Page 34 of True North
His dick was leaking pre-come onto his stomach. He smeared it around, using the thin liquid to ease the way as he started stroking himself.
From behind him came the sound of a sharply indrawn breath.
Panic spiked through JT in a hot flare. He fumbled his dick back into his shorts and then slapped ineffectually at the mouse, too terror-stricken to think clearly. He tried to pause the video and missed. On the screen, the bottom moaned as the top teased at his asshole.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” JT muttered, and finally did the obvious thing and closed the tab.
His ears rang in the silence that followed. He didn’t want to turn around—he had never wanted to do anything less, including facing the press after a humiliating first-round playoff sweep.
Misha’s voice sounded very small when he said, “Sorry.”
Fine. JT set his jaw and spun the chair around. He used every skill he’d honed over years of locker room interviews to keep his expression completely neutral and meet Misha’s eyes. Or he would have, but Misha wasn’t looking at him; Misha’s shoulders were hunched toward his ears and his gaze was fixed firmly on the floor. He had put on a pair of shorts but no shirt. Raindrops spangled his hair.
JT’s hands gripped the armrests. “I wasn’t, ah. Expecting you back so soon.” He hadn’t heard Misha at all.
“It’s rain,” Misha mumbled. “And I hear computer, so I think…” He trailed off. His shoulders somehow hunched even further. His face was scarlet. “Sorry.”
At least the humiliation had thoroughly wilted JT’s boner. He had fucked up so bad. Misha couldn’t even look him in the eye. There was probably no way Misha hadn’t noticed what kind of porn JT was watching.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have, uh. Done this here. Or left the door open. I wasn’t—I didn’t think you’d be back. Fuck.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay, so. I’m going to… go. Somewhere else.”
Misha didn’t move from the doorway, where he stood blocking JT’s only exit. His eyes darted to JT’s face for a single instant, there and away again, a dark flash. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
JT waited for him to leave. An awkward silence dragged on. At last, JT said, “Do we need to talk about this?”
Misha shook himself. “No. I—no. Sorry.” Then, finally, he turned and left.
* * *
Misha fled to the guest suite, his face painfully hot, blood throbbing in his temples. He closed the door behind him and sat on the perfectly made bed. He hadn’t even been in this room in weeks; he hadn’t slept here since the very first night, and all of his clothes had gradually migrated upstairs to JT’s bedroom. But it made a good place to hide.
Outside, rain drizzled down the windows. Misha wrapped his arms around his torso, his damp skin prickling as he air-dried. The rain wasn’t coming down particularly hard, and anyway he was covered in thick fur in bear form and barely noticed it. He should have stayed out in the woods for a while, as JT had thought he would, but the temperature had been colder than he expected and he didn’t detect any promising food smells, and going back inside to nap on the couch had seemed like a great idea. But then—
But then. He knew he wasn’t wrong about what JT had been watching. Both of the people on the computer screen had very obviously had dicks. Misha knew what a dick looked like. There was no mistaking it.
He flopped backward onto the bed and stared up at the featureless ceiling. JT likedmen?
Even with his improbable fantasizing, the revelation was so unexpected that Misha’s thoughts had nowhere to go from there. He stared at the ceiling for a few more minutes, mind blank, then decided to go take a shower mostly to give himself something to do.
Standing in the guest suite’s shower with hot water pouring down over his shoulders, he closed his eyes and let the images scroll through his head. The two men on the screen, one’s mouth on the other’s dick. The one man’s splayed thighs, his expression of ecstasy as the other man’s hand worked between his legs. JT seated in front of the computer, his pink dick peeking through the loose curl of his fist.
For the first time since he’d left the woods, Misha’s own dick was hard. He thought about ignoring it and waiting for it to go away, but… well, it wouldn’t hurt anyone. No one would ever know. He wouldn’t get anyone into trouble or—or—do anything he couldn’t take back. He was safe here.
He pressed his forehead to the shower wall and brought himself off in record time, his thighs trembling as he reached his peak. His heartbeat gradually slowed as the water washed his come down the drain. In the aftermath, he didn’t feel much of anything: not good or bad, not guilty or elated. Just wrung out.
So: JT liked men. That didn’t mean he liked Misha specifically, or that he would want to do anything about it. But: maybe. Maybe he did. Maybe he would.
He dried off and put his shorts back on. His shirt was—somewhere. In the mudroom, probably, where he had undressed to go out. He cautiously emerged from the guest suite, ears pricked for any noise from JT. Some faint sounds came from upstairs. Misha would go deal with him in a minute, but first, he wanted to be fully dressed.
The shirt was folded up on the bench beside the mudroom door, more carefully than Misha himself would have ever bothered. He picked it up and shook it out, gazing at the maple leaf logo on the chest. Everything he had was JT’s. His entire existence here was at JT’s mercy. It was a precarious way to live, and yet JT had never made him feel anything but welcome and safe.
He pulled the shirt over his head. Then he went upstairs to find JT.
He followed his ears and nose down the upstairs hallway to the bedroom—to their shared bedroom, where they slept together every night. JT was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, looking at his phone. He glanced up as Misha came into the room, then grimaced and put his phone down and said, “Uh, hey.”
Misha leaned against the doorjamb. He didn’t have a plan and didn’t really know what to say. He just knew that he didn’t want to let JT hide until the moment had passed and they moved on and never addressed the issue again. He thought this might be his only chance.
“Listen, I’m really sorry about, uh.” JT planted both hands on the rumpled bedding and stared down at his feet. “I should have closed the door. You didn’t need to see that.”