Chapter 1: Breakfast Interrupted
The fridge door sighed shut, sealing away the indifferent glow of the interior light. Tommy’s back met the cool marble of the counter, a sharp contrast to the damp heat still clinging to his skin from the shower. Chanse’s body pressed against him, a solid, familiar weight, water droplets from his curls spotting Tommy’s bare shoulders.
“We’re gonna be late,” Tommy muttered, the words lacking any real force. His voice was rough, sleep and something else sanding down the edges.
Chanse’s laugh was a warm puff against his neck. “You say that like it matters.” His mouth found the juncture of Tommy’s shoulder, not kissing, just resting there. Tommy could feel the smile against his skin. Then the pressure changed. Teeth.
A hot, bright spark of pain lanced through him. Tommy groaned, his head tipping back with a soft thud against a cabinet door. His hands, which had come up to brace against Chanse’s hips, spasmed—whether to push him away or pull him closer, he couldn’t tell. The counter dug into the small of his back, a distant, impersonal discomfort drowned out by the claiming sharpness of Chanse’s bite.
“Chanse,” he breathed, a protest that dissolved into a shuddering exhale.
“I’m not done,” Chanse whispered, the vibration of it going straight through Tommy’s bones. He didn’t let up, his teeth worrying the muscle until the pain blurred into a dull, possessive ache. One of Chanse’s hands fisted in the damp mess of Tommy’s bleached hair, yanking his head to the side to expose more of his throat. The two silver bracelets on Chanse’s wrist felt cold where they brushed Tommy’s jaw.
This wasn’t his thing. Not really. It felt transactional sometimes, like Chanse was tagging property, not touching a person. It could feel cheap. And he was sore, muscles protesting from the night before, and the hollow ache of hunger was starting to gnaw in his gut. They had a script meeting in forty-five minutes across town.
But.
But the way Chanse touched him, with a single-minded intensity that made the rest of the world—the deadlines, the emails, the performative chaos of their digital lives—just melt into static… it did something. It unspooled the tight, analytical control Tommy wielded like a shield. Here, pinned against his own kitchen counter, he didn’t have to be in charge. He could just feel.
“Lube’s in the bedroom,” Chanse said, releasing his hair and stepping back. The absence of his heat was immediately chilling. He was already turning, his lean frame moving with a predatory grace toward the hallway, droplets from his shower-damp curls spotting the floor.
Tommy pushed off the counter, his body thrumming. He looked down at the new mark blooming on his shoulder, a deep red against the forest of his body hair. Another one to add to the collection. He ran a hand over his beard, a nervous habit. “Condom?” he called out, his voice still not his own.
“We’re clean,” Chanse’s voice floated back, dismissive, already halfway down the hall. “It’s fine.”
It was probably fine. They were exclusive, in their secret, complicated way. The rational part of Tommy’s brain, the part that managed spreadsheets and content calendars, knew that. But the word probably echoed, a tiny, discordant note in the building urgency. He pushed it aside. Chanse was already returning, the small bottle glinting in his hand.
He didn’t walk back so much as stalk, his hazel eyes fixed on Tommy with a focus that made the kitchen seem to shrink. Tommy met his gaze, a challenge flickering in his dark brown eyes. He liked this, but he also liked to push against it. To see where the line was.
Chanse saw the challenge. A slow smirk spread across his face. He didn’t speak, just uncapped the bottle with a practiced flick of his thumb. The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet kitchen, undercut only by the hum of the fridge.
He closed the distance, his free hand landing on Tommy’s chest, right over his sternum, and pushed. It wasn’t a gentle suggestion. Tommy’s hips hit the edge of the counter again, a jarring impact that stole his breath. Chanse’s hand was warm, his grip firm, pinning him not with brutality but with an absolute certainty of ownership.
“You think too much,” Chanse murmured, leaning in. His breath smelled of mint toothpaste.
“Someone has to,” Tommy shot back, but it was breathless. He was letting himself be manhandled against his own kitchen counter, and a treacherous part of him was thrilled by it.
Chanse’s laugh was low. “Not right now, they don’t.”
The next moments were a blur of sensation—the slick, clinical coolness, the shift of Chanse’s body against his, the rough texture of Chanse’s jeans against his thighs. Tommy’s big frame glasses were on the coffee table in the other room. The world was a soft-focus blur of marble and skin and the intense, unblinking clarity of Chanse’s eyes.
It was fast, and it was rough, and the counter edge dug a line of fire across Tommy’s hips that he knew would bruise. It was impersonal, in a way. A frantic, hungry collision. But Chanse watched his face the entire time, attentive to every hitch in his breath, every suppressed groan, adjusting the angle of his hips with a subtlety that belied the frenzy of the act. He was dominant, but he was devoted to Tommy’s pleasure, even if his methods sometimes overrode Tommy’s comfort.
Tommy came with a choked-off sound, his strong fingers gripping Chanse’s arms hard enough to leave half-moons. Chanse followed him over the edge a moment later, forehead dropping to Tommy’s shoulder with a shuddering sigh, right next to the fresh bite mark.
For a second, they just stood there, leaning into each other, the only sounds their ragged breathing and the relentless hum of the refrigerator. The smell of sex and spice and stale coffee mingled in the air.
Reality seeped back in, cold and insistent. The clock on the microwave glowed 9:17 AM.
Chanse pulled back first, pressing a soft, almost apologetic kiss to the angry red mark on Tommy’s hip. “Told you we had time,” he said, his voice smug and satisfied. He stepped away, grabbing a paper towel from the roll to clean himself up with a pragmatic efficiency that felt jarring.
Tommy slid down to sit on the floor, his back against the cabinet. The cool tile was a shock to his skin. He felt spent, hollowed out, and more than a little raw. The hunger was back, sharper now. He watched Chanse move around his kitchen, pulling a clean shirt from the laundry pile on a chair, his movements easy and unselfconscious.
“You’re a monster,” Tommy said, but there was no heat in it. He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling light. “I’m starving. And I can barely sit.”
Chanse tossed Tommy’s own shirt at him. It landed on his head. “You love it. We’ll grab a protein bar. You can sit on a donut pillow in the meeting.” He grinned, that wild, impulsive grin that had hooked Tommy from the start. “No one will notice.”
Tommy pulled the shirt on, the cotton soft against his sensitized skin. He caught a glimpse of himself in the dark screen of the microwave—hair a mess, beard rumpled, love bites littering his neck and shoulders like a map of chaos. He looked wrecked. He felt wrecked.
Chanse was already at the door, keys jangling, cap pulled low over his curls. “Come on, big guy. You drive.”
Tommy hauled himself up, his body protesting. He was sore, he was hungry, and the day hadn’t even properly begun. He grabbed his glasses from the living room, settling them on his nose. The world snapped into sharp, demanding focus.
As he followed Chanse out, locking the door behind them, the feeling lingered—the ghost of teeth on his shoulder, the ache in his hips, the thrilling, terrifying sense of being utterly known and possessed. It wasn’t clean or simple. It was messy, and borderline irresponsible, and it challenged every structured instinct he had.
He got into the driver’s seat. Chanse immediately reached over and turned the radio up, some obnoxious, pulsing beat filling the car.
Tommy started the engine, his fingers tight on the wheel. He was insatiable for this, for him. And he was, against all his better judgment, deeply, stupidly in love. The hum of the car joined the hum still echoing in his bones, a twin rhythm carrying them forward into the day.