My Mom Took In A Stray - Tension Breaks.

Everyone is 18+.

Quick heads up. This is quite a long chapter. I feel like it needed to be. But, hopefully, you won't notice too much 🖤

**Chapter Seven: Tension Breaks**

The house is packed. Everyone crammed into one room, sweaty and half-laughing, waiting for the birthday girl to show up. Sierra elbows me toward the middle, and somehow Jax ends up right in front of me, his back pressed right against my chest. Nowhere to move. And before I can even process it, he shifts... and drops into my lap. Casual. Like it’s nothing. Like he doesn’t notice the way my breath snags, the way my hands lock on his hips without thinking.

Except he *does* notice.
The second he settles, his body goes a little stiff, catching the stiffening of my cock as he presses into me. The harder I get, the more he presses into me. I grab his hips harder, raise my hips under him.

But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t make a scene.

He just breathes, shallow, tight.  Like he’s pretending it’s nothing while everything between us tilts.

The lights snap on. ‘*SURPRISE!’* and the moment breaks. People laugh, spill toward the backyard. Jax pushes off my lap without a word, but his glance back over his shoulder says everything.

Like he’s seeing me different now.
Like he’s wondering if he has figured me out when I haven’t even figured me out yet.  Like maybe he didn’t. I stood there, hands in my pockets trying to hide my raging boner. Lucky for me, everyone is focused on the birthday girl. Crowding her, or already outside. Jax turns around and looks at my boner that I’m failing miserably at hiding. 

“Is that all for me” he asked with a smirk and walks away. 

Outside, the pool party kicks off. Music thumps, bass-heavy. Jax is... lighter. The silent acknowledgement of last night seems to still be in effect. Like something got shaken loose.

I try and spend the afternoon enjoying the party, living in the moment, instead of living in my head that was all over the place.  

The day party lasted well into the night. It soon starts to die down, and people start thinning out. We pile into the car, Sierra driving, blasting the AC. I ride shotgun.
Jax sprawls in the back, one arm slung up over the seat, looking loose and lazy and almost happy.

Occasionally, I catch his eyes in the rearview.

Still watching me.
Still thinking.

As soon as we stumble in, beat from the sun and chlorine and noise, Sierra follows us up and is still chatting outside our rooms. I look at Jax, nod toward the bathroom.

"You first," I say.

"Thanks," Jax says, voice low but easy. Still a little soft around the edges. Sierra stops yapping asks me to tell our parents she is staying out when they wake. 

Not closing my door, I strip out of my trunks, kicking them into the basket. Grab a towel, wrap it round my waist. Waiting around, feeling the hum of the night still buzzing under my skin.

The water runs. Faint sounds of Jax moving around, the spray hitting tile. By the time he’s out, he’s damp and flushed, dragging a hand through his hair, towel slung low around his hips. His shoulders are pink from the sun.

He strolls past me, muttering a "Your turn” as the tension between us seems thick. 

I head in, shower quick, just enough to rinse off the chlorine and sweat and the static still crackling under my skin. Dry off fast, drag on a fresh pair of boxers.

That’s when I hear it.

Muffled.
Broken.

I freeze.

Jax’s voice. Low and tight leaking out from under the crack of his door.

"No, don’t…"
"You’re drunk…"
"Mom told you not to call…"

My gut twists.

I move before I even think about it, bare feet silent on the floor.

Tap once, voice low.
"Jax? You good?"

Silence.
Then a rough breath.

I nudge the door open slow.

He’s sitting on the bed, phone face down beside him, knuckles pressing hard into his thighs. His damp hair’s a mess, face blotchy, eyes sad and angry.

"My dad," he mutters, not looking at me.
"Somehow he got my new number."

His voice cracks straight through me.

"He was drunk. Blaming me. Again. Said horrible shit."

Blaming him for the split. For the mess. For everything he couldn't fix. I step in, sit down next to him without thinking. Close enough that our knees knock.

"None of that’s your fault," I say, rough.

Jax swipes at his face again, like he’s trying to hide the worst parts of himself.
Like he thinks he has to.

I bump my shoulder against his, light.

"You don’t have to say anything," I say.
"But I meant it when I said I got you."

He finally looks at me. Really looks. And whatever he sees must crack something open, because the next thing I know, he leans into me. Shoulder to chest, head low, breathing ragged. The weight of him unexpected, knocking me back a little.

I lean into the headboard, steadying us. I wrap an arm around him, hold him steady.

We stay like that for a few minutes.
Breathing.
Not talking.

The house is quiet. Just the hum of the AC, the low creak of settling wood. When I finally shift to pull away, he tightens his arm around me.

"Stay," he murmurs.
Voice raw. More plea than offer. I hesitate for half a second.

Then nod once, small. He sighs like he’s giving up fighting for tonight.

And I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I was drifting. That heavy, bone-deep kind of tired where your body floats but your brain won't quite let go.

I woke and took a second to remember where I was, or maybe just who was pressed up against me.

Jax.

Curled into me in nothing but a pair of boxers, his bare skin hot against mine, hand fisted tight in the rumpled fabric of the sheets like he thought if he let go, he'd lose everything. I didn’t move. Barely even breathed.

He shifted, a small, unconscious move, his thigh, high on top of mine. I notice a tight, aching heat between my legs.
Hard.
Pressed right up against Jax’s thigh.

I froze.

Felt his breath catch too. He was awake.  Had been for who knows how long. My whole body went stiff, like if I just stayed perfectly still it wouldn’t be happening.
Wouldn't make it worse.

But Jax... he shifted. Moved high thigh slow, deliberate. I sucked in a breath, heartbeat crashing in my ears.

He turned his head slightly, voice low.

“Is all that for me?” he rasped

My head span, I was so fucking hard and didn’t know what anything meant.

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could disappear.

Then forced myself to be honest.

"It’s not... it’s not that, I’m not.." I croaked.
"It’s just you…"

A beat.

Then he turned fully, chest brushing mine, so close I could feel the tremble in him.

In the faint silver light slicing through the blinds, I could just make out his face — the fear, the hope, the raw ache in his eyes.

He hesitated.

Then slid his hand down, slow, dragging fingertips across my chest, pausing just above the waistband of my boxers.

"Is this okay?" he asked, voice shaking.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, it's okay."

His palm slid lower, tentative at first, until he was brushing me, the lightest touch, barely there, and it still stole every breath from my lungs.

My hips jerked up helplessly into his hand, and he let out a shaky sound, something caught between a whimper and a gasp.

He stroked me slow, hand clumsy but determined, and Christ, I was already half gone. Grinding up into him without thinking, chasing every flicker of friction. My cock leaking precum like there’s no tomorrow.

Jax pressed closer, forehead against mine, grinding his hips against my thigh like he couldn’t help himself. I could feel him, dick hard as fuck, straining in his boxers, pressing into me.

The sounds between us gasping, shivering, trembling, felt too loud in the thick night air.

"Fuckkk, grab it harder" I hissed, clutching at his waist, trying to anchor us both.

"Cole" he whispered. "You’re so fucking hot "

He jerked me harder now, more sure, more desperate, grinding against me in these messy, frantic little stutters, chasing his own high. 

It was reckless.

It was inevitable.

It was *us*.

I came first, shuddering through it, muffling my groan against his shoulder, and a second later he stiffened against me, grinding through his own release.

Afterward, we just stayed there.
Breathing hard.
Still touching.

Neither of us said a word.

Didn’t need to.

The world outside didn’t exist.