Jack watched the now-jacketless Gabe approach with eyes half-lidded with naked want and surprised himself when a bubble of laughter broke through the haze. Anticipation, or something? It had been building for a long time, much longer than he was used to. Apparently it was getting to him. “You’re not kidding,” Jack babbled as Gabe leaned in, “if Matt comes banging on my door this time, I might actually –”
Gabe didn’t shut him up so much as envelop him at just the right moment. The urgent grip of hands on his face and unmistakable intention emanating from the angles of Gabe’s body were magnetic, irresistible, and now there was nothing to stop them. Jack met Gabe halfway and crashed into his kiss. All thoughts of interruptions and – well, all thoughts period evaporated in the heat of Gabe’s mouth.
It had been a long time coming, this particular kiss. That first one outside? Barely a prelude, practically G-rated in comparison. Jack poured everything he’d been holding in since the Camelot party into Gabe, pulling hard on the fabric of his shirt, kissing harder, closing what little space was left between them. His back willingly abandoned the cold brace of the door so his hips and chest could connect with the solid warmth of Gabe’s.
Jack flattened himself against Gabe, a short, low moan opening his mouth a little wider. He palmed the sides of the other man’s rib cage and slid down, not gently, to the tiny gap between shirt and jeans. All of this with Gabe was still new, which meant his movements were a little rough and sloppy as they rushed to find a rhythm with each other. Between the pressure of their lips and their bodies it was impossible to concentrate on just one thing, but somehow Jack still had a goal in mind. More than anything, he wanted to touch every part of Gabe that he hadn’t seen yet. He wanted his hands on every inch of his hidden skin.
Fingers halfway to frantic, he was trying and clumsily failing to slip his hands under Gabe’s shirt when Gabe broke the kiss and said something that might as well have been Russian. Although, bad example – Jack actually did know a tiny bit of Russian, thanks to Clint’s work wife. Whatever the analogy, though, the words coming out of Gabe’s kiss-bruised lips did not immediately compute.
“Done what?” Jack asked. And then: “Ohhhhhh.” He relaxed his hold on Gabe as understanding flooded him. This, of course, could only mean one thing. “You’ve never –” he pointed back and forth between them “– with a –” stuck a thumb at himself, then nodded. “Right. Got it.”
He paused for a moment, gauging his own reaction. Probably this should have been freaking him out more. A lot more. How long had it been since he’d slept with a man who’d never been with another man? His brain supplied only white noise when faced with an answer more specific than “a while," so instead he focused on Gabe, taking in all of him. Looking past the surface-level good looks that lit a fire in him every time Jack saw him. If Gabe was nervous (or, god forbid, in the middle of a full-blown identity crisis, Jack was pretty easy going but he did not have time for that), he wasn’t showing it. That could mean all kinds of things, most of them complicated. But it didn’t feel complicated.
Suddenly, Jack knew that he wasn’t freaking out because Gabe wasn’t freaking out. There was no confusion here. More importantly, you couldn’t fake what Jack had felt in Gabe’s touch. Maybe this was newer for Gabe than Jack realized, but the guy clearly knew what he wanted. That was more than enough for Jack.
“For what it’s worth, never would’ve guessed,” Jack offered with a genuinely impressed lift of his eyebrows. “Doesn’t change anything for me, though.” He put his hands back at Gabe’s waist to show he was serious, thumbs finally sliding under his shirt to graze the sharp jut of his hips. “We can do however much you want, and if it gets to be too much, we can always stop.” Leaning in, he placed a soft but lingering kiss at Gabe’s jaw just beneath his ear, adding with a whisper, lips brushing against skin, “Up to you.”