Heat Stroke (Beach Kingdom 2)

Well. An apron, boxers, and nothing else.

“Jamie. You’re here?”

Jamie raised an eyebrow at the steam wafting behind Marcus in the apartment. “Marcus. You’re…cooking?”

He nodded as if in a trance. “Potstickers.”

“What?”

Marcus bent forward at the waist, bracing his hands on his knees. “You weren’t here when I got home and you wouldn’t answer my calls, so I was making you potstickers.” He glanced up at Jamie through one squinted eye. “This is my fourth batch. When I got it right, I was going to climb that drainage pipe that goes past your window and use them as a bribe to get in…”

Jamie’s heart rapped against his eardrums. “Is this one of those times the idea sounds better in your head?”

“Yeah,” Marcus sighed.

God. This man was going to be the death of him. “I, uh…” Jamie held up the takeout container in his hand. “I brought you potstickers from the Thai place, so why don’t we shut this operation down and avoid having to call the fire depart—”

Marcus’s huge body plowed into Jamie, wrapping him in a bear hug. “You’re secretly the most forgiving, most perfect, best at everything person there ever was. I know all about you, Jamie Prince. And I’m so lucky. I’m just so fucking lucky.” He squeezed tighter. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Don’t be.” Jamie said, wrapping his free arm around Marcus’s broad back. “Don’t make me potstickers and be sorry on top of it. I can only handle one or the other.”

“Okay,” Marcus laughed, backing away with obvious reluctance. “Easier said than done. Especially because you showed up looking like a sexy professor in that sweater vest.”

“If I take a blackmail picture of you in an apron, we’re even.”

Marcus grinned. “You got it.”

They closed the door and moved through the living room into the kitchen. When they reached the mess he’d made, Marcus flexed his muscles like a bodybuilder and posed in front of the mountains of pots and pans, allowing Jamie to take the promised picture.

“Come on, I’ll help you clean up.”

For the next half an hour, Marcus and Jamie cleaned up the disaster area, Jamie telling Marcus about the teacher dinner and Fran taking him hostage. Marcus filled Jamie in on everything that had taken place in the Castle Gate that night, including an impromptu breakdancing contest and Andrew throwing out anyone who raised their voice above a polite volume.

“Yeah,” Jamie said, toweling off a skillet with a Monster Jam dishrag. “My oldest brother is going to be unbearable until he figures this thing out with Jiya.”

Marcus smiled fondly. “That girl’s a sweetheart. Brings me naan bread once in a while. It isn’t pizza, but it does the trick.”

“Yeah, she likes you, too,” Jamie said dryly, placing the skillet in the cabinet. “She has an annoying tendency of being right even more often than I am.”

“Impossible.”

“You’re just trying to get in my pants.”

“Guilty as charged, babe.” Marcus walked past Jamie, laying a smacking kiss on his neck and opening the takeout container Jamie had left on the kitchen table. “I’m going to need some sustenance first, though. I couldn’t eat tonight for worrying.”

Jamie swallowed. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer the phone. I just needed to…”

Marcus had thrown a potsticker into his mouth, but he paused in the act of chewing now. “Needed to what?”

“Remember why the hiding is worth it.”

The clock on the wall ticked out five seconds. “And did you? Remember?”

Jamie cleared his throat. “Of course I did. That’s why I’m here.”

Marcus exhaled long and hard, before tossing another pair of potstickers into his mouth, reminding Jamie of Popeye powering up with spinach. “I won’t make us hide forever.”

“I know.”

His quick acknowledgement erased some of the shadows in Marcus’s eyes. “Anyway, I want to show you off in that fucking sweater vest.”

A laugh snuck out of Jamie. “Oh, the whole academic professional look is doing it for you, huh?”

Marcus’s grunt sounded pained. “You have no idea.”

“Marcus, I always have an idea. Your erection is the third member of this relationship.”

“Yeah, but this one is extra erect,” Marcus said matter-of-factly while reaching down to adjust the ridge tenting the front of his boxers. “You’re not into the whole, uh…teacher-student thing?”

“No. I teach high school students and they’re not just illegal, they’re gross.”

“What if I was a college student…” Marcus coughed into his fist, gaze cutting to the side. “Or something like that?”

“You’ve thought about this?”

“Only since I found out you were a teacher.”

Jamie’s cock stirred in his trousers, filling with that familiar, perfectly unbearable weight. “You’ve known for three years.” When Marcus only looked at him with naked vulnerability, Jamie pushed away from the counter and sauntered closer. The picture of confidence when in reality, he was shaken by how badly he needed Marcus. How badly he needed to fulfill his man’s needs. Make sure they were met. Now. Jamie was not the type to play a role, but he remembered the night he’d shown up at Marcus’s apartment, ending up on the couch, with Marcus’s mouth wrapped around his cock for the first time.