Page 59 of Two for Holding
After their workout, they had a light breakfast (also from Tom’s meal service, also something Jax complained about), and because they weren’t expected at Phil’s until noon, they spent another two hours making out on Tom’s couch.
By the end, Tom’s skin buzzed with arousal.They lay on their sides, Tom caged between the cushions and Jax’s body.Jax had been toying with the hem of Tom’s shirt for a while, running his hands underneath and skimming across the skin in a very distracting way.Tom wanted him to repeat what he’d done the other night in Toronto, when he’d touched Tom more firmly, when he’d used his teeth, when he thought he’d felt Jax, just as affected as him, through the layers of their pants.Jax seemed determined not to go there again, though, as he kept backing off, leaving his touch light and his kisses sweet.
Maybe if he did to Jax what Jax had done to him?Tom set his mouth against Jax’s throat and sucked at the column of it, light at first and then harder when Jax made a low, pleased sound.
“Oh, fuck, Tom,” Jax said, breathless and deep.His hands slid down, suddenly cupping Tom’s ass and hauling him closer, and Tom wanted—wanted—
Taking a great, heaving breath, Jax wrenched away.“We should probably go.Phil’s…thing.Thanksgiving.”
Still breathing unsteadily and with an erection throbbing in his pants, Tom said, “Thanksgiving was last month.”
“I’m not having this debate with a Canadian.”Jax slid to his feet.
Tom could see the outline of his dick, straining against the zipper of his pants.He licked his lips.
“Shit,” Jax said.“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want me to… Never mind.”
“Like I want you to what?”Tom hadn’t really thought any further than kissing.He’d been turned on every time they’d done it, sure, but he’d enjoyed the arousal in an idle, passive sort of way.Usually, being turned on was a nuisance, an urge he couldn’t fulfill the way he most wanted: with another person.He’d take care of it quickly, treating it as yet another bodily maintenance function.Even when he ventured into trying out the toys he’d dared order to a PO box, the experience had left him largely unsatisfied.
With Jax, being aroused became not a problem in need of solving but a natural consequence of skin and mouths and sparking heat.Tom found himself savoring the feeling without wanting or needing it to end.
“Like you want me to tie you to the goddamn bed and make you come so much you pass out,” Jax snapped all in one breath, aroused and angry at the same time.
“Oh,” Tom said, then checked his phone.It was already eleven thirty.“I told Phil I’d bring stuffing, so we need to go to a store.I don’t think we have time.”
Jax made a wordless noise of frustration.“Stuffing takes hours to make.What—”
“I was going to buy the ready-made kind.”
“Absolutely not.”
So, Tom followed Jax through the grocery store two blocks from his building.He’d never made stuffing—why, when it was literally the furthest he could get from adhering to his meal plan—so he had no idea what Jax needed.
Instead, he turned over what Jax had said in his mind.
Just because Tom hadn’t done most of the things his teammates talked about when they were two or three beers in didn’t mean he remained ignorant of them.He’d always found it somewhat distasteful when they talked about bondage.It was always “she let me tie her to the bed with my game day tie,” or “I gagged her with my socks.”It sounded disgusting for the girl involved.Hockey player socks smelled awful, and a washing machine could only accomplish so much.It also sounded as if it would be a lot of work, tying someone up and then having to think of things to do to them.
Rarely had teammates mentioned doing it the other way around, but even then, the phrasing left something to be desired.One time, Vanderbilt bragged about an extramarital hookup by saying, “I let her put me in handcuffs.”
The way Jax had said it didn’t sound as if Tom would belettinghim do anything.It didn’t sound as if Tom would be in control.It sounded as though Jax would take the reins and do whatever he wanted to Tom, and Tom could lie there and take it.
“What are you smiling about?”Jax asked, dumping a truly ridiculous amount of celery in the shopping cart.No one even liked celery, which was nothing but crunchy water, only more unpleasantly so than cucumbers and lettuce.
“Thinking about what you said before.”
“What did I—oh.”
For a minute, they stared at each other, Tom’s cheeks going hot.He wondered idly if Jax would forget about everything and take him back home.
But he turned around and started piling herbs on top of his celery.
The nice thing about being distracted by thoughts about sex was that Tom didn’t worry about much of anything else.They took Tom’s car from the garage under his Palo Alto apartment, where it had been since the last time he’d driven to Phil’s.He didn’t need it to get to the practice rink since he lived next door to it, and he usually took rideshares to Cyberian Arena for games, unwilling to deal with the traffic when he had to get his head in the game.Going to Phil’s house, a newish construction in Cole Valley he and Camille had completely redone when they moved in, meant a good half-hour drive through the city.
It was a lot more fun with Jax in the passenger seat, fiddling with the air conditioning and complaining about every radio DJ in the Bay Area.
