Page 58 of Checking Out the Librarian

“Fuck. Yes. Fuck.” Connor grunted into his ear while he pushed hard and pushed again.

Jonathan clutched Connor’s shoulders and arched off the mattress. He wanted to wrap his legs around Connor, but sheets blocked him. The sensation of being restrained by fabric and Connor’s weight, while his hands remained free to roam and squeeze, was a confusion that cracked him open.

He couldn’t move his lower body, and Connor pistoned against him like he was chasing lift-off. The friction came through their coverings, the heat of Connor’s skin and the weight of his body making Jonathan’s feel like it was on fire.

It shouldn’t be this easy.

But Connor’s mouth was on Jonathan’s neck, sucking that tendon, Connor’s hands were wrapped around his shoulders holding him, and Connor’s lips were whispering about Jonathan’s hot mouth and smooth chest, begging Jonathan to keep putting his hands on him, babbling nonsense, but delightful nonsense that was one thousand percent about Jonathan, and it was that easy.

He was suddenly hotter and strung tighter and snapping in two. It was that easy.

It was.

He swore his brain flickered as he came, and then Connor stiffened on top of him, every muscle tensing, reaching his orgasm as quickly as Jonathan had.

It took some breathing and some time to get his throat open enough to force air past the giant bubble stuck in his chest, but finally Jonathan felt able to speak. “Did we break land speed records? Do we need to go to the Bonneville Salt Flats if we’re going to do it like that again? I think we do.”

His voice quivered. He was talking too much, and he should definitely shut up. This was not his way.

None of this, picnics in parks and coffee in bed, dry humping through sheets, none of it, was his way.

He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, but he wasn’t strong enough to push Connor off his body so that he could hide in the pillows.

“Shhh.” Connor lifted his hand to lightly graze his fingers over Jonathan’s eyelids, his nose, his mouth, but his face remained buried in Jonathan’s shoulder even though he shifted the bulk of his weight onto his own hip and leg rather than squishing Jonathan.

“No talking. Let’s cuddle for a minute, before we shower.”

Jonathan knew he’d never said ‘let’s cuddle’ out loud, couldn’t recall ever hearing that request said to him, and possibly he’d never even thought the phrase. But. But. He hadn’t drunk enough coffee to prevent his brain from stuttering to a halt over the consideration of how natural it sounded coming from Connor.

“Are you always this happy?” He didn’t like the rising sound of his question. It verged on panicked-sounding, and he wasn’t that. He wasn’t.

Also, the word happy felt inadequate to describe the comfort in his life and his body that glowed out of Connor. Jonathan couldn’t define it or even find the right word to name it, but he envied it.

“Didn’t you hear me say no talking?”

“I do not take orders well.” That sounded closer to normal. Or at least a bit tart, which passed as his normal.

“No shit.” Connor sighed, but it didn’t sound unhappy, more like a large man letting a fair amount of air out of his lungs so that he could settle deeper into a mattress. “Are you freaking out?”

“Of course not. Why would I be?”

Connor shifted to look at Jonathan’s face and raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe. A little. It’s never been like this. For me.” The urge to wave his hands was strong, but he resisted.

Connor lay very still. “Me neither.”

That stopped him for a moment.

Jonathan wanted to be happy. His old therapist had told him, before he moved away from New York, that he should picture himself as happy, and talk to himself about being happy, to get used to the idea of being happy. Self-fulfilling prophecies, they had joked.

He’d assumed he was doing okay on that front, but Connor was next-level.

“You didn’t answer. Are you always this happy?”

Connor groaned. “After sex, or in the mornings?”

“All the time. You seem like you’re happy all the fucking time.”