Quinn nodded again. “Yeah. Definitely.”
A beat of silence, then Jake’s smile faltered a bit. He tutted his tongue. “Uh, hey. You good? Is this a lot?”
How does he always know?Quinn couldn’t believe that he was always showing emotion that readily. He knew how to keep his shit locked down. But somehow, Jake seemed tuned in. And not shy about inquiring. “I’m okay.”
He bobbed his head side-to-side. “Are you sure?”
“I’m fine.” It snapped out, echoing in the mostly empty room.
“Good.” Jake nodded, shifting slightly back from him. “Glad. Just wanted to check in.”
A few seconds of silence hung and Quinn couldn’t move his mouth to explain or apologize or do anything.
“Right. Let’s head upstairs.” Mason touched his shoulder briefly as he slipped back through the doorway, leading the charge.
The stupor carried along with Quinn as they headed on to the next parts of the house. More work had been done there than expected. They’d moved the master bedroom, opened it up to attach to the upstairs bathroom and closed off what used to be the door into that room. They explained why, but Quinn didn’t take much of it in. He didn’t take much of anything in, even as they headed for what was supposed to be his new office.
He did catch himself looking back to Jake over and over. Jake, with a lot less light and bubbling in his movements, his face, his voice.
Chapter eight
Jake
Jake toweled off hisface. He would need to take a proper shower before bed, but he’d apparently been walking around with a smear of sweat and sawdust on his forehead all day. In some ways, that felt good. Getting his hands—and apparently everything else—dirty again, with his old crew, helping somebody out in the process.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Quinn seemed less and less into getting help with the house. Or anything else.I should just leave him alone.
In the end, that was really the right answer. Quinn didn’t want to delve into his emotions. Not on camera. Not with strangers. Not at all. And Jake knew he needed to accept that…but every time he saw that tightness in Quinn’s face and the darkness in his eyes, the urge rose up to try and help. Solve it. Fix it, like he was with the house. It overwhelmed him every time.
“Fuck.” Jake slapped his face a couple times, then pushed off from the counter and headed back out to flop down on the bed. He sat with his feelings and it didn’t take long to realize that it hurt. It was stupid that it hurt. He didn’t know Quinn, not in any real way, so it shouldn’t have been any sort of pain point, getting snapped at by him.
Yet here I am.Jake closed his eyes and groaned, then forced himself up. Laying around being sad wasn’t useful, and he knew better. Shower, wash the sad out, get some food, get some sleep, then hope the next day was a reset. Standard operating procedure that Jake knew all too well. Hardly his first time getting in his own feelings during a job.
It just usually came from the rest of the Pine Point crew, not the client.
And it usually wasn’t wrapped up around a hardcore crush like it was with Quinn.
Jake didn’t want to think anymore, so he went through the motions and focused on where he was in the moment. He grabbed a pair of fresh boxers out of his suitcase, then stripped off his old clothes and stuffed them in his little mesh laundry bag. He didn’t have a ton of experience traveling, but tutorial after tutorial on VideoHead insisted that a laundry bag would be his best friend while trying to keep his suitcase on the lighter end. Laundry bag and packing cubes, those were what he took from drowning himself in travel videos for so long.
Once he was naked, he walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, as hot as it would go. Steam billowed immediately into the room, moist and prickling against his skin. He was fine with the hotel’s shampoo and soap and everything, so he stepped under the pelting flow of water and let it plaster his hair to his face and neck, then scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. Sweat and grime and sawdust and dirt all knocked off his body with the rose and lemongrass soap, along with hisworries. He’d let them melt off and wash away too. Scalding heat just made everything feel a little more right, especially when he breathed in the perfumed steam.
Next was shampoo, then conditioner, then he raked his fingers through to break up any particularly large knots that remained. He had mostly straight hair, but with the amount of work he had to put into the house, he could still get tangled up.
Once he was washed and rinsed, Jake just stayed under the water. In spite of following his usual routine for making himself feel better, his mind still drifted back to Quinn.If I’m not going to be able to stop it…
Jake reached down and grabbed his dick. It jumped to attention immediately. Quinn was on his mind, then fine. He didn’t have to keep his focus on the feeling of being shouted at, of him shutting down any attempt to connect. He could think of their time in the car, the fine cheekbones and slender fingers. Probably dexterous from working so long at a keyboard. Jake stroked himself faster, teasing himself to his full length, and leaned his forehead against the wall of the shower. The harder he got and the longer he stroked, the easier it was to fall into fantasy. If reality sucked, there was no reason to engage with it.
Quinn’s hands tracing down his naked body. Rivers of hot water following his slim frame, wetting and darkening the hair on his legs. His bulge pressing against Jake’s ass, grinding forward.
Jake bucked as he stroked, fucking his hand as the fantasy Quinn ran his hands up to Jake’s chest, tugging and twisting his nipples. Lithe fingers parted his slick, damp hair and massaged the top of his head, pulled him around for a kiss—
The world shattered as a rolling orgasm raced from his feet, coursing like lightning up his spine as he splattered white on the shower wall. His knees turned to jelly and he had to brace with his free hand to avoid collapsing. As reality cracked backthrough to him and the fantasy vanished, the world felt a tiny bit brighter. Endorphins or some shit, probably.
As he climbed out of the shower and toweled off, Jake did his best not to realize how alone he really was in that room. The fantasy Quinnwasn’tthere, obviously, and probably had little to no interest in taking a shower with Jake anyway. But sitting with that too long threatened to undo any good the shower actually brought him.
When he slipped on his new, clean boxers and called for room service, and the weight of being alone still bore down on him…
It’s going to be a bad night.
