Junk (30 page)

Lewis’s legs began to quake. Jasper craned his head to look up at him from beneath. Everything about Lewis burned. His skin and his hair caught the sunset and threw it back at Jasper, dazzling him. It was almost too bright for Jasper to catch the expression on his face, the grimace of ecstasy. Lewis looked like he was in danger of biting through his lower lip at any moment, so Jasper decided to move things along.

He got back in position behind Lewis and resumed teasing with his tongue, but this time he focussed on Lewis’s twitching hole. The muscles fluttered under his probing, eventually letting him in, only to push him out again. By now Lewis was panting and pleading incoherently. Jasper had to dig his fingers into Lewis’s hips to stop the man from shoving back at him and riding his face shamelessly.

Next time. For now, Jasper wanted to be the one setting the pace, so he drew it out longer, until his dick felt ready to explode if anyone so much as looked at it.

Lewis’s hole was soft and pliant now, and since Jasper’s tongue had gone numb he figured it was time for a change.

He moved back up, hugging Lewis around the waist and kissing his neck. “You ready for me?”

“So ready. Please.”

It was the work of seconds to undress, roll on a condom and lube up. Jasper paused, looking down at the point where their bodies almost met, creamy white against darkly-furred tan. They looked great together. He gripped hold of Lewis’s hips and nudged him with the tip of his erection. Lewis gasped, then turned his head, frowning endearingly.

“Please, just hurry up before I come all over your pillow.”

Pillow? Oh yeah. He should probably go and get a towel or something to protect the sheets, but he didn’t want to let go of Lewis even for a second. He flexed his fingers, enjoying the smoothness of Lewis’s skin underneath them, and circled his dick against Lewis’s entrance. He wanted in. What’s more, Lewis’s body wanted him in. Oh well. Pillow be damned. Jasper could just turn it over to sleep.

Jasper surged forward, and Lewis welcomed him with a throaty groan.

Chapter Thirty

Lewis clung to the bed frame, certain that if he let go he’d collapse.

God, Jasper really did know what he was doing. Even though Lewis’s dick hadn’t received the merest of strokes yet, his whole body shook from the effects of Jasper’s attentions. That unhurried mastery had turned him to jelly. It seemed rash to start making comparisons to previous lovers based on just this one instance of foreplay, but Lewis couldn’t remember ever feeling transported like this.

And now, with Jasper filling him up inside and Jasper’s breath coming fast against his neck, there was absolutely nowhere he’d rather be.

“You can move now,” Lewis eventually prompted, once the sting of entry had transformed into pulsing pleasure.

“I can’t,” Jasper groaned. “Not if you want it to last longer than ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds would probably do me.” Especially if someone actually touched his aching dick. Even rubbing it against the bedposts should work, although he’d rather have skin on skin.

“I want you to have a better time than that.”

Lewis uncurled his fingers from the bed frame and pushed back, so he ended up pretty much sitting on Jasper’s lap. He reached for Jasper’s head and twisted, finally managing to meet his lips with an awkward kiss.

Jasper’s forehead glistened with sweat, and his eyes were shut tight. God, he really did want to do his best. The thought wrapped Lewis up in perfect warmth. He couldn’t remember a partner ever going to quite these lengths to stave off orgasm for his sake.

“Think of something boring. Think of… I don’t know. Poetry. You know any poetry by heart?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know any
boring
poems. It’s all, you know,
sensual
. Shakespeare, Rimbaud… They’re not going to take my mind off coming.”

Good point. Why bother learning a boring poem? “Football scores?”

“As if.”

Then it struck him. “The Dewey Decimal Classification System. You could go through that in your mind.”

The furrow on Jasper’s forehead deepened, then smoothed. “Okay. That could work. Is working. Thank Christ.”

Lewis left it another minute before rippling his internal muscles to clench Jasper tight.

“Right, okay, yes. I’ll try.” Jasper’s words came out in anguished pants. His hands gripped Lewis’s hips even tighter and lifted him just a fraction, before thrusting back up into him.

“Oh fuck.” Lewis grabbed hold of the bed frame again, his grip sweaty.

“You have a dirty mouth in bed,” Jasper breathed before repeating the lift and thrust.

This time Jasper hit Lewis’s sweet spot. He convulsed, his dick dripping precome all over the pillow. “Shit, that’s it. Just like that.”

“Never heard you swear before.”

“I don’t. Usually. Only with someone—fuck!—who knows what he’s doing.”

Jasper huffed in his ear. It might have been a laugh, but Lewis was too far gone to tell. Every jerk of Jasper’s hips pushed a gush of precome out of him, and pleasure reverberated through his body. Every thrust turned into a mini-orgasm.

Lewis’s hands began to shake, his grip loosening. His arms slipped, and Jasper pushed him forward, up onto his knees. Now he could lean onto the top of the bed frame, his face almost touching the window.

And now Jasper really began to show him what he could do. Long, steady strokes in and out that were going to drive Lewis mad. Would someone please touch his dick? Jasper, preferably, as Lewis’s sweaty hands were clutching on to the slippery bed frame for all he was worth.

“Please,” he groaned. “Please touch me. I need to come.”

“Not yet.”

Lewis tried to swallow back the helpless sob in his throat, but it was a losing battle.

Jasper picked up his pace, hips pistoning. Balls slamming into Lewis’s. The sound of skin slapping skin filling the air.

The sob became a howl.

Jasper’s hands moved, hugged him tight. His mouth latched on to Lewis’s neck. Sucking. Chin rasping.

Lewis was coming even before Jasper’s hand closed around his cock. Jasper fucked him through it, his movements increasingly erratic and jerky.

Lewis’s vision narrowed, static snow taking over the edges. His world was the bruising ache of Jasper moving inside him. The ragged gasps against his neck. The hand milking every last drop of pleasure from him.

“Lewis! Love this. Love you. Oh!” Jasper rammed in deeper than he had yet. So deep Lewis could feel it in his heart.

Jasper froze and groaned. His hips jerked.

Lewis was no stranger to sex, but never like this. Oh no. It had never felt like this. Ever.

With anyone.

Jasper tugged on him, and Lewis fell back against him, his head lolling. Jasper panted into the exposed skin of his neck. Felt good. So right. A moment of paradise, just for the two of them.

But the moment couldn’t last forever, and eventually Jasper began moving beneath him, easing out.

“Ow!” Lewis winced, but the kiss on his neck made the withdrawal more bearable. It couldn’t console him while Jasper left the room, though.

How could he ever make do with anyone else after this? Jasper had spoiled him. Screwed the stuffing out of him, and here he was, a limp ragdoll, unable to contemplate ever making love to anyone other than Jasper.

And it had been love, hadn’t it? While you certainly couldn’t believe everything you heard in the throes of orgasm (unless it was another man’s name), he didn’t doubt Jasper loved him. Really loved him. Which made what Lewis had to do even more impossibly tough on both of them.

He stared up at the ceiling, watching the violet shadows encroach as the peachy gold light dimmed.

The sound of the toilet flushing heralded Jasper’s return.

“You have a lovely room,” Lewis said. It was pathetic, really, trying to steer the conversation into safe territory. He knew they needed to talk, but he wanted to grab every extra moment of closeness he could. It was only a matter of time before the inevitable distance would open up between them. “Are you going to redecorate up here?”

“Don’t know.” Jasper landed on the bed beside him slumping into the mattress and pulling Lewis tight towards him. They touched, noses, chests, groins, knees, toes. Jasper was too close to focus his eyes on, so Lewis let his drift shut. “No sleeping. Not yet. I need to tell you…about Mama.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do!” The urgency in Jasper’s tone surprised Lewis.

“Okay. Well, if it’s what you need.”

“I have to tell someone. I just… I just don’t know how. Where to start.”

“It’s usually best to start at the beginning.” Lewis yawned but forced his eyes open to show he was paying attention. Jasper rolled onto his back but pulled Lewis’s arm with him so he lay with his hand over Jasper’s heart.

Jasper was quiet for so long Lewis would have thought him asleep, if it weren’t for the fact his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. When he did begin talking, his voice was so soft Lewis had to strain his ears.

“I suppose the beginning was when she got ill. I mean really ill. She took off to bed the day after I came out to her, and after that she didn’t get up again without help. I had to care for her around the clock.”

“Do you think that was deliberate?” She wouldn’t have been the first person in the world to use an illness to manipulate the behaviour of those caring for her. “Like she was trying to stop you going out and finding a man?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think she was doing it consciously. She was just so depressed about the whole situation. Not having grandchildren. Said I’d never find a man to care about me in the same way a woman would. She wanted the best for me.”

“The best would have been to let you live your life and love who you pleased.”

Jasper’s mouth twisted into a rough approximation of a smile. “It just wasn’t that simple. Not when she was sick. She wasn’t faking it. She’d just lost her reason to keep fighting the leukaemia. Anyway, that’s not really the bit I need to tell you about. She kept going like that for another four years, just slowly sliding downhill. Her muscles wasted away with no exercise. She was in chronic pain. They gave her drugs, but she said they didn’t work. She still ached all over. And it was terminal by then. It wasn’t like she was going to live for very long anyway, even without…” Jasper gulped. “Even without my help.”

Lewis’s heart plummeted. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?”

“She begged me to help her end it. For almost six months. Every day, again and again and again. I didn’t want to, but in the end… In the end, she wore me down, and I did it. I fucking well did it. I killed her, Lewis.” Jasper’s voice cracked, but he didn’t start weeping. Perhaps he’d cried it all out of himself earlier.

“I…I don’t know what to say.” Possibly for the first time ever.

“You don’t need to say anything. I just wanted to tell someone and not have them turn me over to the police. You won’t, will you?”

“Of course not.”

“Thanks. For listening and…everything.” Jasper gulped, and Lewis watched as he drew himself together. It took a monumental effort of will, by the looks of it. That same willpower that had kept him going all those lonely years.

“Anytime,” Lewis whispered, wondering if that was a lie. Was he really going to be around for Jasper, or would he stick to his guns and insist on the separation period he’d planned? Jasper’s confession was troubling. No, more than that. It was frightening. Had he done it with a pillow over her face? Lewis shivered a little, imagining Jasper looming over a withered body, crying, perhaps, as he held the pillow down.

Poor bloke. Doing something like that… The guilt you’d have to live with. He wanted to talk it through now, but Jasper’s breathing was already slowing, and they’d had such a long, hard day.

Lewis drifted off into nightmares, pursued through looming towers of junk by a creature he couldn’t see but which reeked of death.

He woke with a shout, but Jasper was there to snuggle up to, and the weight of his arm across Lewis’s chest helped to drag him back into an uneasy slumber.

Chapter Thirty-One

Jasper’s morning began with a phone call from work, asking if he could come in and cover a shift as they were five down due to a nasty stomach bug doing the rounds. He stared at Lewis’s sleeping form in the bed next to him as he heard himself agree. He was sure they’d fallen asleep together, but sometime in the night, Lewis had rolled away and onto his front and was now lying spread-eagled with his face buried in the pillow. Jasper could just see a slice of cheek and a whole load of rumpled blond hair.

Why on earth had he said yes to his boss? He was meant to be on holiday for another week. But then again, he’d always gone out of his way to cover shifts when necessary, and it had become a habit to just agree. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d ever had anything better to do with his time.

Perhaps he needed to work on being a bit more selfish in future. If he had a reason to be, that is. A reason like the one that was lying next to him, snuffling softly. The first man he’d ever shared his bed with.

He lay back down again, and Lewis shifted, still half mashed into the pillow, but opening a bleary, unfocused eye. “Issat the phone?” he mumbled. “Wassa time?”