Coach Williams nodded. A moment later, she waved for Noah’s replacement to come off and Noah to go back on. They were going to win this match no matter what.
Chapter Twelve
Jace woke on the couch with Noah on top of him, and took a few minutes to remember how he’d ended up there in the first place. It came back to him slowly that Noah had fallen asleep leaning against him, and Jace hadn’t had the heart to make him move. He knew Noah’s chest had still hurt when they got home, and had been happy to see him resting at all.
Now, though, they’d both regret it if they didn’t lie in an actual bed for a few hours before morning. The day after a bout brought enough soreness without compounding it by sleeping on the couch.
He nudged Noah gently, earning himself a tiny, unhappy groan. Eventually, Noah raised his head, blinking dumbly at Jace.
“Why am I here?” he asked, voice thick with sleep. Jace couldn’t help smiling at him. Noah was very cute when he’d just woken up, his hair tousled and his eyelids sleepy.
“You fell asleep when we got home. I didn’t wanna move you before, but you’ll hate me in the morning if I let you sleep here.”
“And I’m on top of you,” Noah said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. He rolled off Jace and stood in one surprisingly graceful, elegant movement. Noah was all grace, especially compared to Jace. He stretched his arms above his head.
Jace glanced at the strip of skin Noah’s stretching exposed, the half-inch of his belly and hip where his jeans had slipped down and his t-shirt had ridden up. He wet his lips, and then looked away, wondering why he’d been staring at all. His face felt hot, a deep, unscratchable itch springing up in the pit of his stomach.
Thankfully, Noah didn’t seem to have noticed.
Jace sat up, rolling his shoulders and trying not to wince at how tight they were. He didn’t want Noah to think that was because of him.
Especially since itwasbecause of him. Jace didn’t mind, really. They’d managed to pull out from behind and win the game, but Noah had worn himself out doing it. He wasn’t going to be a happy camper in the morning.
Jace didn’t want to compound his woes by making him feel guilty as well.
“I need to sleep,” Noah said, walking off before Jace could come up with a response. Jace heard Noah’s bedroom door open and then close behind him by the time he’d convinced himself to stand up.
He groaned as he stood, feeling every day of his twenty-nine years. He wasn’t old, and he knew that, but he was starting to feel as though he’d left the peak of his physical condition. Constantly abusing his body had consequences now. Not that he intended to stop.
Jace figured he had a good ten years on the track in him, and he’d only used two of them.
Bed called him, and his mattress felt like falling into a fluffy cloud once he’d stripped off and let himself sink into it. He closed his eyes, fully expecting to fall asleep immediately.
When that didn’t happen, a brief self-assessment revealed that he was half-hard. He had just been sleeping with a warm body on top of him, so it shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise. His dick didn’t know the warm body had been Noah. All it understood was that usually meant Jace had brought someone home.
It had been a while since that had happened, too.
Jace was almost too tired to bother jerking off, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep anytime soon if he didn’t. He shoved his hand into his underwear and closed his eyes, searching for a recent memory or thought for inspiration.
He stroked his cock idly while he waited, humming softly as it hardened fully in his hand. Jace realized that he hadn’t done this since Noah had moved in, though he wasn’t sure why. He was pretty quiet on his own, and the walls weren’t so thin that he was worried Noah might hear him.
His mind took him back five minutes, to when he’d just woken up with a warm weight pressed against him. Regardless of who it was, that had been a nice feeling. People didn’t sleep on top of Jace so often, but he loved it when they did. He was a big enough guy to take it, and Noah was comfortably heavy without being too much.
A twinge of guilt hit him as he realized he was, more or less, thinking about Noah while he masturbated, but he brushed it aside. Noah wouldn’t ever know about it, and it wasn’t even Noahspecifically. Just how much Jace liked people sleeping on top of him, leaning against him. How much he liked contact.
All of his recent contact had been with Noah. Including his last kiss, which, despite being in public and with a guy, had still made his stomach swoop and his lips tingle. Noah was probably an awesome kisser when he meant it.
Jace swallowed. That crossed the line into thinking about Noah.
He paused mentally, wondering if that was a road he could go down and still look Noah in the eye tomorrow. He remembered the strip of bare skin, the curve of Noah’s hip, the way the lines of his muscles had disappeared down into his jeans, promising.
The thought was like falling off a cliff, sudden and terrifying. But freeing, too. He could masturbate over his best friend. It was too late to stop, anyway. Freaking out about it was way more likely to make it a problem than just doing it.
He’d never thought of a guy like this before, but Noah was different. Noah laughed at his jokes, and smiled at him when he entered a room, and fell asleep on the couch with his head on Jace’s shoulder. He gave out hugs and made Jace dinner, and it made sense that Jace would be attracted to him.
That thought stopped Jace dead in his mental tracks again.
He was attracted to Noah.
