“You told her about me?”
“Of course.”
“Oh.”
“Come on,” Adam said, turning the TV off and pulling Jared to his feet. “She’ll be here for a week at least, so if you want to have noisy sex, tonight’s the last night we can do it.”
Jared laughed and blushed. “Oh, god.”
“Remember that phrase,” Adam said with a cocky grin. “I’ll have you screaming it later.”
Since they’d become an “official” couple, sex had definitely become a regular activity. It seemed like more of an extension of what they’d been doing before—making out every night once they crawled into bed, touching each other shamelessly, and finding their pleasure in each other’s touch.
Fucking each other took time and infinite care and a patience they didn’t have most nights. Pain was a constant threat when they went all the way, no matter who was on top. So sloppy blowjobs, grinding on each other, and mutual hand-jobs were actually preferred to penetrative sex. On his own, Jared was still experimenting with his fingers, the image of the boy he’d found online almost burned into his retinas. He wanted that. Adam was helping.
That night, Jared lay back on a pile of pillows with his arms above his head and let Adam do pretty much whatever he wanted to Jared’s lower half. It was slick and hot and wet and twisting; fingers and tongues, and slow, easy kisses in between.
Adam pressed one finger, then two into Jared’s ass, slick lube making the pressure good in all the right ways. He petted and stroked and teased the raised nub of Jared’s prostate, drawing out the pleasure until Jared was a keening, begging, sobbing mess. Then he sucked just the head of Jared’s cock into his mouth and flicked his tongue over the most sensitive spot, and Jared twisted the sheets in his hands and howled as he came.
That night they clung to each other in sleep, holding their relationship together with strong arms and insistently gripping fingers.
Juliette Hemlock was pure class.
She greeted Jared by clasping his hands in both of hers and kissing his cheeks, once on each side. Despite a transatlantic flight and very few hours’ sleep, she was calm and beautiful and fresh-faced, wearing grey cotton slacks and a tailored, peach-colored blouse.
“Mom,” Adam said, and launched himself into his mother’s arms.
“Oh, sweet boy,” she murmured. Jared stepped back, feeling this moment was too intimate to intrude on.
Adam had woken much earlier than usual and tumbled out of bed, waking Jared as he went to the bathroom. While he was gone, Jared forced himself into wakefulness, checking the clock and groaning a little when he saw it wasn’t yet eight in the morning. Still, he dragged himself out of bed and pulled on long pajama pants (his own; he’d broken the habit of wearing Adam’s too-short ones) and a long sleeved T-shirt. The last thing he wanted was to meet his boyfriend’s mom with an air of “we had sex last night” hanging around him.
“You can smell the coffee too?” Adam asked, appearing from the bathroom rumple-headed. “She brought it back with her. I’d recognize that French roast anywhere.”
Jared grinned and passed him to use the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face to wake himself up. He was nervous, for sure, especially when he was meeting Adam’s mom so early in the morning. Even though she knew about their relationship, there was a difference between knowing and having it thrown in her face.
He needn’t have worried.
After kissing her son’s hair and squeezing him tightly for a few moments, Juliette let him go and returned to where she was fixing breakfast.
“Please, have a seat,” she said to Jared. “Make yourself at home. I’m so happy to meet you at last. Adam’s been telling me all about you now for months.”
“Mom,” Adam said with a pained expression.
Jared grinned and took a seat at the island, watching Juliette preparing fruit at the same counter Chris had made them pancakes after the party. That seemed like forever ago now. When they were both settled, Adam leaned in and kissed Jared’s shoulder. It was like he was saying “we don’t have to hide here.” That was nice.
“How was the flight?” Jared asked.
“Oh, I’m used to it now,” she said airily. “Flying is awful, really, but I splurge and get a flight that has those lovely pod beds so I can sleep the hours away. It’s the time difference that really gets me. I’ll be terribly jet-lagged for a few days. Darling, could you fix some coffee for us please?”
She directed the question to Adam, who slid to the floor and selected huge mugs for the coffee, making his mother’s first, then his and Jared’s.
When Juliette was done, she served big plates of waffles and fresh fruit: strawberries and blueberries and melon, all neatly prepared and arranged on the plate. She sat opposite them at the island and, like this, Jared could see how closely Adam resembled his mother.
They both had the same light brown hair and fair complexion, and though Adam’s eyes were smoky gray, his mother’s were soft green. Their bone structure was the same: high cheekbones and a full bottom lip that seemed prone to pouting more than smiling.
Juliette smiled a lot more than her son and waved her fine silverware around demonstratively as she ate, laughing when Adam related gossip from New Harbor that Jared neither listened to nor understood.
“Is that charming Frenchman still taking you out?” Adam asked when he was done with his breakfast, pushing the plate away. “Guillem?”
Juliette blushed a little and tried to wave his question away. “Oh, forget him.”
“You clearly haven’t. He was nice, Mom.”
“He still is,” she said, relenting. “He’s very charming and wants me to move to Paris permanently.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him,” she said, then paused to wipe her lips on a napkin and push her plate away too, “that I have another man in my life, and although he is doing remarkably well on his own, I couldn’t
