Page 135 of The Fire Line

And more completely satisfied than he could remember being in a long fucking time.

Beside him, Jay finally turned his head on the pillow.

His hair was damp and wrecked across his forehead, his skin still flushed high over his cheekbones. His eyes were heavy-lidded when they found Harris.

“That,” Jay said hoarsely, “was an excellent use of county resources.”

Harris laughed, weak and helpless enough that the sound surprised him. “Glad you approve.”

“I’m a taxpayer. I take fiscal responsibility very seriously.”

“Pretty sure you pay taxes in New York.”

Jay closed his eyes. “Don’t ruin this for me.”

Harris looked over at him and tried not to smile, but his mouth betrayed him anyway.

For a while, neither of them said anything else.

22

Permanence Had Become Conditional

When Jay awoke, he was aware first of warmth, then of the weight of Harris’s arm across his waist. At some point during the night, without discussion or formal agreement, they had ended up in the same bed. Harris lay on his stomach beside him in his briefs, his face turned toward the pillow and his dark-blond hair flattened badly on one side.

Asleep, he looked younger—not young, exactly, but unguarded. The permanent vigilance had gone out of his face. No narrowed blue eyes. No expression suggesting somebody, somewhere, had installed a gate incorrectly. Just Harris, private and unarranged.

Jay watched him longer than was reasonable. Morning light edged the curtains, and the a/c rattled with the same mechanical complaint it had made all night. Somewhere in the hall, a suitcase rolled past.

None of it disturbed Harris. The man could, apparently, wake when a horse shifted strangely in a barn but sleep through industrial ventilation once sufficiently exhausted.

The previous night returned in pieces: the offensively bright bathroom light, Harris handing him a damp washcloth, sharing a glass of water. They had fallen back onto the bed mostly naked and completely spent, without discussing where either of them intended to sleep.

Jay shifted, and his ass lodged an immediate formal objection.

Right.

Not catastrophic. Not seek-medical-attention-and-reconsider-all-major-life-choices territory. But definitely more than the diplomatic a little sore he would admit if Harris asked.

He was sore as hell, though not injured. Harris had tried to take his time, slowing whenever Jay tensed and checking every answer. Jay, the one with relevant experience, had spent most of the preparation telling him to hurry up. It had been spectacularly worth it and still represented a comprehensive failure of judgment.

But still worth it. Annoyingly, spectacularly worth it.

The more important problem was how easily Jay had trusted him. He had not bottomed since before Miles—not because of any decision, but because the pattern of that relationship had hardened into habit, and nobody after Miles had mattered enough for Jay to hand over that much control. Topping was easy. Bottoming required the physical certainty that a man would stop if something hurt wrong and, just as importantly, believe Jay when he said he wanted more.

Harris had done both. Every time he was unsure, he had stopped. Every time Jay told him what he wanted, Harris listened. Once the answers became clear, Harris trusted them enough to stop treating him like he might break.

Apparently Jay trusted Harris quite a lot.

That realization deserved more examination than he was prepared to give it before coffee. So did the fact that Harris had been ready to grit his teeth through something he did not want because he thought Jay expected it—and that he had previously lied about having experience with men at all.

Jay understood the instinct. Harris approached uncertainty as a private defect to be corrected before anyone noticed it. But Jay could not let that become the operating procedure between them.

I don’t know was an answer. Not yet was an answer. No was an answer.

Jay could handle inexperienced. He could handle uncertain. He could even handle Harris requiring several minutes and an aggressively practical metaphor before identifying an emotion.

What he could not handle was Harris deciding what Jay wanted to hear and supplying that instead of the truth.