“Yes. I suppose I am.”
“Why do you ask me this?”
“Does it matter? Can’t you just be clear on something for once so we don’t have to talk in circles?”
“Why do we have to talk at all?”
“Fuck. You.”
“I like it when you are angry. You are flushed and beautiful.”
“Stop talking,” Jonah growled.
“Make me, Jonah Gray.”
Jonah was too drunk for this conversation, and he had a sneaking suspicion Sacha was too, if his flushed cheeks and hooded eyes were anything to go by. Perhaps that was why it made no sense. Why Sacha had followed him into the bathroom in the first place when a sober Sacha might’ve left Jonah alone. Like he’d left him alone all week, when their shared work had allowed him to, at least.
“You are thinking too much,” Sacha said softly. “I do not mean to upset you. If you want to leave, I will stand aside.”
“I don’t want that,” Jonah blurted before his brain engaged.
“What do you want?”
“Right now? Or in general?”
“Either. Both. You decide.”
“I don’t know the answer to the latter. If I did, telling you what I want right now would be easier.”
Sacha licked his lips, a slow sweep of his tongue. “So tell me without words.”
Jonah’s body cried out for Sacha. To take whatever he was prepared to give. But there was something else, a fantasy that had played on his mind since the very first time they’d truly touched. Every encounter until now had been Sacha’s call. He was dominant, rough, demanding, and Jonah had loved every minute, but right now, in this moment, he didn’t want that.
He wanted Sacha to feel, even if he was halfway as intoxicated as Jonah.
Jonah pushed Sacha against the sink, crowding him, daring Sacha to stop him.
He didn’t, and they kissed again, hot and heavy, before Jonah dropped to his knees and reached for Sacha’s belt.
“Wait.” Sacha stilled him, gazing down with half closed eyes. “How drunk are you?”
Jonah snorted. “That’s sweet, Ivanov, but you don’t need to worry about that.”
“I am not worried.”
“Liar.” Jonah returned his attention to Sacha’s belt, trying, and failing, to ignore the warmth in his chest at Sacha’s concern. It didn’t match the belligerence he’d arrived with, but Jonah was used to that. Sacha Ivanov was a contrary bastard.
And a horny bastard, given the fierceness of the erection straining his underwear.
Jonah’s mouth watered. He worked fast to free Sacha’s dick and swallowed him down before Sacha saw fit to stop him again. He opened his throat, taking Sacha deep, revelling in Sacha’s rough gasp, and the taste of him. His scent. And the heightened moans as Jonah brought him quickly to the edge.
In his wildest dreams—and there’d been many since he’d met Sacha—he’d pictured this over and over, taking back the control he’d willingly handed Sacha that first night after the ball. He’d craved this for weeks, Sacha’s gentle hands buried in his hair, his breathless murmurs of encouragement as he fucked Jonah’s mouth.
“Yes, Jonah. Like that. You are so beautiful like this.”
It was the second time Sacha had called him that. Jonah flushed and sucked him harder, enchanted by the sight and sensation of Sacha coming apart, eyes wild as he watched Jonah suck him dry.
Sacha groaned and flailed a hand free from Jonah’s hair to grip the sink behind him. “I’m going to come. If you do not want it in your mouth you need to stop.”
Jonah didn’t stop. He dug his fingers into Sacha’s strong thighs and took it all as Sacha released, not letting go until he’d swallowed every drop.
He sat back on his heels as Sacha staggered against the sink, grinning. “Okay up there?”
Sacha steadied himself and glared down, though no real malice coloured his glittering gaze. “That was not in my plan.”
“What plan?”
“The one where—I—fuck, I don’t know. My English is—”
“Your English is fine when you want it to be,” Jonah snapped. “Are you going to tell me what your grand plan was? Or are you going to show me?”
Sacha shook his head. “Neither.”
He hooked his hands under Jonah’s shoulders and tugged him upright, making short work of undoing Jonah’s trousers and dragging his cock free of his underwear. His touch was rough as he flipped their positions, spinning Jonah to face the sink as he stood behind him, jacking him with a grip firm enough to roll Jonah’s eyes. He gripped the counter in front of Jonah for support, and pressed his face between Jonah’s shoulder blades, drawing pleasure from Jonah in short, sharp pumps, twisting his hand in just the right place.
Jonah shuddered, knowing he wouldn’t last long. Blowing Sacha had worked Jonah up so much he’d been on a knife edge before Sacha had laid a hand on him. He bucked into Sacha’s hand, groaning, and glad the noise of the crowds beyond the locked door drowned out the strangled yell that swiftly followed.
After, he came down with a shiver, and cleaned up with more paper towels. Behind him, Sacha was quiet.
Too quiet.
Jonah chanced a glance at him in the mirror and found him dressed again, and fixated with something on the ceiling, expression devoid of anything that mattered.
Nice.
Irritation returned to Jonah in droves. He zipped himself up and turned around.
Sacha slowly dropped his gaze. Jonah searched for something he recognised, anything to bind them together, then reality returned to him, and he remembered that things had changed. That he was searching for a connection that wasn’t there.
You’re not friends. He doesn’t want that, remember?
In the cramped bathroom, it didn’t seem to matter that Jonah did want that, very much. He wanted Sacha’s grin, his embrace, and his dry humour. He wanted his kiss, and his arms around him in bed as they slept.
More than anything, he wanted Sacha to look at him.
But he didn’t, and Jonah lacked the masochism for the endless wait. He tucked his shirt in, knocked his fist to Sacha’s shoulder, and left.
15
Sacha rolled over in bed and stared at the ceiling. Unlike Jonah’s penthouse bedroom with its panoramic cityscape on one side of the room, and his glittering yolka on the other, the bare hipster bricks and industrial pipes were all Sacha had.
And he was glad of it. The utilitarian view was all he deserved, aside from the headache that had nothing to do with overwork and everything to do with the eight shots of vodka he’d sunk last night.
You’re an idiot.
It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind since he’d woken with hazy memories of accosting Jonah in the pub bathroom. And on the fourth go-round, he didn’t mean it any less. He pictured Jonah’s face as he’d stormed out of the bathroom, and pulled a pillow over his head, muffling his groan. It is your fault. You broke the rules. Sacha liked rules, even if they were only for himself. But since he’d met Jonah Gray, he found himself breaking each and every boundary he’d ever set. No repeat hook-ups. No sleepovers. No drinking vodka and laying his hands on Jonah Gray.