Page 122 of Playing By Ear

Perry probably thought Jamie’s sorrow for an artist he’d never met was a stand-in for his feelings about losing his father. A logical misreading when one didn’t know who else had been lost and why.

He gulped the tea, which had cooled enough not to scald his throat. It seemed to smooth over all the raw, ragged edges the tears had left behind. How could dried, boiled leaves so reliably restore the soul? Maybe he’d write about that, too, a cheeky wee ode to a hot cuppa.

The song ideas were coming fast now he’d stopped busking. But he needed time completely alone to work on his song for Perry, to make it a proper surprise. If they lasted that long.

“Hang on.” Jamie shifted to the edge of the bed and set aside both the mug and the guitar. Then he turned back to Perry and took him in his arms. “Thank you.”

With one kiss, the fist around Jamie’s heart began to unclench. Sorrow and guilt fell away, replaced by gratitude, affection, and a boatload of lust.

With great effort, he managed to pull away far enough to speak. “Shame you’ve got your session tonight.”

Perry gave that devastating smirk he reserved for Jamie, never the camera. “I don’t need to save my mouth.”

He lowered Jamie to the bed, then undid his trousers with a deft touch. Jamie propped his head up on two pillows so he could watch.

“Potentially the best part is,” Perry said, “now we’ve been tested, I can swallow if you want.”

A first for Jamie, as he’d never been with a partner long enough to bother with simultaneous STI testing. “I do want. If you want.”

“I do want.” Perry laughed. “Before this conversation goes in another circle, maybe I should⁠—”

“Shut yourself up with my cock?”

Perry did so, without another word. Jamie gasped at the heat of his mouth. Just the thought of coming inside it, shooting all he had down Perry’s throat, made him stiff as steel.

He watched as Perry devoured him, first with delicate, maddening drifts of his tongue over his cock and balls, leaving wet inches that tingled at the caress of breath. Then sliding the tip in and out of the tight O of his lips until Jamie’s heels were scraping the sheet, his body humming like a tuning fork. Then long, strong, engulfing strokes, each ending with a slick slide against Perry’s throat.

And finally, just as Jamie thought he would burst out of his skin, came the faintest tickle of fingertip against his hole, while at the same moment, Perry looked up with those deep, dark eyes, lashes fluttering with bliss as though Jamie was the finest thing he’d ever tasted.

With that, Jamie dug his fingers into Perry’s thick, soft hair and clung on, letting loose a moan that rose and rose. Perry uttered an encouraging growl, his throat vibrating against Jamie’s head, pulling back only a wee bit as the first wave of come burst forth and bathed Jamie’s cock from tip to base. The sensation stole his breath, and all he could do was form Perry’s name with his lips as he soared over the edge.

When Perry had drained him of the last drops, he moved up beside him and pressed his lips to Jamie’s neck. “You’re delicious. Five stars. Would recommend.”

Jamie kissed him deeply, his tongue finding the taste of himself mingled with the familiar, unique flavor of Perry’s mouth.

“Thank you,” he murmured at last. “Tonight during your session I’ll be thinking about this while trying to monitor the equalizer.”

“I appreciate your dedication to the craft.”

Jamie rubbed his face with both hands, then reached for the edge of the duvet. “Feel I could actually sleep now without, you know, crying myself to get there.”

Perry kissed his temple, then rolled off the bed. “I’ll wake you for supper. It’ll be a light one, in case our new toy puts me in hospital.”

With a faint smile, Jamie dove into a solid slumber. When he awoke at seven, he felt refreshed instead of groggy. Orgasms were fantastic drug-free sleep aids.

Later that night, Perry’s session brought in off-the-chart earnings—like, Scrooge-McDuck-rolling-in-piles-of-gold earnings. The success was partly down to a bigger audience but mostly thanks to a new “teledildonic” device, basically a butt plug connected to an app which increased the vibration strength based on preset levels of tips. The days of miracles and wonder, indeed.

Jamie and Perry had set the “apocalyptic” level at a hundred thousand total tokens, assuming it would never be reached. The viewers couldn’t resist a challenge. Toward the end, Perry was nearly screaming in what Jamie assumed was mostly pleasure—as he wasn’t uttering the safe word to bail himself out—and nearly three thousand pounds richer.

“Good God.” Perry shambled back into the bedroom after his shower. “Remind me to lower the highest tier’s vibration level next time.”

Jamie lifted the duvet to let him into bed beside him. “You seemed all right with it in rehearsal.”

“In rehearsal it was a few seconds. The prolonged exposure was almost unbearable.” His lips quirked. “Almost.”

“I thought you were gonnae pass out after.”

“Nearly did.” Perry stretched out beside him with a sigh. “I came so hard that, were it not for the ceiling, my come might’ve gone into orbit.”