AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He had also discovered that his own favorite thing was the way Jamie jerked him off, the way he had immediately found the perfect pressure on the upstroke, squeezing at the head before twisting his wrist and easing the pressure on the down stroke, all the way to the base where he squeezed and twisted again. The move could have Chris’s legs shaking, have him panting and sweating in moments, but it was slow enough for him to last for ages, coming apart under Jamie’s languid attentions until he was a trembling mess and begging for release. Chris could let him do that forever.
They could have stayed in bed forever, too, but eventually the storm broke and Boomer had been going crazy cooped up in the house with the humans too wrapped up in each other to pay him too much attention. So the first morning where the wind had died down and the torrential rain had ceased, Chris and Jamie dragged themselves out of a bed that seriously needed clean sheets and dressed warmly to take Boomer out on the beach. The Labrador was in his element.
“I have an idea,” Jamie said as they jogged lightly up the stretch. “Why don’t you call your friend Andy and invite him over?”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that? I mean, the last time Andy came over, you had a pretty horrific nightmare.”
“Ah, but that was before I started sleeping with a big strong Secret Service agent.”
“Shh!” hissed Chris, casting a look around the deserted beach. It made Jamie laugh and he heartily clapped Chris on the shoulder.
“Yeah, because the driftwood and the seashells care so much that we’re together!”
“We’re together?” Chris repeated, his mouth quirking at the corner. Jamie turned and jogged backwards for a while, studying Chris’s face.
“Well, what would you say we were?”
Chris bit the inside of his cheek to stop a grin. “‘Together’ is nice. I liketogether.”
“Yeah?” Jamie smiled at him wide and happy for a moment before it turned softer. “You know, I made a decision?”
“About what?”
“Taking a position on my mother’s staff,” he replied, facing forward again and resumed jogging beside Chris. “If I’m on the staff, if I’m in the White House almost all of the time, I won’t need somebody to tail me everywhere because Secret Service are all over that place anyway.”
“And what does that mean?”
“That I can finally take you out to dinner.”
Chris felt like the world had shifted under his feet. Their bubble here in the Hamptons had been amazing, but they both knew that it could never last. Jamie was here only to get back on his feet for a few weeks after being discharged from the hospital. The moment they got back to DC, things would be different—there would be no more sleeping in Jamie’s bed, no more movies on the couch, no more runs on the beach, no more privacy. If they wanted to keep that, then they would have to come clean.
Chris stopped jogging and reached for Jamie’s hand, pulling him to a stop. “Is that what you want? To take me to dinner?”
Jamie looked at their joined hands, fingers entwined. He swallowed visibly, suddenly very serious. “Chris, I can’t remember a time when I felt as good as I have this last three weeks. I don’t want it to stop. I don’t just want to take you out to dinner—I want to take you out for breakfast dressed in last night’s clothes. I want to hold your hand as we walk down the street. I want to kiss you in front of a million cameras and let them all know that I’m sleeping next to you at night. I know that I’m screwed up and that I have a million problems, and this is all going so fucking fast that it can’t be healthy, but…”
Jamie’s next words were smothered by Chris’s mouth on his, hands on both sides of his neck as he kissed without giving a shit if anyone was around to see it. Jamie’s fists bunched into the thick jersey of Chris’s hoodie as they closed any space between them. Chris’s heart thumped hard against his ribcage, swollen so much with emotion that he thought it would burst.
“I want that,” he whispered breathlessly against Jamie’s lips, between kisses. “I want all of that, so much.”
Jamie laughed, the sound catching in his throat before he gave Chris one last lingering kiss. “Good to know that you’re just as stupid as me.”
Chris laughed, too, then remembered where they were—out in the open for anyone to see. He dropped his hands and backed up a couple of steps, although he was still smiling.
“Not quite as stupid,” he said and smirked. “If a paparazzo caught that, we’d be screwed before we even get off the ground.”
Jamie held up both hands in defeat and grinned. “I’m strictly hands off for now, Agent Roberts.”
Chris shook his head and started to jog again, unable to contain how happy he felt. Jamie had been absolutely right—this had happened far too fast, but it wasn’t just sex. Chris felt real affection for him, like they had connected on a level that he rarely had with people. Chris had been walking around on autopilot since leaving the army, just going through the motions day by day. Jamie had made him feel alive again. Was three weeks too soon to call it love? It probably was, but that was the closest emotion Chris could find to describe it.
They didn’t say anything else as they jogged back to the house, Boomer running along with them and pausing occasionally to dash into the sea, then bark indignantly when his paws got wet. Jamie was wincing when they slowed to a walk and went up the stairs to the back porch, and Chris was once again reminded of Jamie’sproblems—his feet were still not entirely healed from being broken in Afghanistan. He wondered if they would ever be.
“Call Andy,” Jamie said again as he grabbed a towel to dry off Boomer’s sodden legs. “Tell him to come over tonight. We could do with some fresh company.”
“Sick of me already, Barratt?”
“Never going to happen,” Jamie replied, only half-joking.
* * * *
