He wasn’t paying attention to the movie anymore. He closed his eyes and breathed Owen in. His skin smelled like Jeremy’s soap, but his soap had never smelled so good on him. Like sex and sin and home.
He couldn’t help but think about the way he’d lost control outside. He’d been too turned on to stop, and it surprised him in more ways than one. He’d never been in a relationship with a man like this. He had sex, he moved on. If it was really good, he might save the phone number, but he always made sure everyone knew the score going in. It was the same with women, other than Natasha. She was his exception. Being with her was easy. No strings.
This had strings. Maybe not for Owen, but Jeremy could already feel them tangling up his thoughts and tugging at his heart.
Owen would be here for a week or more. Every night. Every morning. It was terrifying…how much he was looking forward to it.
Chapter Nine
The rain was pummeling the windshield so that even with the wipers on full speed, Jeremy could hardly see a foot in front of him as he slowly made his way home from the grocery store.
The foul weather had him grinning like an idiot. If anyone could see him they’d think he was crazy, but this storm meant Owen had the whole day off. It also meant that no one was working on fixing his apartment’s roof, so he was stuck with Jeremy for the duration.
The last four days had been good. Better than good. Every day he woke up to Owen making breakfast and every night he fell asleep in his arms. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Never realized how much he craved the closeness, the intimacy until now.
The night Owen had asked to stay for the week, they’d fallen asleep together on the couch, both too exhausted from their lakeside tussle to finish the evening the way the dominant Finn had planned. They’d woken up around two in the morning and shuffled down the hall to collapse together on the bed, neither moving until the alarm went off four hours later.
Owen had toned down his aggressive demands to top him, and he’d shied away from intercourse entirely since then. If he weren’t so physically affectionate—always finding reasons to touch him when they talked—and if he hadn’t made sure Jeremy came at least twice a night and most mornings, Jeremy would worry that Owen was regretting their time together and pulling away. As it was, Jeremy thought he might still be recovering from the rough sex by the water.
He would never stop kicking himself for losing control.
Even with his concern, this week was still better than any he’d had in a long damn time. They talked—not about movies or sex, but real conversations. Well, Jeremy talked—Owen listened and asked the occasional quiet question. But Jeremy cherished the time, telling him things he’d never been able to share with him before. Like the details of what had happened in the weeks leading up to his father handing him a wad of cash and warning him not to come back or ask for more.
He told Owen about the first time he’d had sex with a man. How he never would have worked up the nerve if Tasha hadn’t dared him to do it. And he finally got Owen to share the story about the girlfriend in college who’d introduced him to the lifestyle.
When he’d asked him what drew him to it, Owen had opened up. He said it was the honesty. The lack of judgment and emotional manipulation. He liked that everything was spelled out in the kink community, said it taught him to rein in his tendency for excess and gave him patience. Taught him how much more enjoyable it could be to give pleasure than to receive it.
The way he talked about it made Jeremy see kink through new eyes. Curious eyes. He’d fought it when Owen got too bossy, and it tangled his stomach in knots when he thought about how easily he succumbed to the man’s commanding ways. But Owen’s conversations about power exchange made him realize that it wasn’t a competition or a struggle for control. Submission wasn’t a weakness.
Last night, after the rain started, Jeremy had been in Owen’s arms and he’d wondered out loud if they could do a little more experimenting. Owen had tensed beside him and then pulled him closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“Tomorrow.”
Today, Jeremy thought, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as his back wheels skidded on the wet surface of the road. Today he was going to give in to his own curiosity, and he was determined to do it with the same fearlessness Owen had shown on his birthday.