Page 125 of The Fire Line

They made it toward the bed without agreeing on a direction. Harris lost his shirt near the desk. One of Jay’s boots landed somewhere by the bathroom. By the time the backs of Harris’s knees struck the mattress, Jay’s jeans were caught halfway down one leg and Harris’s belt hung open.

Jay pulled back just enough to look at him. “What do you want?”

Harris kissed him instead of answering.

Jay made a sound that might have been a laugh, caught Harris by the back of the neck, and kissed him harder.

Better.

Some ridiculous part of Harris had decided that if they kept this up, Jay’s mouth would remain occupied and neither of them would reach the question Harris had spent the entire drive trying to prepare for.

It was not a sound plan. Harris committed to it anyway.

Jay hooked his remaining booted leg around Harris and ground down against him. The pressure dragged a curse out of Harris.

“Yeah,” Jay said against his mouth, as though that had answered everything.

Jay was above him, hot and solid, tugging impatiently at his belt until Harris knocked his hands away.

“You’re slow,” Jay said.

“Shut up. I’m trying to help.”

“You’re making it worse.”

“Story of your life.”

“My life is extremely well managed, thank you.”

Harris got the belt free and opened his jeans. Jay immediately put a hand inside them, and Harris’s head dropped back against the mattress.

“Christ.”

“You’re right,” Jay murmured. “Much more efficient.”

Harris pinched his nipple through his shirt. Jay’s hand tightened around him. That nearly ended the evening before Harris had figured out what the hell they were doing.

He caught Jay’s wrist. “Hold on.”

Jay stopped immediately.

No alarm. No impatience. He stayed above Harris with one knee pressed into the mattress, simply waiting to find out what Harris needed.

That immediate stillness mattered.

Harris caught his breath and looked up at him. Dark hair hung loose around Jay’s face, the ends nearly brushing his shoulders. His shirt had fallen open enough to show the flush spreading over his chest, and his mouth had gone red from kissing. His jeans remained tangled around his thighs. Harris had one knee between Jay’s legs and his own pants open beneath him.

Nothing subtle remained between them.

Harris caught the side of Jay’s neck and drew him down again. Jay opened for him immediately, his whole body coming back into contact.

Hungry.

That was the word Harris had been failing to find.

He had wanted men before, though he had spent years calling it everything except wanting. He had never understood this hunger to eliminate every remaining inch. The irritation at fabric, buttons, and hands positioned anywhere except where he needed them. The near-angry urge to have Jay above him, beneath him, against him—and somehow closer than any of those arrangements allowed.

Jay shoved Harris’s jeans lower. “Off.”