The Dick Next Door
Turn up the volume—things just got interesting next door.
It’s 3:07 a.m. and Jamie Sullivan stares at his bedroom ceiling, body pinned to the mattress by the unholy trinity of exhaustion, rage, and arousal. The apartment is pitch black except for the thin strip of LED blue from his drawing tablet on the nightstand. He never managed to finish the commission he’d promised by Friday, and now it’s Monday, and the only thing flooding his brain is the soundtrack from next door.
It’s not even the volume that’s most offensive. Sure, the bass is a meat grinder chewing through his drywall, but it’s the cadence: a relentless, syncopated pounding, punctuated by the filthy expletives of porn stars who have never heard of a noise ordinance. Jamie can practically smell the lube through the air vent. Wet, slick sounds. Moans so authentic, he can map out the choreography in his mind. A man’s deep,
rolling growl, every third thrust is chased by a “Fuck, yes, give it to me.” The other voice is higher, hungry, each wail sharper than a drill bit. Jamie’s face is hot; his arms are gooseflesh. He shifts under the covers, thighs trembling with a mix of indignation and the hard truth that he’s half-hard. Again. The third night this week, and the fifth since that monster moved in.
He presses his fists against his ears, but the wall is a living organ. Sound vibrates through bone, through pillow, right down his spine. Jamie grits his teeth until his jaw aches. Then comes the coup de grâce: a spatter of high-pitched whimpers, crescendoing to an open-throated, guttural shout. Jamie’s name isn’t Alex, but even he can feel the impact. Silence follows, indecent in its satisfaction. Jamie lies in it, wanting
to be sick, wanting to be asleep, wanting to punch a hole in the drywall and rip out his neighbor’s sound system with his bare hands.
Instead, he gets up. There’s no conscious decision—his legs just decide they’ve had enough. He yanks a t-shirt from the floor, black cotton wrinkled and inside-out, and pulls it over his boxer briefs. The air is so cold his nipples go rigid, but the adrenaline blunts everything. He’s halfway down the hall before he’s even considered what to say. By the time his knuckles meet the door, his body is shaking, both from fury and fromthe leftover voltage humming in his limbs.
He pounds, not caring about the hour, not caring who else might hear.
The latch snaps open so fast it startles him. Alex Montoya stands in the doorway, shirtless, a pair of mesh basketball shorts riding indecently low on his hips. His chest and shoulders glisten with a patina of sweat. He is, Jamie thinks, unfairly beautiful with olive skin glowing under cheap hallway light, black hair a sculpted mess, tattoos swirling up a forearm and disappearing over his shoulder. There’s a hickey above his left collarbone the size of a thumbprint. The bastard is smiling.
“Problem, neighbor?” Alex’s voice is honeyed with sleep and sex, and Jamie instantly hates him for it.
Jamie’s rehearsed tirade jams in his throat. He tries to pull it out anyway. “It’s—three in the fucking morning, man.”
Alex yawns, stretches one arm above his head so that every muscle tenses and the ink dances under his skin. “That’s accurate. Want to come in and check my clock?”
Jamie blinks, caught between wanting to retch and wanting to stare. He settles for the middle distance, focusing on the chipped paint of the doorframe. “You need to turn it down. Seriously. This isn’t a frat house.”
Alex leans against the jamb, not an ounce of shame in his posture. “You think that’s loud? Should’ve heard it back at university. Couldn’t even hear yourself think over the parties. Fucking loved it.” He says it like a confession, but his grin says dare.
“Some of us have jobs,” Jamie says. His voice is brittle, threadbare. “Normal hours. And I’m not getting paid to listen to you jerk off.”
This, finally, wipes the smirk from Alex’s face, just long enough to reset it, more wolfish this time. He steps closer, and the scent hits Jamie: expensive deodorant, sweat, a musky cologne that doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s just busted a nut.
“Would you rather watch?” Alex asks. “Or is it just the sound that bothers you?”
Jamie recoils, spine flush against the opposite wall. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Alex shrugs, bare shoulders rolling up to his ears. “Nothing. I’m just trying to be neighborly.”
There is a beat of silence, so tight it might snap.
Jamie glances at the carpet, his anger withering under a new, raw layer of embarrassment. He looks up, only to find Alex studying him with surgical precision. Those glacial eyes scanning for a tell, a flinch, an admission.
“Look,” Jamie says. “Just keep it down. I’m not asking for much.”
“Is that what you really want?” Alex’s voice is soft now, intimate, as if they’re sharing a secret instead of a complaint. “Because honestly, you could’ve called the building manager. Instead, you’re standing in my doorway at three a.m. in your underwear.”
Jamie feels the heat rise to his ears. “I…didn’t think about it.”
Alex hums, low and resonant. “Liar. You thought about it. You just wanted to see who was making all that noise.”
He waits, letting the accusation sink in. Jamie wonders if he’s supposed to deny it, or just punch the guy and run.
Alex crosses his arms over his chest, which does nothing to hide the sharp lines of muscle or the way his skin shines in the half-light. “Here’s a thought: next time, knock before the show starts. Maybe you’ll get a front-row seat.”
Jamie tries to muster outrage, but the only thing left in him is a guilty, fizzling fascination. He’s lost the script, and he knows it.
Alex grins, slow and predatory. “Or you can keep pretending you don’t care. Your call.”
The door swings shut, soft as a whisper. Jamie is left in the hallway, fists unclenching, teeth biting down on a comeback that will never see daylight.
He stands there for a long moment, unable to move, chest tight with something not unlike panic.
When he finally turns away, he feels Alex’s laughter vibrating through the walls—softer now, but unmistakable. Like a dare.
Jamie trudges back to his apartment, every step haunted by the echo of his own humiliation and the image of Alex’s sweat-slicked torso. He closes his door as gently as possible, as if anything louder might trigger another confrontation.
The door is locked, double-checked, but he can’t shake the sense of exposure, as if Alex’s eyes are still glued to him from the other side of that rotten drywall. He paces the length of the living room, arms crossed so tight his hands are practically claws. The silence in the apartment is a living, predatory thing.
He tries to anchor himself to the familiar: the tang of coffee grounds in the kitchen sink, the reassuring glow of his monitor, the neat stack of work files lined up on the dining table. For a few minutes, he even manages to convince himself that a reformatting of quarterly reports is exactly what he needs. But his mind is a nest of static. The spreadsheet morphs into the lines of Alex’s torso, the pattern of black tattoos curling
over sinew and skin. Every time Jamie blinks, he sees the lazy arch of Alex’s eyebrow, the way his lips curved around “Would you rather watch?”
He wants to throw his laptop across the room.
Instead, he powers it down. Folds the lid shut with a click that’s far too loud, given the late hour. Stalks into the bedroom, throws himself onto the mattress, and stares at the ceiling. The house is quieter than ever—no porn, no moans, not even the radiator’s usual death rattle. Jamie’s body is alive with anger, a slow, poisonous heat that creeps outward from his core. He keeps replaying the argument, wishing he’d been sharper, crueler, less embarrassingly flustered. He wants to hate Alex. But it’s not hate that has him grinding his hips into the sheets.
He flips over, face buried in the pillow, and growls. The sound is small and pathetic.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. Jamie’s pulse never settles. His skin crawls with the memory of Alex’s grin, the unhurried way he’d claimed every inch of his own nakedness. Jamie’s own chest is slick with sweat, though the air in the room is cold. He tries to think of anything else like childhood pets, disastrous high school dates, the logistics of next week’s client pitch. But every thought circles back to Alex. To the way he’d said “neighbor” like a secret. To the bead of sweat that slid from his neck to his collarbone, catching in the dark hair there before vanishing.
Jamie’s hand betrays him. Slides beneath the waistband of his boxers. He hesitates, fingers splayed, as if maybe they’ll freeze and turn to stone. But the ache in him is a coiled, biting thing, and the only way to silence it is to press harder. He palms himself, the heel of his hand digging into the heat, and for a moment he lets himself believe he’s strong enough to stop. He isn’t.
The fantasy unspools before he can rein it in: Alex in the doorway, sweat-soaked and gorgeous, voice low and mean. “You could’ve just asked.” The whisper is so real Jamie almost hears it in the room. He strokes himself, slow at first, but with a mounting urgency that only makes the shame burn hotter. Every part of him is wound tight; his thighs quiver against the mattress. His hips lift in spite of themselves, seeking friction,
needing more.
He bites down on the pillow, muffling the first soft gasp. But the room is so silent, every wet movement, every shallow pant, is magnified tenfold. He can’t stop picturing Alex on the other side of the wall, listening, grinning, waiting. The thought makes him harder. His free hand fists in the bedsheet, twisting the fabric. He strokes faster, chasing a release he’s been denying himself all week, the memory of Alex’s voice the only thing left in his head.
“Want a front-row seat?” Alex’s imaginary voice goads. “Or do you just like to listen?”
Jamie shudders, hating how much that does it for him. His breath comes in ragged bursts now, short and animal. He can’t help the sounds escaping him. The choked moan, the staccato grunt as his body arches. He cums harder than he has in months, jaw clenched so tight he worries he might crack a tooth. The sheets are damp, his thighs trembling, the aftershocks rippling up his back.
He rolls onto his side, one arm curled around his midsection, and listens. The wall is quiet. But Jamie knows—he just knows—that Alex is awake, listening, smiling in the dark. He pulls the sheets up, buries his face, and tells himself it’s not a surrender if no one else sees it.
On the other side of the wall, a slow, satisfied laugh.
The next evening, Jamie Sullivan sits hunched over his drawing tablet, a cup of coffee cooling into bitterness at his right hand. His apartment is all clean lines and static: the kind of place meant to soothe, a minimalist’s panic room with just enough texture to keep him from feeling embalmed. Walls, off-white; couch, slate grey; kitchen counter, a faintly marbled monochrome that always looks freshly wiped even when it’s not. Most surfaces are bare, save for the careful arrangement of objects he needs—a graphite
pencil, a stack of client proofs, an antique ashtray that’s never held a cigarette. Everything here has its place, and Jamie is determined to keep it that way.
The tablet’s LED casts a faint cyan on his knuckles. He’s behind on three commissions and sleep-deprived enough to hallucinate motion in the corner of his vision. If he can power through the night, maybe he can finish the logo for that new bakery in time for their “soft” opening, whatever that means. The vector shapes multiply, divide, refuse to align. Every line seems suspicious, every layer too loud or too faint. He wants to crawl inside the screen and scrub it clean with his own hands.
From the apartment next door: thunder. At first, Jamie assumes it’s just the heating system, the way old pipes sometimes shudder as if they’ve swallowed a bowling ball. But then he hears it again—the low, percussive thump of bodies moving with intent. Not just movement, but rhythm. A pattern. Something that’s supposed to be private but is now inescapably public, a striptease for the unwillingly conscripted audience of one.
He straightens, fingers tightening on the stylus. The last twenty-four hours replay behind his eyes: Alex in the doorway, half-naked, smirking, the air between them charged enough to fry circuitry. “Or you can keep pretending you don’t care.” The words are sticky, refuse to dissolve. Jamie shakes his head, tries to draw a clean line, and instead scribbles a black river down the canvas. Control-Z. Control-Z. Fuck.
The noises intensify. It isn’t just the volume, though that, too, rises in incremental, calculated notches, but the explicitness. A soundtrack of impact: sharp, wet slaps, the staccato of bedsprings in crisis. A man’s voice, breathless and masculine, dissolves into a chorus of Spanish and English obscenities. Another man’s voice commands and croons, every syllable cutting through drywall like a wire saw.
Jamie’s jaw sets. The pen in his hand cracks, a hairline fracture snaking up its barrel. He forces his attention to the screen, blurring his eyes until the art becomes an abstraction of color and light. But the wall is thin and eager, and the sounds bleed through with the precision of a drip IV. He knows, in his marrow, that this is intentional. Last night’s confrontation wasn’t enough for Alex; now, he has to win the war of attrition, one decibel at a time.
The coffee goes cold. Jamie stands, paces the length of the room, arms folded like a straitjacket. The more he tries to ignore it, the more the noises assert themselves: a crescendo of animal pleasure, echoing through his body cavity. He can’t stop imagining what it looks like in there…how Alex must sprawl across his sheets, sweaty and grinning, skin slick and a dick like granite. Jamie hates that the mental picture is so easy to conjure, hates that his own body responds with a low, treacherous heat.
He returns to the desk, tries again. The bakery logo is supposed to be a rose twisted into the shape of a heart, but every time he draws it, the petals flare open in a way that’s less romantic and more anatomical. He deletes layer after layer, starting over each time the moans next door spike in volume. His nerves sizzle. His foot taps a frantic tattoo against the tile. He wonders how much longer he can take it before he snaps.
The playlist changes. The audio on the other side of the wall ratchets up, a pornographic soundtrack so explicit that even Jamie’s laptop speakers, set low to avoid disturbance, can’t drown it out. Someone is being fucked to the rhythm of an electronic dance beat, and Alex is providing the percussion. Each thrust lands with seismic certainty, rattling the glass of Jamie’s French press.
He clamps his hands over his ears, but the noise is already inside him. He tastes the metallic tang of rage at the back of his tongue. The tablet stylus, already fractured, breaks in half when he slams it against the desk. A splinter lodges under his thumbnail, sharp enough to make him hiss. He stares at the blood, a thin bead of red, and wipes it on his jeans with the flat affect of a sleepwalker.
There’s no question: Alex is doing this for him. Maybe not for him, but at him, a private performance disguised as a public disturbance. Jamie wants to scream, to call the landlord, to fire a complaint at the building manager and get the bastard evicted. But part of him, the part he’s been suppressing since the first time he heard that laugh through the wall, wants to go over there and match volume for volume, to see if the thrill of confrontation is as good as the fantasy.
The sounds shift, a guttural crescendo followed by a slurred spatter of endearments and curses. Jamie closes his eyes, head bowed, hands braced on the desk. He counts backwards from ten, but the noise doesn’t abate. Instead, it burrows deeper, until the walls seem to pulse with the aftershocks of Alex’s pleasure.
Jamie glances at the clock. 7:42 p.m. He’s been sitting at the desk for nearly four hours, and all he’s produced is a single broken pen, a page full of digital ruins, and a migraine blooming behind his right eye.
He presses his forehead to the cool glass of the window, breathing slow to keep his. insides from boiling over. The city outside is suspended in that hour between sunset and dark, everything painted in blue and violet, the world hushed and innocent compared to the depravity inside these four walls.
Another chorus of moans. Jamie wants to laugh, wants to punch the wall, wants to throw himself out the window just to prove a point. But he does none of those things. He simply stands there, listening, heart jackhammering in his chest.
He knows, deep down, that Alex is waiting for him to react.
The volume spikes. A masculine roar, then silence. Jamie finds himself breathing in sync with the echoes, each inhale tighter, more desperate. He feels ridiculous, like a dog trained to a bell, but he can’t help it.
He returns to his chair, stares at the screen, and lets his hands hover above the keys. The idea of finishing the project now is laughable; all he can think about is the man next door, the way his name sounded in that mocking tone, the possibility that every noise is a message, a lure, an invitation.
Jamie’s hands tremble. He picks up a backup stylus and draws a single, black, deliberate line across the tablet. It feels good, the resistance of it. For a moment, he imagines that the line is a blade, slicing through the barrier between his apartment and Alex’s, cutting clean through the noise.
He stares at the mark, then at the wall, then at the empty hallway that leads to the only door that matters.
He’s not sure how much more he can take.
The sounds next door resume, softer now, but no less insistent. The rhythm is slower, deliberate, as if Alex knows he’s got Jamie’s attention and doesn’t need to shout anymore.
It happens just after Jamie resolves not to give in. The next-door stereo hushes, replaced by a different kind of percussion: a precise, measured knock. Not the random thud of someone shifting in bed, but a deliberate tap-tap, spaced just so. Jamie imagines that it’s Morse code for “I know you’re awake, neighbor.”
Jamie freezes. The pen, held in a death grip, is the only thing keeping him from splintering outright. He glances at the wall. Two knocks, then a pause. Two more. On the last, the faintest pressure—like someone resting their palm on the other side, waiting for a pulse.
His heart is a snare drum. He tells himself to ignore it, to go back to the work he hasn’t touched in forty-five minutes, but the air is so thick with anticipation it’s practically carnivorous. Another knock, then silence. Jamie’s jaw aches from clenching; he uncurls his fingers one at a time, places the pen on the table, and stands.
He’s not going to answer. He’s not.
He takes a step toward the wall.
The knock comes again, softer, then stops altogether. In its place: a voice, muffled but unmistakable. Alex, speaking directly into the drywall as if it’s a confession booth.
“Jamie.”
The sound snakes through the air vents, around corners, under doors. Jamie feels it on the inside of his bones, a frequency only he’s been tuned to. He backs up, sits on the edge of his couch, hands folded like a schoolboy caught misbehaving. The voice continues, lower, more intimate.
“Are you still awake?”
Jamie doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have to. Of course he’s awake. Alex has made sure of that.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt your beauty sleep,” Alex says, the words slurred with humor, but beneath that, a razor’s edge of intent. “But you don’t seem the type to get much of it anyway.”
Jamie considers shouting something—an insult, a demand for silence, anything to establish territory—but his throat won’t cooperate. The wall between them is suddenly a membrane, not a barrier. Every word is a ripple, a shiver he can’t repress.
“I know you can hear me,” Alex says. The timbre is different from before: less mocking, more coaxing, a bartender’s confidence at last call. “Heard you last night, too.”
Jamie’s skin prickles. The implication is a live wire, and he recoils from it as if the voice itself could reach through and touch him.
Another silence. Then, softer: “You sounded good.”
Jamie exhales, slow and shaky. He drags a hand over his face, every nerve ending crowded toward the wall. He’s not sure if he’s more angry or aroused, but he’s definitely, undeniably alive.
Alex keeps going, voice dropping an octave. “You want me to stop, you gotta say something.”
Jamie stands. His body moves before his mind catches up. He walks to the wall, lays his palm flat against the paint. It’s cold, but there’s a hum beneath it, a barely perceptible vibration.
He closes his eyes. His own voice, when it comes, is barely above a whisper. “What do you want, Alex?”
The words taste wrong, like a secret he shouldn’t have spoken.
Alex’s laugh is soft, indulgent. “That’s better. I like when you use my name.”
Jamie bites the inside of his cheek, fights the urge to respond. But the silence on the other side feels expectant, as if Alex can see the way Jamie’s chest is rising and falling.
“Why don’t you come over here?” Alex says. The command is playful, but the hunger beneath it is real. “Promise I won’t bite. Unless you ask nice.”
Jamie’s palm curls into a fist against the wall. “Not interested.”
“That’s not what it sounded like last night.” A pause. “Sounded like you were dying for it.”
Jamie’s ears burn. The memory of his own moans, magnified by the hush of his apartment, is mortifying. He hates that Alex heard, hates even more that the knowledge is making him hard again.
“I’m working,” Jamie says, voice brittle.
Alex’s reply is instantaneous: “No, you’re not. You’re listening.” The words come out in a slow, deliberate drawl. “You’ve been listening since I moved in.”
Jamie wants to protest, but it’s true. Every night since that first sonic invasion, Jamie has lain in bed, tracking every sound, every escalation, every name Alex groans into the dark.
“You want a show?” Alex says. “Or would you rather I come to you?”
The question hangs in the air, heavy and impossible. Jamie’s hand slides down the wall, nails scraping faint lines into the paint.
“I want you to shut up,” he mutters, but the effect is spoiled by the way his voice cracks.
Alex hums. “Liar. But I like that about you.”
Another beat. Then, in Spanish: “Ven aquí, Jamie. Déjame enseñarte cómo se hace.” The accent is fluid, seductive, every consonant dripping with promise.
Jamie feels the words all the way down his spine. He doesn’t need a translation; the meaning is obvious, and so is the intent. His breath is coming too fast, his skin flushed and oversensitive. He hates that his body is betraying him, that his cock is pressing hard against the seam of his jeans, desperate for friction.
“Say something,” Alex whispers, almost tender now. “Don’t make me talk dirty to an empty room.”
Jamie presses his forehead against the wall, breath fogging the paint. His hand moves lower, palm spread wide, as if he can close the distance by sheer force of will.
“What do you want me to say?” he manages.
Alex’s laughter is a velvet rope. “Say you want me.”
Jamie’s whole body is trembling, but it’s not fear. It’s anticipation, sharp and electric.
“I want—” The words catch in his throat. He’s never been good at asking for anything, least of all this. But the need is a tidal pull, and the longer he resists, the more it devours him.
“Good boy,” Alex murmurs, and Jamie shudders at the praise. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Jamie’s fingers dig into the wall, blunt nails leaving half-moons in the drywall. Alex keeps talking, voice raw sugar. “I want to make you feel good, Jamie. I want to hear what you sound like when you’re not pretending.”
Jamie’s breath hitches. He knows he should walk away, close the door, put on headphones and drown out the temptation. But all he can do is stand there, eyes closed, body leaning into the voice as if it can hold him up.
“Tell me what you want,” Alex says, English now, coaxing. “Anything. I’ll give it to you.”
Jamie’s mouth is dry. He swallows, but the words are lead. Still, he manages: “I want you to stop making so much noise.”
Alex’s reply is immediate, edged with amusement. “You know how to make me quiet, Jamie.”
The invitation is unmistakable. Jamie’s resistance cracks a little more.
On the other side of the wall, Alex’s voice is a purr. “I’m going to jerk off now. You want to listen, or do you want to join in?”
Jamie’s answer is a strangled exhale. His hand slides down his chest, slips under the waistband of his sweats. He’s hard, painfully so, every inch of him tuned to the sound of Alex’s breathing.
For the rest of the night, Jamie is useless. He drifts from one end of the apartment to the other, picking up objects just to set them down, turning lights on and off until the space is a checkerboard of shadow and sickly fluorescence. He wipes the counter, rewashes an already clean mug, changes into a fresh shirt and then back again. The air is thick with the ghost of Alex’s voice, each word still echoing in the nooks and corners of his skull.
He tries to sleep. He tries harder to forget, but the wall between their apartments seems thinner than ever. When he finally dozes off, it’s only to wake again, clammy and hard, with the certainty that Alex is awake and thinking of him, too. The city hums outside, a low electric current underlining every heartbeat.
He’s up at dawn, but the commissions don’t get done. He spends hours staring at the screen, watching the cursor blink like a pulse, unable to draw a single line that doesn’t look like a confession. When he opens his emails, there’s one from the bakery—polite, a little desperate—asking if he’s still planning to deliver by end of day. He doesn’t answer. Can’t. All of his energy is knotted in the center of his chest, restless and raw.
He showers, scrubs his skin until it’s pink and stinging. No matter how many times he lathers up, the scent of Alex—imagined or real—clings to him. He stands under the hot water, eyes closed, forehead pressed to the tile, and wonders what the fuck he’s doing with his life.
When the sun goes down, he makes another pot of coffee. The noise from next door doesn’t start right away, but Jamie can feel it coming, the way a dog knows a thunderstorm hours before the first rumble. He pretends to work, moving shapes across the screen with no intention, just to keep his hands from shaking.
At exactly 9:00 p.m., the first knock comes. This time it’s not a question. It’s a summons.
Jamie is on his feet before he realizes it. He stands in the living room, palms sweating, staring at the shared wall like it’s a magic mirror. The knock repeats, steady and patient.
He tries to ignore it. He paces, muttering to himself. He even turns on the TV, sets it to a news channel at full volume, but the words don’t make it past the locked cage of his own skull.
The knock returns, louder. “Jamie.”
His name is a spell. He approaches the wall, not touching it this time, just standing close enough to feel the chill radiating from the plaster. There’s a voice, low and clear.
“Open the door,” Alex says. “Now.”
Jamie’s first instinct is to laugh, or maybe scream, but the command is so unexpected—so certain—that he can only obey.
He walks to the front door. His hand pauses at the latch, trembling, a little slick with sweat. He tells himself he’s just going to tell Alex to fuck off. He’s going to assert a boundary, once and for all. But he knows he’s lying.
The hallway is silent. At the end, Alex’s door is open, a triangle of light slicing through the gloom. Jamie steps into the threshold, one foot inside, one foot out, like he’s waiting for permission.
Alex stands just inside, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a cocky, familiar smirk. His hair is damp, like he’s just showered, and there’s a faint shadow of stubble on his jaw. He looks Jamie up and down, slow and appreciative.
“Hey, neighbor,” he says.
Jamie’s mouth is bone dry. “You’re an asshole,” he says, but it comes out soft, without any real heat.
Alex shrugs, then leans against the doorframe, arms folded. The ink on his forearm shifts with the movement, black lines pulsing against olive skin.
“Only to people who can take it,” he says.
There’s a stretch of silence, not quite awkward, but dense with everything that’s been building for days. Jamie’s fists clench at his sides; his knuckles are white.
“You came over,” Alex says, almost teasing. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Jamie wants to turn around, slam the door behind him, retreat into the familiar cold of his own apartment. But he’s so fucking tired of being alone, of pretending he doesn’t want what he wants. He stays.
Alex steps forward, closing the distance. He’s taller, broader, but somehow less intimidating up close—maybe because the bravado is tempered by something honest in his eyes. He lifts a hand, brushes Jamie’s shoulder with the back of his knuckles.
“Come in,” he says, a little softer now.
Jamie hesitates. The invitation is simple, but it means crossing a line he’s spent his whole adult life trying to protect. He thinks of all the reasons to say no—the project deadline, the inevitable regret, the way Alex will probably get bored and move on before the week is out—but none of them are strong enough to hold him back.
He steps inside.
The apartment is as he expected: bold colors, strong angles, art everywhere, the kind of curated chaos that’s the opposite of Jamie’s own clinical order. There’s music playing—old-school R&B, low and bass-heavy—but it fades into the background as Alex leads him to the kitchen.
“Drink?” Alex asks, already reaching for two glasses. He pours bourbon, neat, and hands one over.
Jamie takes it, fingers brushing Alex’s for a half-second longer than necessary.
They drink in silence. Jamie feels the bourbon burn all the way down, pooling in his stomach like molten gold. Alex watches him, head tilted, a slight smile on his lips.
“You know why you’re here, right?” Alex asks.
Jamie tries to meet his gaze, but it’s too much. He looks at the floor. “I don’t know,” he says, but even he doesn’t believe it.
Alex moves closer, sets his glass down. “You do,” he says. “You’ve always known.”
Jamie closes his eyes, willing the world to stop spinning. When he opens them again, Alex is right there, one hand on Jamie’s hip, the other tracing the line of his jaw. The touch is gentle, but Jamie flinches anyway—old habits dying hard.
Alex doesn’t pull away. “It’s okay,” he says. “You can tell me to stop anytime you want.”
Jamie’s throat works, but no words come. Instead, he leans into the touch, just enough to make his intent clear.
Alex smiles, slow and triumphant. He presses their mouths together, soft at first, just a brush of lips. Jamie’s eyes flutter shut, and for a moment, all the anger and anxiety dissolve into a single point of heat.
The kiss deepens. Alex tastes like bourbon and hunger, his tongue insistent but not demanding. Jamie surrenders, hands coming up to grip Alex’s shoulders, pulling him closer. The tension that’s been winding him up for days unwinds all at once, leaving only want.
Alex walks him backward until Jamie hits the counter. He lifts Jamie onto it, standing between his legs, and kisses him again, harder this time. Jamie gasps, the sound swallowed by Alex’s mouth.
“You’re so fucking tense,” Alex murmurs, lips grazing Jamie’s ear. “Let me help.”
Jamie laughs, shaky and unsteady. “You think you’re that good?”
Alex grins, teeth flashing. “Guess you’ll have to find out.”
They don’t make it to the bedroom.
Alex shoves Jamie back until his shoulders hit plaster, hard enough to rattle the picture frames on the opposite wall. The impact knocks the breath out of Jamie’s lungs, but he’s too busy drowning in sensation to care. Alex’s mouth is everywhere at once—biting along the curve of Jamie’s jaw, then lower, teeth scoring the line between neck and collarbone. The pain is precise, addictive, and it chases the heat all the way to Jamie’s cock.
