Jamie nudged Zac’s waistband down over his hips, letting his cock spring back and bounce, hard and heavy. “Someone’s horny.”
Zac rolled his eyes. “I’m not horny. Got turned inside out yesterday.”
“So? Doesn’t mean your dick is broke.”
True. Despite the aches and pains of the night before, Zac’s cock seemed A-OK, jumping and twitching as Jamie brushed his fingers over it, much to Jamie’s obvious amusement.
He took Zac’s hand and tugged on it. “Come on. Let’s get you clean before we get dirty all over again.”
Zac refrained from pointing out that he’d washed himself just fine the night before, as Jamie pulled the shower curtain back and guided him under the spray. Instead, he focused on Jamie’s lean body, taking in his scraped skin and visible ribs, his bony chest and protruding hips, all sure signs that he’d lost more of Jamie since they’d last done this.
And when had that been? Zac recalled washing Jamie a few days after he’d met Liam, but he couldn’t remember a time when being naked together had felt so intense. He gazed at Jamie as the water beat down around them. With his black hair and stormy eyes, Jamie was his own brand of beautiful, and fucking him had always been good. The kind of good that had, in the past, kept them both alive. And fuck, if Zac didn’t need to feel alive right now, to lose himself in the frail warmth of Jamie and forget that he’d briefly known what it was like to live for the sake of someone else.
“Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I fuck you?”
Jamie shrugged. “Of course. Have you got rubbers in here—”
“No . . . Jay, I mean, really fuck you?”
Confusion coloured Jamie’s sunken features, before comprehension seemed to dawn and he moved closer . . . close enough that Zac could count the drops of water on his cheek. “I’m your friend, Zac. You can fuck me however you want and it will always be okay.”
That was enough for Zac—for now at least, until the inevitable high wore off—so he pushed the fruitlessness of what he was about to do aside, reaching for Jamie and crushing them together in an embrace that was as empty as it was familiar. He shoved Jamie against the wall and kissed him, biting and bruising, searching for the magic he knew was missing, and when he didn’t find it, he spun Jamie around, for once ignoring the odd pattern of marbled skin on Jamie’s back. “Wait here.”
The dash for condoms and lube seemed surreal, and easing inside Jamie even more so. It wasn’t until he was fucking Jamie, far slower than he’d ever fucked him before, that he felt a whisper of the oblivion he craved so much.
Jamie cried out and shook, clenching his hands into fists, clearly frustrated by this side of Zac he’d never seen before. He punched the wall. “Goddamn it, you’re better than junk, don’t stop, don’t stop.”
As if Zac could. Jamie was the only man he’d ever fucked, and it had been so long he’d forgotten how good it felt, how good Jamie felt, and why they’d been doing this since they’d rolled into each other on the floor of a scummy London squat.
Zac drove into Jamie, picking up the pace as the coil of pleasure in his belly expanded, threatening the edges of the shadows. He fucked Jamie harder, and harder still, but it wasn’t until Jamie screamed his name and came, tipping Zac over the edge, that release gave him a few moments of peace.
He recovered his senses with his face buried between Jamie’s shoulder blades, his lungs burning and his eyes clenched shut, fighting to keep reality at bay. But it was a battle he couldn’t win, and his gloom returned as the hot water gave out.
Jamie squirmed, reminding Zac that they were still connected. Zac laid a hand on his back and withdrew, then turned him around, checking he was okay, like he always did after they fucked. Like no one else ever did for Jamie. “All right?”
“Yeah. You?”
Lacking the energy to lie, Zac shut the shower off and pushed the curtain aside, grabbing the towel and handing it to Jamie first while he disposed of the condom.
Jamie was silent as he dried off, but his stare was quizzical. He handed Zac the towel with a frown. “Why are you being so weird?”
“I’m not.”
Zac left the bathroom, knowing Jamie would follow, and drifted to his bedroom, crawling into bed and pulling the duvet over his head.
Jamie joined him moments later, smelling distinctly better than he had before their shower-time adventures. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Is it that special john you had the hots for? Did he turn out to be a wanker?”
“He’s not a wanker.”
“So it is him?”
Zac scowled. “I never said that.”
“Didn’t have to.” In the dim light under the duvet, Jamie’s eyes seemed to gleam. “You’ve been different ever since you met him.”
