Page 25 of After the Siren

Chapter Thirteen

Jake woke up with his cheek pressed against the warm fabric of Stavs’ t-shirt. He always wrapped himself around anyone sleeping beside him. Paddy said he was like a fucking koala and made him sleep next to Xen if they ever had to share. Kyle had found it irritating.

In this case he’d managed to curl up with one leg over Stavs’ calf, his face pillowed against Stavs’ pec. He couldn’t believe Stavs hadn’t shoved him away. But here he was, next to Jake, his breathing even, his face softer than Jake had ever seen it.

Jake resisted the urge to nestle even closer and instead reached out to tap his phone.

It was half past seven, and they had nowhere to be until midday.

He was ... not nervous. It would be stupid to be nervous.

And he was very comfortable. It was nice to wake up next to someone again.

At some point in the night they’d thrown off the doona and shoved the sheet down so it was tangled around their thighs.

Stavs was sleeping with one arm flung out above his head, and Jake let himself just admire his chest and his shoulders and his arms .

It wasn’t like he didn’t see Stavs naked or half-naked all the time, but it was different like this. Different to have Stavs here, in his bed, and to be able to look. To be able to look, after touching. The t-shirt Jake had loaned him was a bit small on him and it was a whole situation.

It was probably a good thing they hadn’t fucked.

If it all went sideways, Jake could walk it off.

He didn’t think Stavs was going to be a dick; he might be awkward about it, maybe, but not a dick.

Still, however Stavs reacted, Jake could probably manage to get them back into ‘friends’ territory.

They’d been drunk, they were fired up after the game, shit happens. It didn’t mean anything.

Lying propped up on one elbow to watch Stavs’ sleeping face didn’t mean anything either.

Anyone would look at that face. At those ridiculous eyelashes.

People paid good money for eyelashes like that.

And Stavs had a nice mouth. Jake had been not looking at it for weeks, but he could look at it now, look at the strong line of Stavs’ jaw, the dip of his throat, the fading bruise above one collarbone.

He had a scar just under his left eye, a tiny pink line against his dark skin.

Jake wanted to know how it had happened.

He wanted to know lots of things about Stavs. It was a problem.

Jake felt the moment that Stavs woke, felt the sudden tension in his body. He wanted to press a kiss to Stavs’ chest, in case it was the last one.

He didn’t.

‘Hi,’ he said.

Stavs blinked a couple of times, as though he was trying to work out where he was and why. ‘Hey.’

Stavs’ voice was rough with sleep and Jake felt it somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. There was a dark shadow on Stavs’ jaw and cheeks. Jake wanted to feel that stubble against his skin.

He shuffled back to give Stavs some space.

He probably didn’t want to process the situation with Jake’s morning wood pressed against his thigh, even if the sheet had been pushed down far enough to show that Jake wasn’t the only one with that problem.

He didn’t think Stavs was going to be pissed about this.

True, Jake wouldn’t have kissed him if he’d been a little less buzzed himself and had stopped to think about the fact that Stavs didn’t usually drink.

But Stavs hadn’t been obviously fucked up, and Jake hadn’t realised until they’d stood up that he was drunk.

Maybe at that point he should have taken a harder line against more kissing, but he was weak.

Stavs blinked a couple of times and ran a hand through his hair. He was, unfortunately, extremely hot when he was sleep-rumpled and a bit bleary.

‘I figure you’ve got some options,’ Jake said, before Stavs could say anything. ‘You can bail, or we could get breakfast, or we could get off. Or a combo of those things. And we can pretend this never happened, if you need to. Whatever option you pick.’

The part of Jake that listened to Xen knew that fucking and then having Stavs bail and pretend it had never happened was not a good idea.

It would have made a worried little line appear between Xen’s eyes.

But Jake was only human. Stavs was hot , and he smelled great, and he was here in Jake’s bed, and maybe if Jake knew going into it that Stavs was going to fuck and duck, it would all be fine.

It wasn’t like Jake hadn’t fucked people before on the understanding that they’d never speak of it again.

It wasn’t his favourite way to do things, but he was the one in the closet, so. Yeah.

‘What do you want to do?’ Stavs asked, his voice still husky. He shifted slightly, propping himself up on one elbow.

Jake continued not to look. Much. ‘I asked first.’

Stavs rolled his eyes.

Jake sighed. But it wasn’t as though he hadn’t put his cards on the table already. ‘I’d like to get off, get breakfast, and then not pretend this didn’t happen.’

Stavs was looking at his mouth. That seemed like a good sign. Jake sat up a little, stretching. Maybe flexing a bit. Just because he was being responsible didn’t mean he wasn’t going to put his best foot forward.

Stavs was definitely not looking at his face anymore, so mission accomplished.

Stavs licked his lips. ‘Hooking up ... is a bad idea.’

There was a hint of a question. Just a hint, but Jake could roll with it. He wasn’t going to try to talk Stavs into anything, but he wasn’t going to try to talk him out of anything either.

‘Why?’

‘We’re ... teammates. We don’t want it to get weird.’

‘Then we don’t make it weird.’

‘If we ... it shouldn’t happen more than once,’ Stavs said, his gaze sliding down Jake’s torso.

Yeah, they were going to have sex. Stavs just needed to work out that he’d already decided, maybe that he’d decided last night on the couch, when they’d wrestled for that controller.

Jake realised he hadn’t said anything in response to Stavs’ comment, so he shrugged.

‘It shouldn’t,’ Stavs said, sitting up a little more. As though that was going to help Jake concentrate on Stavs’ words and not his dick. Or his shoulders. Or the trail of hair vanishing into the top of his briefs.

‘I wasn’t arguing,’ Jake said.

‘You didn’t agree.’

‘If you don’t want it to happen again, it won’t happen again.’ Jake shifted, and if it had the effect of pulling his boxers tighter over his crotch then, well, these things happen.

Stavs narrowed his eyes, like he thought Jake was tricking him. ‘You want it to happen again?’

‘Dunno, it hasn’t happened the first time yet.’

That made Stavs stop thinking about a hypothetical next time. His eyes narrowed. Competitive motherfucker.

‘I didn’t hear any complaints last night,’ Stavs said.

‘I’m gonna start complaining now if you don’t make up your mind.’

‘Yeah?’ Stavs shifted towards him, but they still weren’t quite touching. The look in his eyes made Jake’s stomach flip. ‘What have you got to complain about?’

‘Well,’ Jake said, and finally, finally let himself reach out to put a hand on Stavs’ hip. ‘There’s this hot guy in bed with me and all he’s doing is talking .’

‘Wow, that must be really hard for you.’

‘That’s not what’s hard.’ With someone else, Jake might have grabbed their hand and pressed it against his dick, let them feel how fucking hard he was from just sleeping next to them, but he wasn’t quite sure where Stavs was at with .

.. well, with dicks. He’d seemed pretty keen on Jake’s dick last night, but there was last night and then there was this morning.

Stavs’ eyes tracked down Jake’s body, slowly.

Jake had never minded being looked at, had always liked being looked at in bed, but something about Stavs’ focused attention made him feel hot and shivery at the same time.

He remembered the way Stavs had pinned his wrists to the couch, the way he’d pressed his teeth just under Jake’s ear.

The effort of not kissing Stavs, not touching him, not doing something , was going to kill Jake.

But this wasn’t his call to make. He’d made it pretty clear what he wanted, and if Stavs was going to bail, better now than in ten minutes.

Stavs didn’t bail. Instead, he reached up to set one hand against Jake’s cheek. It was sweet in a way Jake hadn’t expected, and he turned his head to kiss Stavs’ palm, then his wrist.

‘I think I’m done talking,’ Stavs said.

‘Fucking finally ,’ Jake said, and kissed him.

Theo was sure there were very good reasons he shouldn’t have sex with Jake Cunningham. He’d had a good grasp of them a few minutes ago. He’d really almost taken the bail and pretend this never happened option.

But now Jake was straddling him – his bare thighs on either side of Theo’s hips – and the grin that had annoyed Theo so much the first few times he’d seen it was having a very different effect.

Or maybe the same effect, but he wasn’t lying to himself about it anymore.

He wondered, for a second before their lips met, whether kissing Jake would be as good as he remembered from the night before.

Whether some of it had just been the buzz from the game and the alcohol.

But if anything it was even better this time, both of them sleep-warm and still a little lazy, Jake’s mouth opening under his, hot and eager.

The way Jake had been laughing, just a little, the second before they’d kissed.

They kissed for ... Theo wasn’t sure how long, time buckling around them as he explored Jake’s body, the breadth of his shoulders, the way the muscles in his back flexed under Theo’s palms, the way his abs tensed under the pads of Theo’s fingers when Theo got a hand under his t-shirt, the way Theo could tell what he liked from the way he kissed back.

They kissed until it wasn’t lazy at all, until Theo couldn’t remember a single reason they shouldn’t do this.