Page 24 of Delay of Game
Nate caught Zach’s arm in his hand and pulled it back. Or tried to. Zach was strong enough that there wasn’t a struggle exactly. Just an easy resistance. Nate looked down at his arm, feeling the muscle flex under his fingers, then up at his face, all of the familiar lines of it, the way his mouth parted, the way his eyes widened when he looked up and realized Nate was staring at him.
“What—” Zach started to say, but he didn’t finish, because Nate lunged forward and kissed him, and Zach made a noise of surprise that sounded like Nate had punched him in the ribs instead.
His lips were warm and soft and at first, he seemed like he was too surprised to open his mouth. Nate’s heart almost stopped, wrenched painfully tight in his chest, thinking,oh no, oh god, oh no. Then Zach’s mouthdidopen, with a gasp of surprise, and Nate kept kissing him, desperately, tongue slipping into the space it was given. He could taste Zach, all of the shots they’d shared that night, that slight difference that was like,oh, this is someone else’s mouth.
And then some ineffable balance shifted, and Zach’s entire body melted against him, and he was kissing Nate back.
Nate hadn’t really thought about what he was doing, hadn’t thought about the consequences of his actions, but he was rapidly finding out that kissing Zachary Reed wasn’t something that could be done by half measures, and he couldn’t regret what he’d done.
Zach was wild, almost, his body shivering under Nate’s hands. He shook like every stroke of his fingers down Zach’s sides, even through his clothes, burned him. His mouth hot and wet and intense, his teeth digging into Nate’s lip until Nate whimpered, not in astop that hurtsway but anoh god keep doing itway. His tongue fucking Nate’s mouth, half teasing, half obscene.
Eventually Nate had to pull away, gasping for breath. He opened his eyes and felt the bottom drop out of the world again.
Zach was panting too, his lips red and slick with spit, his eyes so fucking wide, a little crazy looking. He looked fucking amazing. He looked like he was about to say something, and Nate realized he couldn’t bear it if Zach told him that he was making a mistake, or asked him to take a minute to think about it, so he kissed him again, one of his hands tangled in Zach’s curly hair. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to pull it or stroke it, so he did both, alternating.
All he knew was he wanted Zach close and closer.
Somehow, they had shifted around so Zach was on top of him, straddling Nate’s legs and pressing himself so close that Nate could feel Zach’s cock grinding against the muscle of his stomach, his hands tugging Nate’s shirt out of where it had been tucked into his belt. Hands dragging up Nate’s ribs, he gasped a strangled, pained noise into Nate’s mouth before pulling away. Just an inch, like it hurt him to do even that.
“Nate—”
“It’s fine, please, it’s fine, please don’t—”
“Are you—”
“Zach—”
“Are you sure—what—”
“Please, don’t stop, please,” Nate said, helplessly, because he wanted this,needed this, and Zach said,“Fuck,”and went back to ruining him, his hands hot against Nate’s back and ribs again. It already felt like he was burning and now just burned hotter. He could feel the imprints of Zach’s fingers wherever they dragged, thinking in the dazed part of his brain that still had the power of conscious thought:it feels like they should leave a mark.
Nate knew he wasn’t anywhere near as experienced as Zach. Somehow, it didn’t matter. He was still trying to touch everything he could reach, his fingers exploring the ridges of muscle hidden underneath Zach’s button-up shirt. He had seen them before, had even touched them before, but this was different, feeling the way they shifted as Zach shivered and groaned under Nate’s hands, like every touch destroyed him just as much as he was destroying Nate. Learning every inch of his body. Like when Nate’s fingers pinched his nipple, just testing, Zach made another one of those punched-in-the-ribs noises and pulled away again.
Nate stared at him and wondered how he hadn’t thought to do this before and Zach stared back like Nate was someone he didn’t know at all even though he’d thought he had, like Nate was someone he wanted to devour.
“Take off your shirt?” Nate asked, almost shocked by how needy he sounded, how rough his voice was already, but he couldn’t be embarrassed by it. Couldn’t even stop to think about how they’d gotten here, how much he needed—
Zach didn’t even bother with the buttons, just yanked the entire thing over his head, like it was easy, but before Nate could even get the glimpse of him he wanted so badly, Zach’s insistent hands were trying to get Nate’s sweater and shirt off too. Nate wasn’t as coordinated or used to undressing in a hurry as Zach was, so there were a few moments of fumbling that would have made him laugh in another less desperate, less charged time. As it was, his heart kept pounding, throwing itself against his ribs like it too wanted to escape.
Zach swore as he tried to get the sweater over Nate’s head and when he finally managed it, dove forward and pressed a line of rough, sloppy kisses up the side of Nate’s neck. Nate could hear himself, the noises he was making in response, the gasp when Zach dug his teeth into the skin right below Nate’s jaw and sucked a mark there, like—
Zach pushed him down on the couch, still straddling him, and Nate found himself rolling his hips up into it, thoughtlessly at first but rewarded when Zach bit his lip and groaned and ground himself back down into it and the shock of the friction shivered through him.
This was—this wasn’t like him, it was a risk, the whole thing was fucking stupid—making out with his best friend, risking the most important relationship in his life—but it was hard to listen to the darkest and most doubtful parts of his brain when Zach so clearly wanted him too, when Zach seemed almost as overwhelmed as he felt, when Zach’s hands were tracing the lines of Nate’s chest and abdomen like he was a rare and precious book that needed to be learned by heart.
They fumbled at each other’s bodies and with each other’s clothes until the tension was almost unbearable. Nate felt like he was going to jump out of his skin, felt like he was already out of it, every inch of him raw and exposed, just from making out on the couch like teenagers.
No. Not like teenagers. This was adult. This was something he hadn’t felt in a long time, burning desperation building in the pit of his stomach, his skin hypersensitive everywhere Zach touched him, every time their lips met and Nate learned the shape and feel of his mouth.
Somewhere along the way he’d lost his pants and if three days ago someone had said,Nate, in a couple days you’re going to be on your couch in your boxers with Zach Reed on top of you with his dick out, he would have laughed in their face. As it was, every part of him that was touching Zach, every place their bodies connected, felt like it was on fire. He struggled up onto his elbows so he could look at Zach’s dick.
He’d seen it before. He’d seen all of the guys on the team naked, and Bee, and had never really thought about it beyondthese are my teammates and we’re all going into the showers. This was different. Like the rest of Zach’s body, he’d seen it before, but it felt so different.
He’d never allowed himself to feel the shivery longing he felt now examining Zach, thinking,I want to touch him, Icouldtouch him, allowing himself to look hungrily at the way Zach’s body was a really beautiful thing by any metric you wanted to measure it by, the way it was a work of art on its own, the compact muscle and graceful lines of him, the way there wasn’t a bit of him that wasn’t made and shaped expressly for the game they loved.
And the way his cock was straining and damp at the tip of his foreskin, still untouched, the slight curve of it, the outline of the veins in the side.
Nate shocked himself by reaching out and wrapping his fingers around it, sliding up. It felt like touching his own dick when he was jerking off, in that the feeling of soft skin sliding over the hardness of the rest of it was the same, but it was so different. Zach wasn’t cut and it was strangely, weirdly fascinating to feel the change that made. Learning the noises Zach couldn’t choke back when Nate changed his tempo and his grip, when his hand sliding up caught some of the liquid at the tip and dragged it back down Zach’s overheated skin.