Jacob let Felix’s wrists go to grab his hair again, forcing Felix’s head back up. “Look at me.”
Felix groaned. His eyes flashed open, his eyelids shuddering as he came, hot and wet all over their bodies.
Jacob watched him, transfixed. This was nothing like the porn he’d guiltily tried before deciding he couldn’t put up with the fakeness of it. There was no performance in Felix. Only pleasure. Jacob would have been sad when it ended, only there was that same hungry satisfaction in watching Felix come down from it, sweating and boneless.
“Shit,” Felix slurred. “You’re like a duck, man.”
Jacob took a moment to figure out what this sentence could possibly mean and came up blank. “I’m a what?”
“Like…” Felix waved a hand uselessly in the air. “Duck. Water.”
“Like a duck to water,” Jacob translated, only then absorbing the compliment. “Oh. Thanks.”
Felix mumbled something unintelligible. Then he reached over, grimacing at the come over his torso, to fetch a wad of tissues from his nightstand. He wiped them clean: first himself, then Jacob, who quickly realized that he probably should’ve done this when he was staring at Felix like an idiot.
“Sorry,” Jacob said.
“For what?” Felix frowned at him, bundling up the tissues and tossing them into the wastebasket. “I’mjust showing you how clean I can be. See?Soclean.”
He tugged Jacob down to the bed and leaned over him, widening his eyes pointedly.
Finally it clicked. Jacob snorted, flicking Felix in the arm. “Still not living with you.”
“But Icanbe a good roommate,” Felix insisted. “I’ll prove it! Just give me a chance!”
“I’m not signing a lease on achance,” Jacob replied. “I’m going to move in with David, man. I’m sorry.”
Felix grumbled, lying down on his chest with his chin digging into Jacob’s nipple.
“I’ll make you change your mind,” he muttered. “Got thewholesemester.”
“Good luck with that,” Jacob told him. He pushed Felix’s face until his chin wasn’t stabbing into him anymore. It led to a brief wrestling match with Felix straining to jab his chin into any part of Jacob he could reach, both of them giggling like little kids.
Then they settled back into the bed, Felix’s cheek pillowed on Jacob’s chest like a normal person. Jacob lay there with his arms at his sides, feeling awkward.
Felix seemed okay with acting like lovers, nuzzling Jacob’s chest and slinging an arm over Jacob’s hip. But Jacob couldn’t shake the feeling that if he did the same, he would get… what?Caught? By whom? What the hell was he even afraid of?
Jacob pushed the thoughts away, letting his arm fall casually over Felix’s shoulder like he had done so many times before. Maybe if he pretended it was a friendly touch, he would stop feeling all this weird panic he didn’t know the source of.
“Proud of you,” Felix said, muffled against Jacob’s chest. “For telling your parents to shove it.”
“I didn’t tell them toshoveit,” Jacob argued. Even the idea made his freshly spent balls shrivel up. He could already imagine all the messages waiting for him on his phone, expressing their disappointment he couldn’t take their weekly call, and then of course the worry that something was wrong. Then, if he dared to tell them that nothing was wrong, the frosty silence.
Jacob shifted uncomfortably against the bed. They could never find out about his list. They barely acknowledged him being gay, and theyhatedFelix. If they found out Jacob slept with him, they would probably fly to Indianapolis to make sure he went to a sexual health clinic. Among an assortment of other humiliating, unnecessary things that Jacob didn’t want or need.
Jacob’s skin crawled, the panic setting back in the longer Felix lay on him. He lifted his arm from Felix’s shoulder.
“Is this weird?” he demanded.
Felix looked up. “What?”
“The…cuddlingstuff,” Jacob said.
Felix rolled his eyes. “No, dude. This is just what happens. It’snice. You read about aftercare, right?”
“Oh,” Jacob said, all his hasty research coming rushing back. “Shit. Right.”
Jacob put his arm around Felix again, feeling like an idiot. OfcourseFelix would need this after. He didn’t think they did anything intense—especially for Felix—but he should have known that Felix needed this. Hell, most people probably did, even if they weren’t doing BDSM. Jacob could probably enjoy this, too, if he could stop feeling like he was going to get in trouble for it.
