Page 27 of True North

JT groaned and raised his hips so he could work his hand farther between his legs, pushing past his balls to rub his greasy fingers against his hole. God, that felt so good, the careful stroke of his fingers around and around, teasing at himself. It had really been way too long.

Without really consciously deciding to, he turned onto his back again and stripped off his shorts, and spread his legs wide to give himself room to work. He was so hard and so horny and his hole already felt soft and ready, just from touching himself a little. He pressed two fingers inside, the perfect stretch he needed, and heard a moan fall from his mouth. He would suck Misha’s cock, holding the blunt weight of it on his tongue, licking salt from the head, and Misha would let him. Misha would cradle JT’s head in his palms and guide JT however he wanted.

JT worked his fingers in and out, fucking himself just how he liked, pressing deep. A dildo would be better, but he was too close to the edge to stop now. He worked at his dick with his free hand, stroking roughly with the flat of his palm, and thought about the noise Misha might make when he came, and that was what finally brought him over.

He went limp on the mattress, breathing hard. His hand was coated with jizz, and his shirt was damp with sweat beneath the arms. He stared at the ceiling as his pulse slowed. The good feelings from his orgasm ebbed and shame set in. He had to stop thinking about Misha like this, and if he couldn’t, he needed to find Misha somewhere else to live. At the very least, he needed to kick Misha out of his bed.

He would do it soon. Tonight. Probably tonight.

With a groan, he rolled out of bed and went into the washroom to clean up.

* * *

Misha went back to the house in a better mood than he had left it. His ramble in the woods had soothed his jittery anxiety about their swimming—more specifically their wrestling; more specifically JT’s body against his own in the water, grappling with him. JT hadn’t been upset. Misha hadn’t done anything wrong.

He shifted on the deck and stretched his arms above his head, working out the kinks of his bear form. He was thinking about taking a shower and then maybe a nap. Sveta had given him more homework, but he could do that with JT while they ate dinner. The idleness of his new life was strange to him, but he hadn’t been so relaxed since childhood, and he wasn’t going to complain about JT’s apparently total willingness to let him lounge around the house, eat, nap, swim, and do very little else.

He went inside and up the stairs to the bedroom, humming under his breath as he went. He was having a good day, even with the brief upset of swimming. Sveta was pleased with him, and that meant JT was pleased with him, too. Misha had learned at least twenty new words since waking up that morning. JT had said a bunch of stuff about dinner that Misha hadn’t totally understood but had seemed to indicate they were going to eat something more delicious than usual. Life couldn’t have been better.

As he walked into the bedroom, he stopped dead, smacked in the face by the mingled scents of sweat and semen. JT…?

JT was downstairs; Misha had heard the faint sounds of him watching TV in the living room as he came into the house. But he’d been here in the bedroom not too long ago, lying in bed, touching himself. Presumably. Maybe no hands were involved.

Misha abandoned his shower plans and sat on JT’s side of the bed. The smell rose up around him in an invisible cloud. JT had lain just here and brought himself off.

Misha shivered. How had JT done it? Had he taken off his shirt? Misha could picture it so easily: JT’s broad, freckled shoulders flexing as he touched his cock. He hadn’t ever seen JT naked, but he could picture that, too. All dicks were more or less the same, with insignificant variations in size and shape. JT’s would be pink and fat, leaking in his grasp.

Misha touched the rumpled, unmade sheets. Had JT forgotten about Misha’s powerful sense of smell? Did he not realize Misha’s nose was incredibly sensitive even in human form?

Or did he want Misha to know what he had done?

Oh, Misha liked that idea, that JT had left a faint trace of come on the sheets so that Misha would know what he’d been doing. Completely improbable, of course. JT had certainly just been careless, but. But. Well, Misha could dream.

Would JT take him up on the invitation if Misha made himself available? Misha rolled his eyes at himself. He had no evidence that JT was interested in men, and he couldn’t take that risk. It was too dangerous, as he knew from experience. If JT reacted poorly, Misha would be out in the woods again. It would be just like Toronto, only worse—

No, he didn’t want to think about that. He pressed both hands to his temples as if he could force the painful thoughts out of his skull. He had been in Toronto for a while, and then he wasn’t in Toronto anymore. Nothing had happened in between those two states of existence. Nothing that mattered.

Still, he couldn’t take a chance with JT. Not unless he was completely certain.

He stood in the shower for a long while, not bathing or thinking but only standing there, letting the hot water and the sound of it wash away the fears he didn’t want to give a name to. He was safe here, he told himself. JT didn’t know the truth about him and hopefully never would.

At long last, he turned the temperature from scalding to lukewarm and cleaned himself efficiently. His hair was still so short that it didn’t need much more than a sudsy hand run over it, and the rest of him was clean enough from regular showers that even an excursion to the woods didn’t do much damage. By the time he stepped out of the shower, he felt calmer, and even a bit embarrassed by his private histrionics. He was so far from Toronto that he might as well be on the moon. Nobody would find him. And JT wouldn’t know about Misha’s secret thoughts unless Misha was stupid enough to share them. He had nothing to worry about.

He dressed and went downstairs. JT was still in the living room with the TV on. He glanced over when Misha came into the room and smiled, looking not at all like a man who had deliberately masturbated in their shared bed so that Misha could smell it.

He hadn’t done it deliberately. It was nuts that Misha had even considered that as a possibility.

“Hey.” JT didn’t straighten from his relaxed TV-watching sprawl. He had baseball on, as usual. “Good walk?”

Misha nodded. “Yeah, it’s nice.” He sat down on the other end of the couch and held out his hand for the remote. JT rolled his eyes and passed it over. Misha had trained him well. Smug in his victory, Misha flipped through the channels until he found an action film he liked.Muchbetter than baseball.

He found himself watching JT more than the TV, though, and probably wasn’t being too subtle about it based on the way JT kept glancing over at him and shifting in his seat. He wasn’t, maybe, objectively all that handsome; his nose and mouth were both too big for his face, and he had a prominent mole on his chin that could be graciously described as adding character. But he had a great smile and big hands and broad shoulders, a big body shaped like it was meant to work hard rather than look good. Looking good was a side effect.

Misha had found JT attractive from the beginning—that was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place—but it was hitting him hard now, like the parts of him that wanted sex and love had been set aside for a while and were only now coming back into full operation. He hadn’t gotten himself off a single time since he moved in, even though he had abundant opportunity with JT out of the house so much, but oh, he was thinking about it now.

His cheeks and the back of his neck felt hot. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.

“What is it,” JT said, which meant Misha probablywas.