Page 42 of Subduing the Shark

He rolled Jack onto his back and kissed him hard. Jack kissed him back harder. Their hands were on each other, pulling clothes off, jeans and shirts and boxers thrown toward the wall. Naked on the carpet, skin against skin, and neither of them was careful.

Harold pulled back. "Wait. I want to try something." He got up, crossed to his bag, and came back with something in his hand. A black fabric blindfold.

"No," Jack said. Then: "Wait."

Harold held it loosely, not offering, not pushing. Just showing. "You couldn't touch this in the private room. You couldn't imagine trusting someone enough to wear it. That was months ago." He turned the fabric over in his hands. "You just wrestled me on a carpet and pinned me and let me pin you and didn't shut down once. I'm asking if you trust me enough now."

Jack looked at the blindfold. The fabric was soft. The straps were adjustable. It was a piece of cloth, not a weapon, not a restraint, not the darkness of the shiver house floor. It was a choice.

"If I say Lioness?" Jack said.

"It comes off and everything stops."

Jack took the blindfold from Harold's hand and put it on himself. He pulled it over his eyes and tied the strap at the back of his head and the world went dark.

His body didn't shut down.

His hands shook. His breathing was fast. But his mind stayed in the room. He could feel the carpet under his bare skin. He could hear Harold's breathing, close, and smell the earth-and-rain scent that meant Harold was right there. He couldn't see who was in the room with him, but his body knew it was Harold. That it was safe. That the darkness was a choice he'd made and could unmake with a single word.

"I'm here," Harold said. His voice was rough and close and his hand found Jack's jaw, the familiar touch, thumb on cheekbone. "I'm right here."

"I know." Jack's voice cracked. "I can feel you."

Harold kissed him. Blind, the kiss was different. Sharper. Every sensation magnified without sight to dilute it. Harold's mouth was warm and his stubble scraped Jack's chin and the hand on his jaw was steady and Jack could feel the other hand trailing down his chest, fingertips light, and every nerve in his body was firing because he couldn't predict where the touchwould land next and the not-knowing was terrifying and electric and nothing like the shiver.

Harold's hand found his cock and Jack gasped and his hips came off the carpet and the blindfold stayed on. He was present. Trembling and blind and completely present.

Harold stroked him slowly, once, twice, and then stopped. "Okay. That's enough for tonight." He reached behind Jack's head and untied the blindfold and the light came back and Harold's face was right there, brown eyes bright, looking at Jack like he'd just watched him walk through a wall.

"You stayed," Harold said.

"Yeah. I did."

Harold kissed him again, harder, and the tenderness burned off into heat. They were still on the carpet and Harold grabbed Jack's hip and flipped him facedown and Jack went willingly, pressing his face into the carpet, arching his back. Harold fumbled for the bottle in his jeans pocket, slicked his fingers, worked Jack open with less patience than the pool and more urgency than either of them could contain. Jack's hands clawed in the carpet and his moans were loud, unfiltered, the noises of a person who'd discovered that his body could demand and receive and enjoy.

Harold pushed into him and they both groaned. The sound of it filled the small apartment. Faster than the pool. Rougher. Jack's hips shoving back to meet every thrust, his body not just accepting but participating, actively, aggressively, the shark in him responding to the physicality of it. Harold's hands gripped his hips hard enough to bruise.

Jack said, “More.”

Harold gave him more without a second thought.

They came fast. Jack first, with Harold's hand around his cock and Harold's teeth in his shoulder and a shout that echoed around them. Harold followed, his vision whiting out, his bodyslamming forward one last time and holding there while the orgasm tore through him.

Harold collapsed beside Jack and they lay on the floor side by side, panting, sweat and cum cooling on their bodies.

Jack turned his head. He looked at Harold with the gray eyes that had been flat and dead and terrified and blank in all the weeks Harold had known him, and at that moment, they were none of those things. They were warm. Tired, warm, and looking at Harold like he was the best thing Jack had ever seen.

"Nobody has ever just wrestled me before," Jack said. "Without it meaning something else."

Harold reached over and pushed the hair off Jack's forehead. "It meant something. Just not what you're used to."

Jack closed his eyes and smiled. A real smile, small, tired, unguarded, and Harold lay on the floor of Jack's apartment, watched it happen, and felt his heart do something that was either breaking or expanding and didn't much care which.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Amani came to Jack's apartment alone. No Nero. No relay. No wall between them. Just a knock at the door on a Sunday afternoon and when Jack opened it, Amani was standing in the hallway with his hoodie unzipped and his sleeves pushed up and his hands visible and empty.

"Can I come in?" Amani asked.