Page 38 of Subduing the Shark

Jack's hand found Harold's. Not to stop him. To join him. His fingers wrapped around Harold's fingers and they stroked together, Jack's grip clumsy, uncertain, and the most arousing thing Harold had ever felt because Jack was choosing it. Choosing to touch, choosing to participate, choosing to be with him.

"Harold." Jack said his name against his shoulder and the word was thick and shaking. "I'm close."

Harold kissed the side of his neck, needing to taste him however he could. "Yeah. Me too."

They came within seconds of each other. Jack first, his body locking, his hand clamping on Harold's, a noise against Harold's neck that was half gasp and half sob. Harold followed, the orgasm rolling through him hard enough that his knees buckled and he grabbed the pool edge to keep them both above water.

Jack kept his face against Harold's shoulder for a long time. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet. Harold opened his mouth and Jack shook his head.

"It's the pool water," Jack said.

Harold chuckled, letting him have that. "Sure it is."

Jack almost smiled. Not quite. But close. The closest Harold had seen. He leaned forward and kissed Harold again, brief and firm, and then he pushed off and floated on his back in the center of the pool, arms spread, staring at the ceiling. Naked and seeming not to care.

Harold watched him float. The cuts on his arms were healing. The stitches scar on his side. The lean body stretched out in the water, relaxed, present, no blankness in his face and no fear in the room with them.

"The pool works again," Jack said to the ceiling. "I feel calm here."

Harold leaned against the edge and breathed and let the water hold them both and said nothing, because Jack was floating in the place where he'd killed a man, and the silence was back, and it was real.

Chapter Twenty-Two

They went back to the pool the next day.

Jack had suggested it over coffee in his apartment, sitting at the counter and Harold had said yes before Jack finished the sentence. The drive south was quiet. Jack watched the city thin out through the truck window and thought about the water and Harold's body in it and the sounds Harold had made against his neck and the way his hand had felt wrapped around both of them and how none of it, not one second of it, had required Jack to go blank.

He'd stayed present. Through all of it. That was the thing he kept turning over. His body hadn't shut down. His eyes hadn't gone flat. He'd been in the pool with Harold's hand on him and he'd felt every second of it, the pleasure, the pressure, the heat, the cold water, Harold's voice in his ear, and his brain had stayed in the room the whole time.

Pool B was empty. The manager waved them through without looking up from his paperback. They walked to the back, stripped at the edge, and got in.

Harold was in his boxers again. Jack was naked. They treaded water facing each other and the morning light came through the windows and caught the surface and Harold looked at Jack with those brown eyes and Jack thought about how many times he'd been in this pool alone, sinking to the bottom, pretending the silence was rest. The pool wasn't silent now. It was full of the sound of their breathing and the lap of water against the walls and Harold's slightly ridiculous kicking.

"Come here," Jack said.

Harold came. Jack pulled him close and kissed him and the kiss was different from the previous day. Less tentative, lessexploratory. Jack knew what Harold's mouth tasted like. Knew the sounds Harold made when Jack's tongue found his. Knew the way Harold's hands went to his face first, always his face, thumbs on his cheekbones, holding him close.

They kissed until Jack's legs were tired from treading and then he pulled Harold to the shallow end where the water was waist-deep. Harold stood with his back against the pool wall and Jack pressed against him and felt the length of Harold's body, warm skin and muscle and the hard line of his cock through the wet boxers.

"Those need to come off," Jack said.

"Bossy."

Jack smiled against his mouth. "Observant. They're in my way."

Harold stripped the boxers and kicked them toward the pool edge. Jack looked down through the water at Harold's cock, thick and flushed. His own body responded with a directness that still surprised him. Want. Not obligation, not debt, not the mechanical response of a body trained to perform after a fight. Want, clear and direct, aimed at the man in front of him.

Jack wrapped his hand around Harold's cock and Harold's head fell back against the pool wall and the sound he made echoed off the corrugated ceiling. Jack thought,I did that.I made him make that sound.Not because he lost a fight. Because I wanted to touch him and he wanted me to.

He stroked Harold slowly, the way Harold had stroked him previously, learning the weight and heat of him through the water. Harold gripped the pool edge behind him with one hand, knuckles white, his hips pushing into Jack's fist. His other hand skimmed down Jack's chest, finding his waist, eventually taking a handful of his ass and keeping him close. Jack watched his face. The brown eyes half-closed, the mouth open, the flush spreading down his neck. Harold was beautiful like this.Vulnerable and loud and completely present and Jack wanted more of it. Wanted all of it.

"Jack." Harold's voice was strained. "If you keep doing that I'm going to cum in about thirty seconds and I had plans."

Jack smiled. "What plans?"

"Plans that involve being inside you." Harold opened his eyes. The brown was dark, heavy, and the look in them was pure Dom, the authority that Harold wore so easily it barely showed until moments like this when it surfaced and filled the room. "If you want that."

Jack's stomach dropped. Not with fear. With hunger. The word inside landed in his body and his cock pulsed and his throat tightened and the want was so strong it scared him and the fear made it stronger. "Yes."