Free Awake and Alive by Garrett Leigh Page B

“No….”
    He let the sentence hang. Max paused in his idle exploration of Jed’s neck. Jed was a man who said what he thought or nothing at all. Perhaps he was feeling the effects of his alfresco afternoon. “Do you need some meds?”
    “It’s not that. I feel good. It’s this , you know?”
    Max interpreted Jed’s vague gesture and took his hands from him like he’d been burned. “Excuse me?”
    Jed turned and closed the abrupt gap between them like it had never been there at all. “Don’t even think it.”
    “Think what?”
    “Whatever crap my bullshit explanation is making you think. It’s not that.” He put his hands on Max’s face. “It won’t ever be that.”
    An audible click sounded in Max’s brain. He and Jed were very different men. He lacked Jed’s self-taught education, his sharp mind and worldly wisdom, but in this they were exactly the same.
    Jed grumbled, though the sound was good humored. “What are you smirking about?”
    “Not smirking. Thinking.”
    “About?”
    “I’ll tell you if you come inside.”
    “Asshole.”
    The insult was harsh, but, again, Jed’s smile revealed his good humor, reassuring Max that he was indeed ready for what he had in mind. Max took Jed’s hand and led him inside, straight into the bedroom.
    Jed planted his feet in the doorway. “I’m not getting back in that fucking bed.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    Max unbuckled his belt and let his jeans drop to the floor. He felt Jed’s gaze run all over him as he shed his underwear too, for good measure. Nude, he turned back to Jed. “It’s been a while, for both of us. I think you’re frustrated.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    Max nodded. They’d kissed—kissed a lot —and fooled around since Jed had come home from the hospital the first time, but it had been months and months since they’d taken things much further. The dry spell didn’t worry Max. Sex wasn’t something he needed from Jed; their relationship ran far deeper than that. But it was something he craved. He was only human, after all.
    He trailed a fingertip down Jed’s chest. “You want to have sex with me, but you can’t figure out how.” Jed raised an ironic eyebrow, but Max cut him off, his mind working too fast to be interrupted. “You don’t want to bottom, right? It’s not what you do, but you don’t think you’re up to topping. You don’t think you can do it the way you think you should.”
    Jed let his eyebrow drop and narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t make much sense, but say it’s pretty close to the truth. What would be the solution?”
    Max fingered the hem of Jed’s shirt. “Let me show you.”
    Despite possessing the deepest stubborn streak Max had ever known, Jed didn’t take much persuading to lose his clothes. Max coaxed him into bed and sat him up against the headboard to keep any pressure off the tender points of his body—his leg, his hip… his stomach.
    Max frowned. Jed’s stomach was a relatively new one, for him at least. He’d known nothing of Jed’s debilitating stomach condition until it had landed him in the hospital, and from time to time, it crossed his mind that he might never have found out….
    Jed caught his chin and kissed him hard enough to pull him back from maudlin thoughts of the past. They’d agreed to leave it all where it belonged and move forward with a clean slate. Some things were bound to catch up with them from time to time, but they didn’t plan to dwell on them. What was the point?
    “Quit staring at it. You’re gonna give me a complex.”
    Max blinked and found he was indeed staring at the scar on Jed’s abdomen. The stitches had been out a while, and though the mere presence of the incision was terrifying, it looked almost benign now. A positive omen? He sure hoped so. “I wasn’t staring at that.”
    “Yeah? Then what?”
    “Shh.” Max pressed his hips forward, rubbing Jed’s cock with his in a way that made Jed’s eyes fall closed. “I didn’t get you in bed to