Free Helping Hand by Jay Northcote

Mac’s face. Mac’s ey es were open, and his lips curved in a
    sm all sm ile. Jez wanted to kiss him again, but it felt like the m om ent had
    passed, and he was afraid Mac m ight not want that.
    Instead, Jez closed his ey es and drifted, not ready to m ove y et. Still
    woozy from beer and com e-drunk on top of the alcohol, he could have
    fallen asleep like that: sticky and half-naked on top of his duvet. But Mac
    m oving brought him back to reality. Jez opened his ey es and watched as
    Mac sat up, holding his hand out in front of him and grim acing.
    Jez chuckled. “I’m out of tissues, sorry.”
    The bed shifted as Mac stood. He pulled up his j eans and picked his
    T-shirt up from the floor and used it to wipe his hand. Jez lay unm oving.
    His cock was still out, wet and softening against his thigh, but he was too
    tired and fucked out to care as Mac stared at him in silence, his face hard
    to read in the dim light. A car horn sounded out on the street and broke the
    spell.
    “I’d better go,” Mac said.
    Jez didn’t want Mac to go y et, but he couldn’t think of the right words
    to m ake him stay. He was too tired to be coherent. “’Kay … night.”
    “Good night.” Mac closed the door softly behind him .
    Jez barely had the energy to take his j eans the rest of the way off,
    find som e clean boxers, and get under the duvet. Exhausted by drinking,
    dancing, and em otion, he fell asleep quickly —with a vague sense of
    unease about what they ’d done and what it m ight m ean for their
    friendship.

    Chapter Nine

    The rules changed again.
    Now kissing was on the table, it stay ed there, and watching porn
    together was a thing of the past. They still didn’t talk about what they
    were doing, but there was an undeniable shift towards intim acy. Jez loved
    and feared it in equal m easures, because as m uch as he craved Mac’s
    kisses and the way he touched Jez’s body with growing confidence when
    they got off, Jez couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being swept along
    by som ething he couldn’t control.
    It still felt illicit. The secretiveness of this thing between them was an
    undeniable thrill to Jez. Yet at the sam e tim e, he craved m ore. Sitting next
    to Mac on the sofa, he longed for Mac’s touch, for som e casual affection,
    but Mac avoided touching him unless they were alone.
    A few day s after the night out, Jez headed for Mac’s room to borrow
    a CD and caught Mac fresh from the shower with only a towel round
    him .
    He knocked and entered after Mac’s “Com e in.”
    “Oh hey. Um ….” The words stuck in Jez’s throat as the sight of Mac
    —all wet hair, dam p skin, and nipples tight from the cool air—wiped the
    m em ory of what he’d com e in for. Jez licked his lips nervously, and Mac’s
    ey es tracked the m ovem ent.
    “Did y ou want som ething?” Mac quirked an ey ebrow and the corner
    of his m outh lifted in obvious am usem ent.
    The fucker. He clearly knew the effect he was having on Jez and
    was enj oy ing it.
    Jez was still unclear about Mac’s m otivations. Mac was alway s
    enthusiastic about the phy sical side of their unspoken arrangem ent, and
    whenever they fooled around, he had no trouble getting hard or getting
    off. But there were definite lim its that Mac didn’t cross. He was good for
    kissing and hand j obs but had never used his m outh on Jez’s cock, and
    neither of them had gone any where near each other’s arsehole. Jez
    wasn’t com pletely opposed to the idea, but he suspected it was way out of
    Mac’s com fort zone.
    “Jez?” Mac speaking his nam e snapped Jez out of his thoughts.
    The heat in Mac’s expression m ade Jez drop his gaze to Mac’s crotch.
    Mac was half-hard, and the thick ridge of his dick was clearly visible
    through the towel.
    Jez closed the door behind him and flipped the lock. They usually
    only did stuff when they were alone in the house or late at night when the
    others had already gone to bed. But it was early