Read Room at the Top for Free Online

her—difficult not to—but she was tiring to be around. “Awesome. I’d kiss him if I could.” Austin looked sideways at Jay’s expression, which immediately shifted into one of outrage. “Kidding, kidding! I don’t want to kiss him. He’s probably old. And gross.”
    “So you’d want to kiss him if he was young and hot?”
    “Well…” Austin pretended to reconsider, then yelped when Jay jabbed fingers into his side. “Ack! Okay, no, no, I wouldn’t kiss him! Only you, forever and ever!” He was giggling uncontrollably now even though Jay wasn’t poking him anymore. His ticklishness was the bane of his existence.
    “That’s better.” Jay rescued the laptop from him and started to type. “Let’s try Amazon first.”
    Wheezing, Austin straightened up. “We’re not buying sex toys from Amazon.”
    “They’re probably cheaper,” Jay said reasonably.
    “They’re probably covered with dust from sitting in some huge warehouse somewhere.” Austin rested his head on Jay’s shoulder. “Mm. This is the best kind of shopping.”
    “Yeah. Malls make my head feel like it’s about to explode. Too much noise, too many people.”
    “You’re just sulking because they didn’t have the right kind of moss.”
    “It was too green! Moss shouldn’t be fluorescent.” Jay chewed his lip in thought. “At least, I guess maybe sometimes it is… Hey, would it be cool if I did something on an alien planet just for a change? Everything all the wrong color because the sun was a red giant…”
    Austin had a love/hate relationship with Jay’s creative side. On the one hand, it was part of what made Jay who he was, and there was nothing about Jay that wasn’t lovable. However, if he got involved in a project, he could spend hours in the loft, patiently tweaking tiny scraps of wood and fabric into part of a landscape, forgetting Austin existed. It wasn’t good for Austin’s ego, and it left him feeling resentful of the dioramas, though he genuinely appreciated the skill that went into making them.
    With his head on Jay’s shoulder, biting Jay’s earlobe was an easy way to distract him from world building, though. “Cuffs. Crops. Clamps. Candy-flavored lube and other things starting with c .”
    “Why do they have to start with c ?” Jay asked, but he was looking at the screen again, scrolling through some sites they’d bookmarked. He clicked on one, a site they’d bought their first paddle from. Austin could remember it arriving and how they’d both gotten hard just from looking at it lying there in its box. Jay had run his finger over it, then snatched it back as if the paddle was hot, his breathing quickening.
    They’d been desperate to feel it on their asses, but they’d been good and waited to give it to Patrick, who’d grinned at them, handling it with a confident ease that’d left Austin’s mouth dry with anticipation. He’d bent them both over his couch, close enough that Jay’s arm had brushed Austin’s, and paddled them both at the same time with it, dealing out the swats fast enough that even when it was Jay’s ass on the receiving end, not his, Austin didn’t have time to catch his breath. It’d been fun, intense, and they’d shared the experience, every second of it, which made it perfect.
    He could remember it vividly as Jay scrolled through the selection of toys. “That could be fun.” Austin pointed at the screen.
    It was a flogger made of deerskin, a collection of thin straps. Imagining it striking his bare ass, Austin felt his cock start to swell.
    “Oh my God, look at this!” Jay clicked, and they both stared at the photo.
    “The Pleasure Machine?” Austin frowned, then tilted his head. “How does that even work?”
    “Good question.” Jay scrolled down. “I think that part goes under the bed and then you just…lie there. Oh look, it comes in hot pink.” He laughed. “Good thing, right? Wouldn’t want your thousand-dollar fucking machine to clash with your