Page 40 of Subduing the Shark

Harold pulled out gently. He turned Jack around and pulled him close and they stood in the waist-deep water holding each other, skin to skin, Harold's arms around Jack's back and Jack's face in Harold's neck. The bite mark on Jack's shoulder throbbed.

"You're shaking," Harold said.

"Yeah."

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know." Jack pressed his face harder into Harold's neck. He could smell the earth and rain and underneath it his own ocean scent, the two of them mixed together. "I've never done that before."

"Had sex in a pool?"

"Stayed." Jack held on tighter, burying himself into Harold until there was no space between them. "The whole time. I was here the whole time. I didn't go away. My body didn't shut down. I felt all of it." His voice cracked on the last word and he closed his eyes and Harold's hand came up to the back of his head and held him there.

"Good," Harold said. "That's good, Jack. I've got you. Just breathe. I'm right here."

They stayed in the water until the shaking stopped. Then they got out and dried off with the towels provided by the pool and Jack touched the bite mark on his shoulder, pressing his fingers against the bruise, feeling the tender sting of it.

"Sorry about that," Harold said, pulling on his jeans. "Got carried away."

"Don't apologize." Jack looked at his reflection in the pool room window, the dark mark visible against his skin. "I want it there."

They drove home with the windows down and Harold's hand on Jack's thigh and the desert air warm on their damp hair. Jack leaned his head back and watched the city approach and pressed his fingers against the bite mark and felt it pulse with his heartbeat.

He'd stayed. The whole time. He'd been in the room.

That was the only thing that mattered.

Chapter Twenty-Three

They were in Jack's apartment the next evening when Harold got off work at the station, sitting on the floor because Jack only had two stools and the floor was more comfortable for eating takeout containers of pad thai. Harold had his back against the bed frame and Jack was cross-legged across from him and the remains of dinner were spread between them on the carpet like a picnic.

"You move differently now," Harold said. He'd been watching Jack all week. The way he held himself had changed since the shiver house. His shoulders were lower. His stride was longer. He still had the watchfulness, the constant awareness of everyone in a room, but the coiled tension underneath it had loosened. He moved like someone who wasn't waiting to be hit.

Jack just blinked at him. "Is this you hitting on me? You don't have to try so hard. You know I want you."

Harold snorted. "That's not what I mean, though I appreciate the compliment. Your body is different. You walk differently. You stand differently. You used to carry yourself like you were trying to take up as little space as possible. Now you take up space."

Jack set his chopsticks down and cocked his head to the side. "Is this going somewhere?"

"I want to try something." Harold pushed the takeout containers aside. "Physical. Not sex. Not a scene. Wrestling."

Jack's face went still. Not blank, not the shutdown, but careful. The face of someone evaluating a situation for danger. "Why?"

"Because the last time you and I were physical without sex involved, I pinned you and you went limp. You've been carryingthat experience around for weeks. I want to give you a different one."

Jack pursed his lips. "You want to fight me."

"I want to wrestle you. No stakes. No debt. Just two people on a floor finding out what happens when contact doesn't have to end in someone losing. It'll be fun."

Jack looked at the carpet between them. Harold could see him thinking, the shark's gray eyes moving through the options, weighing the risk against the possibility that he might be right. The floor of the apartment was clean. The door was locked.

"Okay," Jack said. "But if I pin you, nothing happens. And if you pin me, nothing happens."

"That's the whole point. Though, if you want to kiss me, I'm not going to say no."

Jack rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

They cleared the floor. Harold pushed the bed against the wall to make room. Jack stood on one side and Harold stood on the other and the space between them was ten feet of beige carpet.