Room at the Top (3 page)

He worked his finger deeper, Jay trembling but holding still when Austin could tell he wanted to bear down. So good, so fucking obedient. They both were, but it was wasted because they had no one to be good
for.

He nudged Jay with his shoulder, moving him so the soft rain of water from the shower rinsed Jay’s ass clean of soap on one side at least. One cheek was still marbled with white swirls, creamy against the flushed red skin. He kissed the clean, wet cheek, feeling the heat of the punished flesh against his lips, and moaned as he remembered the sound of the leather against his ass. His fingers tightened reflexively around Jay’s cock, and Jay whimpered, a frantic, imploring sound.

Austin wanted to make this last, use the waiting to take Jay deeper, but Jay was sobbing now, breathless incoherencies spilling from lips so ready to smile at him. He couldn’t hold back. He bit and licked Jay’s ass, his hands busy now, his finger knuckle-deep in the tight, clinging channel. Jay’s skin tasted of water and nothing else, no one else.

He knew thirty seconds before Jay came that it was imminent—he could feel it in the way his body mirrored Jay’s, and as soon as the pulse of Jay’s cock began, he dropped his other hand to his dick and stroked it fast and hard. It wasn’t a great orgasm—not even close—but it was still a relief to let go of the tension.

In the aftermath, they were both quiet, breathing heavily. The sound of the water hitting skin, cast iron, and the plastic shower curtain liner was almost hypnotic, and Austin felt lulled by it. If he hadn’t been aware the water was going to turn cold sooner rather than later, he would have been tempted to lie down right there on the floor of the bathtub and go to sleep. Instead he leaned his forehead against Jay’s ass and mumbled, “Sleepy.”

“Yeah, me too.” Jay shut off the water and urged Austin to his feet, and somehow they managed to dry themselves off and stumble to the bedroom.

Austin face-planted into his pillow. “This is good.”

Jay mumbled something Austin didn’t bother to translate. Too sleepy to do more than curve his body into the position he liked to start the night in, though he always woke on his back, he let the day slip away from him.

Chapter Two

“Jay, you’re going to be late. If you’re not on the road by eight, you won’t make it, not now they’re digging up Lockwood. It’s down to one lane there, and the traffic gets backed up at rush hour. You
know
that.”

Austin sounded stressed as he headed toward the door, and Jay hated that. Being late mattered; he knew it did. It was just so difficult to focus first thing in the morning. The library opened at nine thirty, but the employees were supposed to be there an hour earlier. It was easier when he was on the shift that stayed until the library closed at eight. He didn’t have to go in until noon then. The trade-off was less time in the evening with Austin, though, and that sucked.

He set his coffee mug down on the small kitchen table, moving aside a magazine he’d been reading to make room for it. The table was sticky, and he decided to make an effort when he got home and do some tidying. Austin liked it neat. Austin’s room, tiny, used mostly for storage though there was a bed in it, was spotless, an oasis of order in the middle of Jay’s chaos. Jay walked over to the door, automatically swerving to avoid a pile of laundry. He’d meant to put it away, but the phone had rung and he’d gotten distracted. He wasn’t letting Austin leave without saying good-bye properly.

“Late,” Austin repeated, but he returned Jay’s hug, the two of them carving out a moment of peace. Austin’s blond hair needed cutting, his bangs drifting down over his blue eyes, but Jay loved playing with it, running his fingers through it, messing it up, and he never told Austin it was time to get it trimmed.

“How’s your ass?”

Austin shrugged, his hand sliding down to cup Jay’s ass. The touch felt good, but Jay tried not to let it get him worked up. No time to do anything with Austin, and if he jerked off after Austin left, he really
would
be late. “Sore. Yours?”

“Same. Why do we both have jobs that mean we’re sitting down all day?”

“Bad planning?” Austin shook his head as soon as he’d said it, a smile appearing. “Hell, who’re we kidding? You know we both like the reminder.” His smile faded. “Usually.”

“Forget about it,” Jay said, knowing Austin would be worrying about him all day. If he let himself think about Niall, his skin felt creepy-crawly, but he hadn’t been tied down and Austin had been right there. Nothing bad could’ve happened, not really. He had to remember that. Even if part of him was still shocked and bruised at Niall’s decision to ignore him, like he didn’t matter, like he didn’t count. Not cool. Not cool at all. “It’s over. We move on. Right?”

“Right.” Austin kissed the edge of his ear, and Jay knew from the way he did it that he was going to be stewing about the situation for the rest of the day.

He knew just as certainly there was nothing he could say to change that.

* * *

Unsurprisingly Jay was late to work, but not late enough that anyone would say anything about it. There was a bag of books next to the return slot, so he snagged it on his way into the library, knowing Nancy would have meant to come back for it but forgotten in the face of all the other things on her plate.

People were always donating books—sometimes they put them into the book slot with the returns, which always resulted in a moment’s confusion when they were discovered—and Jay was always claiming some of them as his. That was how he ended up with so many stacks of them at home.

“Oh, thanks,” Nancy said as he brought the bag into the office.

“No problem.”

“Anything good?” Nancy was sorting mail into a couple of different piles that no doubt made perfect sense to her but would be incomprehensible to Jay.

“Haven’t looked yet.” He was itching to, though. Who knew what might be in there? He knew realistically that finding a signed first edition of
The Hobbit
wasn’t going to happen, but among the generic thrillers and tattered children’s books, he might find something interesting. His first love was fantasy, but he read too much, too quickly to confine himself to one genre.

“Do it, and if there’s nothing you want, sort through them. Any that are in good enough condition can go for the book sale. The rest—”

“Not the recycle bin,” Jay said. He hated throwing books away. It felt wrong, like littering or chopping down trees.

Nancy gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry. Has to be done. We can’t use them, and no one will buy them.”

“I could take them to the thrift store,” Jay said, bargaining for their survival like he always did, even though it would add fifteen minutes to his journey home.

“They don’t mind being recycled,” Nancy said absently, her attention back on her mail. “Back to their roots. Circle of life. Ashes to ashes, pulp to pulp.”

Jay set the bag down under his desk, out of the way. If they didn’t mind, he did.

After a busy morning dealing with a stack of interlibrary loan requests, he ate his lunch outside. Spring had been slow in arriving this year, but the grass of Madison was finally green, not brown, and the small garden outside the library, city-maintained, was bright with tulips in candy pink and yellow. Jay found a bench and opened his book along with his box of sandwiches, carefully setting his watch to beep at him when it was time to go back to work. Once, two years ago, he’d forgotten to do that, and only the splash of raindrops on the pages had broken the spell of the story he was reading.

Nancy had been less than pleased with him, but he’d met Austin at the library that afternoon, and there was nothing about that day he wanted to change, ever.

He’d noticed the young man wandering the stacks with a scrap of paper in one hand and a couple of books tucked under his arm. It would have been hard not to notice him with his curly blond hair and blue eyes…

* * *

“Can I help you find something?” Jay finally asked when the blond appeared a fourth time.

“I don’t know? Maybe. I mean…the computer says this book is checked in, but I can’t find it.”

“The computer is usually right,” Jay told him, moving around the main desk and heading toward him. “Sometimes people put books back where they don’t belong. And sometimes people steal them, of course, but that’s usually certain titles.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Here, let me see.” Jay took the piece of paper and frowned. “Huh, yeah, this should be here.” He moved to where the book should have been shelved and crouched down. “Well,
The Guinness Book of World Records
, for one.”

“Seriously? Are people trying to break the record for that too?” The young man sounded as amused as Jay had been the first time he heard it.

“Maybe. And Abbie Hoffman, of course. Oh, here it is.” The missing book,
Marijuana—What’s a Parent to Believe?
, had been pushed back behind the row, and its front cover was bent. Smoothing it, Jay stood. “You have kids?”

“What? Oh, no. Younger sister.” The blond reached for the book. “Thanks. Abbie Hoffman?”

Jay hadn’t let go, which meant they were both holding it. “He wrote a book called
Steal This Book
,” he explained. “Political thing. Was there, um, anything else you were looking for?”

“No, just this. And these, but I found these. Obviously.”

Reluctantly Jay let go of the book and gestured toward the main desk. “I could check you out?”

“I kind of hoped you already were,” the blond said, grinning. He tucked the book in with the others he had and offered Jay his hand. “I’m Austin.”

Jay took Austin’s hand. He’d always wanted to possess some sort of psychic ability. At the age of eleven, he’d wanted to be a wizard, but he’d let that go. Telekinesis would’ve been cool, but the idea of telepathy kind of freaked him out. Minds were full of dark places. With Austin’s palm warm against his, he just knew this was going to work out. It might not be a genuine psychic flash, but he was willing to count it.

“Jay.”

“You’re new here, aren’t you? I come in a lot, and I’ve never seen you.”

Cute, gay,
and
into reading? Jay felt his smile start on the inside, a happy glow. Okay, this was too good to be true, but he was going to trust to fate and not start looking for flaws in a pretty perfect picture.

“Started two months ago, but this is the first week I’ve been out here. They’ve kept me busy in the processing office sticking on bar codes and entering books into the system.”

Austin grimaced, looking like he understood. “I’m the office manager for two doctors, and it was the same for me when I started. Trial by paper cuts.”

Jay led Austin to the mercifully empty checkout desk and reluctantly put the counter between them. Checking books out was easy, just a matter of letting the computer read the library card, then scanning the bar code on the back of each book. Because he loved books, he always glanced at the title as he checked a book out, though he’d soon learned not to start up a conversation. That always led to a long line of impatient library patrons and, once, a scolding from an embarrassed elderly lady checking out three steamy romances sandwiched between books on quilting.

It wasn’t nosy to look at Austin’s information on the screen, though. Jay was supposed to do that, to make sure the card wasn’t out of date. They were renewed each year. Austin still had plenty of time left on his, but Jay couldn’t help seeing his full name—Austin James Fisher—and noticing Austin lived only a mile or two away from him.

He gave Austin a sheepish look and found Austin smiling at him, an amused glint in his eyes as if he’d known what Jay was doing and didn’t mind.

Ducking his head, Jay concentrated on checking out Austin’s books, wishing he knew the right words to propose a date. He wasn’t good with strangers, though once he got to know someone, he opened up. Austin felt like a potential friend, but that could just be his hopes misleading him.

The books went through, scanning without trouble, giving Jay no time to organize the words in his head into a coherent sentence. He reached for the last one, scanned, and flipped it automatically. The book was large and heavy, and he felt it slip through his fingers. He looked down at it and felt a jolt, similar to the one he’d experienced shaking Austin’s hand, a sizzle running through him, excitement and anticipation combined. The book was one he owned, the familiar cover blurring as he stared at it.

“Is this for your sister too?” His voice sounded weird, as if it was coming from far away.

Austin didn’t back down or make a joke of it. “
Screw the Roses
? No, that’s for me.”

Jay swallowed, dragging his gaze away from the picture of the bound woman, blindfolded and cuffed and meeting Austin’s eyes. “I’ve read it. I own it,” he said, and it turned out that was all he needed to say.

* * *

Austin had been the one to propose their first date, which was coffee on the weekend followed by dinner the following night, and they’d hardly been apart since. In some ways, they were exactly the same, and in others they were almost complete opposites—Jay’s messiness and Austin’s neat streak came to mind—but those two elements combined made them just about perfect partners.

The only thing they lacked now was what Patrick had given them.

Jay was just finishing his lunch when his cell phone started to play the theme song from Indiana Jones. He fumbled the phone from his pocket and answered the call. “Hey there, boyfriend.”

“Hi, boyfriend.” Austin sounded distant, which probably meant he was still thinking about the night before. Being Austin, though, he wouldn’t let it affect his ability to work. He’d just keep plugging away. “How’s your day?”

“Okay. How’s yours?” Jay licked his thumb and rubbed the corner of his mouth.

“Long. And we’ve had four no-shows, which always puts Chelle in a shitty mood.” If Austin was swearing it meant he’d either left the office or was in the supply room out back. “Let’s do something tonight.”

It was Friday. Friday used to mean they met up with Patrick. Not every Friday—he was an antique dealer, and that meant driving out to estate sales sometimes hundreds of miles away—but most of them. The arrangement with Patrick had only lasted a year, but it felt like longer, like they’d always had him in their lives.