Page 56 of Everything That Kills Me
He did let himself consider that for a moment, but Thomas wouldn’t be fooled. Jack could feel Zeph’s hardness through the thin material of their shorts and knew Zeph would also feel the state he was in. Their hands were all over each other, but stayed above the waist, as if they both feared pushing the other too far.
“Can we take off our tops?” Zeph whispered.
Oh God.Jack knew what he should have said, but he moved to the side and removed his.
“Wow,” Zeph muttered, eyes wide, as he slid his hands up Jack’s chest. “Proper muscles. You’re so beautiful.”
Jack swallowed hard. No one had ever… When Zeph rubbed his thumb over one of Jack’s nipples something started to twist and boil inside his chest. Except not just his chest. He could feel the sensation elsewhere in his body. How?
“Your top too,” Jack managed to say.
“Don’t be disappointed.” Zeph wriggled out of his T-shirt, tossed it aside, then locked eyes with Jack again.
“Why would I be disappointed?” Jack was so hard, he was in physical pain. He’d never felt like this before, this desperate, this aroused. Making himself come was nothing like this.
“I don’t have a beautiful chest,” Zeph said. “Do you think I should get a tattoo?Imagine my muscles.”
Jack smiled. “You’re not old enough.” He could never have one. It was too permanent a mark. Something to be identified by was dangerous.
“What sort of tattoo do you think I should get?” Jack stroked Zeph’s neck and was rewarded with a long groan.
“A dragon.”
“Sounds good. Where?”
“I have no idea.”
Jack ran his finger in a circle around one of Zeph’s nipples.
“Oh…Now I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.”
Jack chuckled.
Zeph pressed his mouth to Jack’s shoulder and Jack’s mind went blank. If he’d ever had any illusion that he was in control, it vanished. They lay on their sides and Zeph pulled him in, licked up his neck and kissed him, a frantic, messy, breathless kiss that Jack eventually fed back to him.
Chest to chest, lips together, Jack could have stayed there all day.
Then his phone rang. They pulled apart.
“Where are you?” Thomas asked.
Jack checked the time.Shit!“Nearly back. See you in a few minutes.”
Zeph sat up, his eyes wide in his pale, narrow face.
“I need to go,” Jack told him and began to pull on his clothes. “Stay here for a bit. If we arrive together, I think Thomas might guess.”
“Okay.” Zeph began to dress too.
When Jack was ready to leave, he hesitated, then pulled Zeph into his arms. Zeph’s eyes looked bruised and his hair was messy and Jack thought he had never seen anything more beautiful. He brushed Zeph’s lips with a kiss.
“See you,” he whispered and left. He ran back to the bandstand, and didn’t look back.
Thomas sat waiting. “No Zeph?”
Jack shook his head. “Not today.”
He was sure Thomas knew he was lying but he didn’t say anything. Not until they were in the Land Rover. Then he detonated the bomb. It could have been a real one for the effect had. They were leaving. Jack wouldn’t be going back school. Thomas had packed that morning, and they would be departing that afternoon.
