Page 31 of Phoenix

Two seats. He barely kept himself from groaning. As if the night wouldn’t be miserable enough, now he had to find a date.

***

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to try,” Tor whispered in his ear before nibbling on his lobe. He had shown up at Jule’s door Friday evening and they had spent most of the weekend not wearing clothes. Now, his nude front covered Jule’s nude back in the very best type of blanket. “I keep fantasizing about it.”

“Mmm,” Jule closed his eyes and settled into his position. “I always like your ideas, Tori. What is it?”

“Want to eat your ass.” He rocked his groin against Jule’s crease as he spoke.

“Really?” Surprised, Jule blinked his eyes open and looked over his shoulder. “We’ve never done that.”

“Hard to manage it hiding under blankets with my brothers one bed over or up against walls when people could walk by any minute.” Tor grazed his teeth over Jule’s neck. “At least not if we want to do it right, and I do.”

As teenagers, they’d stuck to the basics—hand jobs, blow jobs, fucking. They felt good and the two of them were experts at fitting them in no matter how little the time or how tight the quarters. As adults, they’d only had stolen moments together, never lasting more than a handful of days in a row. Theirconnections were incendiary, frantic, and incredible, but they hadn’t fully explored the new possibilities available to them now that he lived alone and they had decent stretches of privacy when Tor came around.

“Have you done it before?” His stomach soured at the possibility.

Tor pushed himself up with one arm and pulled Jule’s shoulder with the other, flipping him onto his back. Once he was looking Jule in the face, he said, “Of course not.”

He nodded, relieved. “Does it bother you?” Jule raised his palm and grazed it across Tor’s chest. “That I’ve been with other people?” They didn’t see each other for months at a time and Jule tried dating during those absences. It was never successful or satisfying, but it did happen.

“I told you to do it,” Tor said, shaking his head.

“It kills me thinking of you with anyone else,” Jule confessed.

“Then stop thinking it.” He kissed Jule’s forehead. “It won’t happen.”

“But you’re okay with me doing it?” Jule furrowed his brow, confused.

With a sigh, Tor eased off him and lay on his side, elbow bent, head propped on his palm. “I consider it a win that we’ve managed to keep you from attacking anyone with a pipe or a bat or a lunch tray all these years. If you can’t let off steam another way, you’re liable to murder someone.”

Jule grinned. “You heard about what happened senior year with Owen Jacobson.”

“’Course. It was legendary. But if you pull that shit now, you’ll lose your career, so we need to keep your baser instincts in check, killer.”

“I’ve learned a lot of tools in therapy.” He looked into Tor’s familiar blue eyes. They never stopped being the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. “I have a better handle on my rage.”

“That’s good.”

“You can tell me that you don’t want me to fuck other people.”

“Not yet.” Tor shook his head.

“But I don’t want you to.”

“I already told you, I haven’t and I won’t,” Tor assured him. One side of his lips tilted up in that familiar half smile. “I’m very aware of your possessive streak, Julie.”

“How is that fair?”

“Fair?” Tor laughed. “What the fuck is fair in our lives? Fair doesn’t mean shit. Survival’s what matters. If you need to fuck a few guys when I’m not around so you don’t kill someone, do it. Doesn’t mean anything and sure as shit doesn’t change anything between us. Nothing will.”

He was right about it not meaning anything. In truth, very little meant anything to Jule outside of Tor and their family. “I don’t let them top me,” he clarified.

“I figured.” Tor dipped his chin. Tor was well versed in all his preferences, which meant he knew Jule liked to bottom, always.

“How?”

“Because I know you.” Tor kissed him. “You’re as unlikely to let someone punch you as you are to let him fuck you, and if anyone tried to do either, you’d beat the shit out of him.”