Helping Hand (4 page)

Instead he pulled out his own cock and started to stroke it in earnest, not

even try ing to hide the hitch in his breathing as he gave in to the pleasure

that surged through him . He kept the m ovem ent slow. If he let him self, he

could probably com e in a m atter of m inutes, but he wanted to m ake this

last. Who knew if he’d ever talk Mac into this again? Jez didn’t want it to

be over too soon.

Mac took a deep breath and let it out, slow and shaky. Then the bed

shifted as he raised his arse up enough to push his py j am as down a little.

Jez couldn’t help him self; he had to look. For som e reason Mac was m uch

m ore fascinating than the people on the laptop screen. Jez glanced

sideway s, try ing not to be obvious about it, and squeezed his own dick as

he saw how hard Mac was already. He was stiff and shiny -wet at the tip,

and Jez wanted to feel it in his hand—or even in his m outh. He’d done that

a few tim es for his room m ate when he was sixteen, but at the tim e he’d

been asham ed to adm it it turned him on, because he was only swapping

favours with a friend. He wasn’t gay. He’d buried that m em ory deep, but

the sight of Mac’s thick cock m ade his m outh water and his balls ache.

Jez tore his ey es away and stared at the screen again, but his

attention was still on Mac even though his gaze wasn’t.

Jez was close now; his runaway thoughts had pushed him closer. He

bit his lip and tried to fight it, but unless he stopped, he was going to get to

the point of no return very soon.

“Fuck,” he m uttered, lifting his T-shirt up out of the way. He threw

his head back as he cam e hard with a groan that he couldn’t hold in. His

hips j erked, and he fucked into his fist as he pulsed and spilled over his

hand and onto his stom ach. As he squeezed out the last few drops, he

turned his head sideway s and grinned. “Oh y eah, that was awesom e.”

Mac was staring at him . His brown ey es were even darker than

usual and his cheeks were flushed. As Jez stared back, Mac’s gaze

dropped to Jez’s cock. Jez was still stroking him self idly, teasing out the last

shivers of pleasure. Mac’s breathing sounded ragged as his hand m oved

fast. He bit his lip, still staring at Jez’s dick that was barely softening thanks

to Mac’s attention.

Jez kept his hand m oving, even though the sensation was alm ost too

m uch. But Mac was clearly getting off on watching him , and that was as

hot as fuck.

“Yeah, com e on, m an. Do it.” The words left his lips before he

thought about how they sounded.

Jez flam ed with a full-body flush as soon as he realised what he’d

said, but Mac didn’t seem to care.

“I’m gonna—” he gasped and then cam e, his ey es squeezing shut as

though looking at Jez was alm ost too m uch to bear.

Jez drew in a shaky breath. Tinny m oans and panting from the

laptop screen were loud in the otherwise silent room . He leaned forward

and closed the lid with his clean hand and then reached for the tissues by

his bed. Mac didn’t m ove, and when Jez turned to offer him the box,

Mac’s ey es were still shut, and he was biting his bottom lip.

Jez nudged him . “Want som e tissues?”

Mac snapped his ey es open. He flushed deeper as he avoided Jez’s

ey es, taking a couple of tissues with a m uttered “Thanks.”

Jez sighed. This had been really hot, but it would ruin it if Mac bolted

and spent the next week ignoring him again.

“You okay ?” he asked when they ’d both cleaned up a little and

rearranged their clothes.

“I guess.” Mac’s brow furrowed. He shrugged. “This is a bit…. I

dunno. It’s freaking m e out a little.”

“It’s fun, though, right?” Jez needed to hear Mac adm it it. “There’s no

harm in it.”

“Yeah. But I’m not gay.”

“I know.” Mac was popular with girls. With his height, his broad

shoulders, and his sweet sm ile, they fell over them selves to talk to him .

Jez had seen Mac with the ladies, and Mac didn’t strike him as som eone

who was faking it. But it was the sam e for Jez. Just because he could

enj oy getting off with a guy didn’t m ean he didn’t enj oy sleeping with

wom en too. Jez wasn’t a big believer in labels. He m ight be bisexual—not

that he’d had m uch chance to find out—but he didn’t want to adm it that to

Mac in case it freaked him out. “So y ou’ve never done any thing like this

before?”

Mac shook his head. “Nope.”

“But y ou liked it.” It wasn’t a question, and Mac didn’t answer. He

didn’t need to—it had been obvious. That Mac wasn’t com fortable with

liking it was also evident.

“Yeah.” Mac sm iled at last, the slow spread of his grin chasing the

worry away from his features. “Yeah, I did.”

Chapter Four

Life went on as usual for a couple of weeks. Nothing else happened

between them , and neither of them brought it up. But Jez thought about it

a lot—when he was wanking, of course, but at other tim es too.

The day s rolled by filled with lectures and tutorials, study ing, Jez’s

occasional shifts at the café, downtim e in the evenings, and sleep.

Jez and Mac spent a lot of tim e hanging out together when they were

in the house, even m ore than they ’d done before. He supposed it was

because they were the ones who spent the m ost tim e at hom e, and they

enj oy ed each other’s com pany. Jez preferred chilling out with Mac—

play ing video gam es or watching TV—to sitting alone in his room .

Stay ing in rather than going out in the evenings felt norm al now, and Jez

didn’t m iss the party ing. His overdraft was slowly shrinking, and that was

a good feeling too—especially because his dad kept em ailing him to ask

about his finances. Jez was glad to be able to report that things were

heading in the right direction. The lecture about responsibility and

entitlem ent that his dad had given Jez back at the end of the sum m er term

still m ade Jez asham ed when he thought about it.

Jez and Mac started study ing together regularly. Mac was struggling

to m eet deadlines and worry ing about his grades, and Jez was happy to

help him . It wasn’t that Mac was stupid or not putting the hours in. He did

all the required reading and then som e, and he had a lot of knowledge, but

he alway s found their written assignm ents a challenge.

“You m ake it look so easy,” Mac said one night. They were sitting

side-by -side on the double bed in Jez’s room with their laptops on their

knees and a ton of books and papers spread out between them . Mac

huffed in frustration. “I’ve alway s hated writing essay s. I should have

picked a subj ect that doesn’t involve putting so m any words onto paper.”

“What’s the problem ?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I have plenty to say, but I don’t know how to

get it across coherently.”

Jez rem em bered feeling the sam e at the start of sixth form at school,

but he’d been lucky enough to have a teacher that y ear who’d helped him

a lot with planning and organising his written work.

“Want m e to take a look at what y ou’ve got so far?”

Mac passed his laptop across and then gave Jez his written notes too.

Jez set his nearly finished essay aside and spent the next hour going over

Mac’s, while Mac listened to his suggestions and chipped in with his own.

By the tim e he’d finished, Mac had a solid outline and seem ed m uch

happier, and Jez had gleaned a few new insights from Mac that he

wanted to go back and incorporate into his own work, so it was win-win.

“Thanks,” Mac said at the end of the evening. “That was really

helpful. I never got m y head around how to structure an essay properly

before. Breaking it down like that was useful.”

“You’re welcom e.”

“I want to do better this y ear. I was gutted last y ear when I nearly

failed m y exam s.”

“Were y our parents pissed off with y ou too?” Jez im agined his own

father’s reaction if he’d fucked up his exam s as well as his finances, and

he shuddered at the thought.

Mac snorted, but it wasn’t a sound of am usem ent. “Nope. My dad

j ust said ‘I told y ou so.’ He never wanted m e to go to uni in the first place.

He thinks getting a degree is a waste of tim e and m oney. He wanted m e

to leave school at sixteen and go and work for him . He say s there’s no

j obs for graduates these day s, but people alway s need their roof m ended

or their house extended. May be he’s got a point, though.”

“Yeah, but….” Jez didn’t know what to say. His parents were the

opposite. Every one in Jez’s fam ily was a graduate, and it was alway s

expected that Jez would follow in their footsteps—although his father

would rather he’d studied m edicine or law than geography.

“I want to be a teacher—at secondary school,” Mac said. “Mum ’s

on m y side, but she doesn’t like to argue with Dad.”

“That’s cool.” Jez could im agine Mac as a teacher. He obviously

loved the subj ect, and he had a quiet patience about him that would

probably stand him in good stead with difficult kids. “I think y ou’ll m ake a

good one.”

A pleased sm ile spread over Mac’s face, and his ears turned pink.

“Thanks.”

The next tim e they j erked off together, it was Mac’s suggestion. Jez

had held off, not wanting to push, but he’d hoped for m ore between them .

It felt like unfinished business.

In the evenings when they weren’t study ing, they spent a lot of tim e

watching TV or engaging in epic Mario Kart battles that went on for

hours. It was during one of these that Mac said out of the blue, “Fancy a

wank?” He held Jez’s gaze, and his expression was challenging, alm ost as

if this was a gam e too.

Jez tried to hold back a sm ile. He lost the battle and grinned. “Sure.

My place or y ours? Or here?” he added as an afterthought.

Mac chuckled. “There’s no porn in here. Mine this tim e?”

It crossed Jez’s m ind that porn wasn’t a requirem ent. He recalled that

last tim e, when they ’d been far too busy looking at each other’s dicks to

notice the porn, but he didn’t think Mac was ready to have that pointed out

to him —he was currently inhabiting the village of Denial: population Big

Mac. Still, he seem ed com fortable there, and Jez wasn’t going to be the

one to ruin it for him .

Mac’s room was tidier than Jez’s. His desk was organised neatly

rather than being a chaotic m ess of books and papers, and his bed was

m ade. The room sm elled of Mac, of that woodsy scent of his skin that Jez

noticed whenever he was close enough to catch it.

Jez flopped down on Mac’s bed, not waiting for an invitation, and he

slid his hand down the front of his waistband and started tugging him self

into hardness while Mac got his laptop set up between them .

“Im patient?” Mac quirked an ey ebrow.

“Horny. It’s been a couple of day s.”

“Bet y ou com e first, then.”

“It’s not a com petition.” Jez rolled his ey es. “Unless y ou want to

play the soggy biscuit gam e.”

Mac laughed. “Ew, no thanks.”

It was less awkward this tim e, m ay be because of the j oking around

or because it was becom ing fam iliar, but Jez was m ore able to let go and

stop worry ing about what Mac was thinking. Mac wouldn’t have asked Jez

to do this with him if he hadn’t wanted it, so he was clearly into this. Once

again, Jez was oblivious to the video—afterwards he couldn’t have even

said what the couple looked like. He watched Mac instead, focusing on

Mac’s hand and his cock and the way his breathing got faster as he got

close. Jez wondered if Mac was watching him too, and when he glanced

up to check, he found he was.

Jez bit back a chuckle. This was so fucked-up, but he didn’t care

because it was awesom e too. These sessions with Mac were hands down

the hottest thing he’d ever done with another person, and they hadn’t even

touched each other. He watched Mac’s hand again and im agined those

strong fingers wrapped around his own dick, and that was all it took. Jez

cam e, dim ly aware of Mac m oaning beside him , com ing too.

“It was a draw,” Jez said.

“Bollocks. You cam e first.”

“By about two seconds.”

“Still counts.”

“Fuck y ou.” Jez shoulder checked Mac, m aking him y elp. “Got any

tissues?”

“Only bog roll. I’m not as classy as y ou.” Mac passed him a roll of

toilet paper from beside the bed. “Wanna go back down and play m ore

Mario Kart?” he asked once they ’d cleaned up.

“Sure. But j ust so y ou know… y ou’re going down.”

“Bring it.”

After that, wanking together becam e a regular thing over the next