“Do you want to?”
Jonah fastened his lips to Sacha’s in a fierce kiss. Then he broke away and reached for the drawer of the bedside table. “Yes, I want to. I want you.”
He found what he needed and sank back on his heels to roll a condom on, adding lube to slick himself. Then he loomed over Sacha again, enjoying the position of dominance while it lasted. “You’ve done this before, right? I don’t want to hurt you.”
Sacha rolled his eyes. “You won’t hurt me. I have done this before.”
“With who?”
“Boyfriend.”
“You don’t do relationships.”
“It was a long time ago. Was young.”
You’re still young. We both are. But the moment for deep conversations had passed—for now. Jonah zeroed in on Sacha, tracking the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the flush of his cheeks. A vulnerability that had never graced their physical chemistry before.
He gripped Sacha’s leg, holding it to his chest as he lifted Sacha slightly, aligning their bodies. Breath caught, he bore down, blood roaring in his ears, and pressed in deep and slow, still keeping a watchful eye on Sacha’s face as his features twisted, his discomfort clear. Sacha had spent enough of the last few days hurting. Jonah couldn’t bear to cause him more pain, even if only temporary. He buried himself to the hilt and rubbed Sacha’s chest. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Deeper.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Sacha sucked in a slow breath and closed his eyes. Jonah felt robbed of his hypnotic gaze, but let it happen and kept rubbing Sacha’s chest until he began to relax. “Okay?”
“Yes.” Sacha smiled and found Jonah’s hand. “You do not need to keep asking me that.”
Fair enough. Jonah rocked his hips, back and forth, slow circles of maddening, eye-rolling pleasure. He groaned, floating away in the beauty of it. Sex with Sacha had always been a unique alchemy, but this, being inside him, was something else.
He built a rhythm that had Sacha’s bed jumping against the wall, pressure coiling in his gut with every drive of his cock inside Sacha. Beneath him, Sacha arched and writhed, a layer of sweat coating his skin, jaw tight, eyes still screwed shut.
“Look at me,” Jonah ground out. “I want to see you.”
Sacha’s eyes snapped open, hazy with need. “Harder. Fuck me harder.”
Jonah obliged, ploughing deep with every slow pump of his hips.
Sacha groaned. “Yes. Like that.”
His low growl went straight to Jonah’s dick. Desperate energy consumed him. His body cried out to hammer into Sacha, but his heart wanted something else.
He kept his torturous pace, each drive a lesson in edging pleasure, until Sacha trembled beneath him, gasping as he started to come.
Jonah watched him, enthralled. Then his own climax caught up with him. He drove in hard, then stilled as pent-up pleasure overcame him, rushing out of him and into Sacha, a harsh, strangled cry his only sound.
It seemed to last forever. Jonah fought for breath, deafened by the heady rush of ecstasy. And then it was over, and he didn’t know which way was up, only that he had to take care of Sacha.
He raised his head and began to pull back. Sacha tightened his arms around him. “No.”
“I have to,” Jonah whispered. “Just for a minute.”
Sacha let him go.
Jonah moved fast to ditch the condom and clean up, then he hurried back to the bed.
Sacha hadn’t moved.
Jonah found the rumpled bedsheets and tugged them up the bed and over them. “Come here.”
“Hmm?”
“Here. I want to hold you.”
Sacha sighed and shifted enough to curl under Jonah’s arm, his head on Jonah’s chest. His hair was damp with sweat and exertion. Jonah smoothed it back and kissed his temple. “Go back to sleep if you like. I’m not going anywhere.”
“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That is what I was thinking.”
“I didn’t. I just wanted you to know.”
Sacha sighed. “I do not need to sleep. I don’t want to miss this with you.”
“We can do it again, you know. It’s not a one-time thing.”
“It really is not, is it?”
“Not even close.”
Sacha fell quiet, his gaze fixed on the window. It lacked the twinkly view of Jonah’s penthouse apartment, but the brightening morning seemed to captivate him all the same.
It was as perfect as Jonah’s wildest dreams. He didn’t want to blink, in case he missed a moment, and they lay in companionable silence until Jonah’s phone invaded the bliss.
Jonah groaned. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“In your pocket?”
“Thanks, Sherlock. I’m naked.”
Sacha chuckled and sat up to lean over the side of the bed. He found Jonah’s abandoned trousers and retrieved his phone from the pocket. “It is your mother,” he said.
The call rang out before he could straighten up and pass it over.
Jonah winced. “She wants to know if you’re coming with me tomorrow. I never gave her a straight answer.”
“Oh.”
“I know. But she’ll be fine.”
“Fine? About what? I don’t understand.”
“Fine about you not coming. I’m sorry about that. When we went to the ball, I never factored in all this…” Jonah waved his hand. “Complication.”
Sacha snorted. “There is nothing complicated about it. Give me your thumb.”
“What?”
Sacha lunged and snatched Jonah’s hand, pressing his thumb to the button on his phone in a smooth takedown a wrestler would’ve been proud of.
Jonah’s phone flashed to life. Holding it out of Jonah’s reach, Sacha tapped out a message with one hand, then dropped the phone on the bed with a satisfied smirk.
“There,” he said.
“There what?” Jonah fumbled for the phone. “What did you just do?”
Sacha shrugged. “I tell her the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That I will be there, Jonah Gray, wherever you are, because I do not want to be anywhere else.”
20
Christmas Day
Sacha sat back in the aged chesterfield armchair, a wrapped present in one hand, a glass of something sweet and alcoholic in the other. At his feet, a small, red-headed child played with a carriage from the huge wooden train set Jonah had gifted his collection of nieces and nephews, butting it into Sacha’s ankles.
“Sorry,” Jonah whispered. “I warned you it was rowdy.”
Sacha smiled. “Don’t apologise. I like rowdy.”
“Yes, but only in—”
“Dear god.” Jonah’s friend, Lily, silenced him with a dainty hand over his mouth. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t. I don’t need to hear that.”
Jonah wriggled free of her grasp. “Since when? You only ever call to grill me about my sex life.”
Lily tossed a mince pie at Jonah. It missed and landed in Sacha’s lap. Sacha scooped it up and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth before Lily could claim it back. He’d never eaten them before, but since Eleanor had brought the first plate of them out yesterday, he hadn’t been able to stop.