. Felt the rumble of Lewis’s larynx as he groaned and arched back, pressing the crease of his arse against Jasper’s aching dick.

Oh, that felt amazing.

Lewis’s hands scrabbled around behind him as if trying to pull Jasper even closer against his back, but their urgency had to be resisted. Jasper wanted to take his time and make Lewis remember this night. He caught both Lewis’s hands and pressed them down to the top of his brass bed frame. “Keep those there,” he said, gently stroking each finger down so that it curled around the metal.

“Or what?” Lewis asked.

“Or I’ll have to go find something to tie them there. Maybe my dressing gown cord.”

“Mmmm, sounds hot.” Lewis’s eyelashes flickered, and he bit his lower lip as he arched back farther against Jasper’s shoulder.

Blimey O’Reilly! He’d only been teasing, but now that he really considered tying Lewis up, he had to agree. It wasn’t so much the vision of Lewis trussed up that thrilled him, more the idea that Lewis would trust him enough to be put in such a vulnerable position.

But not tonight. No, tonight it would be more than enough just to see Lewis fully naked at last. To have him there in his bed. To push inside him for the very first time.

To remember what living was all about.

Jasper tugged on Lewis’s shirt, suddenly hungry for skin. The more of it, the better. Lewis obligingly lifted his arms to help Jasper remove the shirt, then placed his hands back on the bed frame.

Bare skin at last. Jasper sat on his heels to get a better look at Lewis’s back. He was lean as expected, the knobs of his spine protruding in a way that tempted Jasper to run his fingertips down over them. Lewis gasped when he reached the crease of his arse.

“You’re very welcome to keep going,” Lewis rasped while Jasper’s finger paused there. “I’ve been kind of hoping you’d want to top the first time.”

“God.” It shuddered out of him on a wave of desire. He could. They could do it like this, kneeling on the bed by the open window, watching the sky blaze and dim. Or he could roll them both down onto the bed and take it slowly, face-to-face. That would be more loving, more memorable, surely?

Or maybe he could wait and do that in the morning.

“Please.” Lewis ground his arse down against Jasper in a way that must surely have been calculated to drive him wild. “I brought condoms and lube and everything.”

“Everything?” What else was there, exactly, without straying into the realms of the kinky? Jasper shifted forwards again to nuzzle Lewis’s neck.

“Christ, that’s good.”

“You said
everything
.”

“Everything? Oh, okay, just condoms and lube.”

“I do have some here, you know.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure they’d be in date.”

Jasper pinched Lewis’s nipple for that, pleased to feel him shiver in response. “They’re perfectly in date, thanks. I’ve not been a complete hermit.”

“Good, ’coz I’m planning on getting pretty carried away, and I don’t think I’ll have the presence of mind to talk you through technique.”

“Cheeky. I’ll show you
technique
.” Because if all those tumbles with Mas had taught him anything, it was that, even if only in bed, he knew how to satisfy a man.

Jasper began with one earlobe pinched between his teeth, then licked and nuzzled his way down Lewis’s spine while his hands got busy pushing those pesky trousers down and out of the way.

“Oh, oh shit, Jasper! Yeah, just like that.” It was a buzz to hear the moans and half-mumbled curses Lewis let out. Who’d have thought the man actually had a dirty mouth on him?

Lewis had a cute little rear. Not all sticking out like a porn star’s, but small, pale and firm to the touch. His skin was smooth—the light dusting of blond hair on his thighs having pretty much given up halfway up, like his arse was above the tree line. Jasper spent a moment admiring, massaging with his thumbs and gently drawing Lewis’s cheeks apart. He blew experimentally over the rosy pink pucker, pleased to hear the whimper coming from above.

“God, Jasper, I didn’t have you down for a tease.”

Jasper smiled to himself, then oh-so-slowly leaned in and licked a trail up from Lewis’s balls to his hole. His man tasted good. He’d known that already from sucking him off, but the flavour and scent here was subtly different. Earthier, despite the hint of soap. Jasper revelled in olfactory overload, ignored Lewis’s groans of protest and moved back down to his balls. He’d not had a chance to really get to know them yet, so he took his time bathing them in saliva, sucking them into his mouth one by one.