Page 25 of Subduing the Shark

The food arrived and Jack ate like someone discovering that eating could be an experience rather than a task. He tried each piece separately, chewing slowly, his expression shifting in small ways that Harold found himself fascinated by. The salmon got a slight nod. The yellowtail made his eyes close for a second. The spicy tuna earned a longer pause and a look at the piece like he was trying to understand it.

Harold picked up a slice of pickled ginger with his chopsticks and held it out. "Try this between pieces. It clears your palate."

Jack took it with his fingers instead of his chopsticks, pulling the thin pink slice directly off Harold's sticks. His fingertips brushed against the wood, close enough to Harold's hand that the touch registered. Jack put the ginger in his mouth and his eyes narrowed.

"That's terrible."

"It's supposed to be sharp. That's the point."

"It tastes like someone pickled a flower."

"That's almost exactly what it is."

Jack reached for another piece. This time his fingers found Harold's instead of the chopsticks, and the touch was deliberate. His fingertips slid along the back of Harold's knuckles as he took the ginger, cool and brief, and the contact sent a pulse of heat up Harold's arm that settled somewhere behind his sternum.

Jack ate the ginger and didn't look at Harold while he chewed. His jaw was tight but his scent had shifted. The ocean water was still there, always there, but the fear layer had thinned to almost nothing. Underneath it Harold caught something warm, unfamiliar, a note he'd been tracking for weeks without being able to name it. Not fear. Not the flat exhaustion of the steps at three in the morning. Interest. Jack's body was interested and his face was pretending it wasn't.

They finished dinner. Harold paid. Jack didn't argue, which meant it was a date.

The truck was parked on a side street under a broken lamp, which Harold had chosen because bloodhounds preferred the dark and because parking under a working light in that neighborhood was an invitation to have his mirrors stolen. He unlocked the doors and they both got in and Harold started the engine and then didn't put the truck in gear because Jack wassitting in the passenger seat looking at him with those gray eyes and the warm scent was getting stronger.

"I want to try something," Jack said.

Harold's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Okay."

Jack leaned across the console and kissed him.

It was careful. Precise, the way Jack did everything, his mouth finding Harold's with a controlled accuracy that felt like he'd been thinking about this for a while and had a plan for how it was supposed to go. His lips were cool. He tasted like ginger and soy sauce and underneath that, salt, the permanent seaside baseline of a man whose body was half ocean.

Harold kissed him back. He kept his hands on the wheel for the first three seconds because taking them off meant reaching for Jack and reaching for Jack meant the part of Harold's brain that had been patient for weeks was going to stop being patient. Then Jack sighed, a small rough noise in the back of his throat that Harold felt in his spine, and he took his hands off the wheel and put them on Jack.

One hand on his jaw, tilting his face, deepening the angle. The other on his neck, thumb against Jack's pulse point where the heartbeat was fast and hard and getting faster. Jack's mouth opened under his and the kiss went from careful to urgent and the warm scent bloomed until the cab of the truck smelled like the ocean at high noon, salt and heat and sun. Harold was hard already. From a kiss. From a sound. Weeks of watching the man and not touching him, the first real contact had gone through Harold's self-control like a match through tissue paper.

Jack's hands found Harold's chest. His fingers spread against Harold's shirt, pressing, testing the muscle underneath. The touch was like a brand. His body leaned into it before his brain approved the motion, his chest pushing against Jack's palms, wanting more pressure, more contact. Jack wasn't shutting down. His eyes were closed but his body was present,leaning into the kiss, his breathing rough and real and nothing like the controlled silence of the pin-down or the cuff.

Harold pulled back enough to see his face. Jack's eyes opened. Dilated, dark, the gray swallowed up. His mouth was wet, slightly open, and he looked wrecked in a way that had nothing to do with damage and everything to do with want. Harold's cock throbbed against his zipper. Every Dom instinct he had was shouting at him to pull Jack across the console, into his lap so he could take his mouth, his throat, his body, and everything Jack would give him.

"Tell me what you want," Harold said. His voice came out rougher than he intended.

"Don't stop."

Harold didn't stop. He kissed Jack's jaw, his throat, the curve where his neck met his shoulder. He pulled Jack closer and the console was in the way and neither of them cared. Jack's hands were moving, sliding up Harold's chest to his shoulders, gripping, and every point of contact was deliberate and alive. Harold's hips shifted against the seat, his body chasing friction it wasn't going to get, and he didn't care because Jack's fingers were digging into his shoulders and his arousal scent was so thick Harold could taste it.

His hand dropped to Jack's thigh. Jack's breath hitched and his hips shifted and Harold could feel how hard he was through the denim. He pressed his palm against Jack's cock and Jack's whole body jerked, his head dropping back against the seat, a groan came out of him that was raw and unguarded; it was the best thing Harold had ever heard. Harold's own breath stuttered. His hand was shaking. He'd touched people before, gotten people off before, but none of them had been Jack and none of them had groaned like that and Harold's body was responding to it like a wire pulled taut and vibrating.

Harold worked him through the jeans first, slow pressure, his hand learning the shape of Jack through the fabric while his mouth stayed on Jack's throat. Jack was panting. His fingers dug into Harold's shoulders hard enough to bruise. Harold's hand moved to Jack's belt and he paused.

"Yes," Jack said. His voice was wrecked as he whimpered. "Please, Harold."

Harold's name in that voice. He undid the belt, the button, the zipper, and got his hand around Jack's cock and the noise Jack made was a word Harold didn't catch and didn't need to because Jack's body was saying everything. Hot and hard in Harold's fist, slick at the tip, and when Harold stroked him Jack's hips came off the seat and his hand shot out and grabbed Harold's wrist, not to stop him, to hold him there.

Harold stroked him slowly. Not teasing, not drawing it out. Steady, firm, his thumb working the head on every upstroke, watching Jack's face because that was the first time anyone had touched Jack for the purpose of making him feel good and Harold needed to see it. Needed to be in the room when it happened, the way he'd told Jack he wanted Jack to be in the room.

Jack was in the room. His eyes were half-closed but not blank. His body was tight, trembling. Reaching for it. His hips worked into Harold's hand. Rough, honest moans and groans rolled out of him. Harold's cock ached in his own jeans but this wasn't about him. This was about the man in the passenger seat who was discovering that someone could touch him without taking something.

Jack came with Harold's name in his mouth. His body bowed, his hand clamped on Harold's wrist. The orgasm hit him so hard he stopped breathing for a second. Harold worked him through it, gentler, slowing as Jack's body shuddered and went heavy against the seat.

The air around them was quiet. The truck engine idling. Jack's breathing returned to normal. Harold's hand… wet and resting on Jack's thigh.