Jacob was not having a good week. He'd been in Stuttgart for a week working a case, which normally wouldn't be so bad, really, he loved Germany. But the Back Door had broken down, too, which meant he was stuck in Stuttgart, even though he'd finished up the case three days ago. And he was stuck in Stuttgart with none other than Ezekiel fucking Jones.
That in and of itself wasn't exactly a problem. In the past year of working with him, Jacob had nearly perfected the art of ignoring Ezekiel's little jabs, knowing when the thief was just trying to get a rise out of him; he took the bait sometimes, just because he knew that Ezekiel was kind of like a puppy. He'd get destructive if enough attention wasn't paid to him, and with him, 'destructive' usually translated into pranks of the most elaborate sort. But for the past week, Ezekiel had not been baiting him.
If he didn't know better, Jacob would say that for the past week, Ezekiel had been flirting with him.
And what was really worrisome was that Jacob didn't entirely mind, either. Hell, a part of him was flattered. But there were other parts of him, mainly the ones that weren't located beneath his belt buckle, that were screaming 'trap' at him as loud as they could. Because why in the goodly fuck would Mr. Awesome himself want anything like that from Jacob? A horrible little corner of his mind insisted that Ezekiel's subtle flirtations were just a setup, just another prank. Some kind of epic joke, a way to get back at Jacob for whatever slight.
All in all, it was quite a clusterfuck.
He frowned down into his barely-touched pint, trying not to glower too obviously across the table at Ezekiel, who sat directly across from him, chatting with a very pretty girl. The thief spoke German very well, even though his accent made for an interesting dialect. It was Ezekiel's idea to come down to the bar that was part of the hotel they were staying at, and Jacob still didn't know why he'd accepted at all. Especially since he really kind of wanted to tell the girl to kindly go back to her own table, if she wouldn't mind. What the fuck? Was he jealous now? God, he hated this. He felt weird, vulnerable and flustered, and he hated it.
Jacob dialed back into the conversation abruptly when he heard the girl make a not-so-subtle invitation for Ezekiel to come join her for a drink in a more private setting. He didn't dare lift his gaze from the tabletop, tightening his grip on his glass, but he flushed from head to toe it felt like when Ezekiel answered oh-so-politely that he couldn't because he was otherwise engaged for the night...just as he slid the side of his foot up Jacob's calf.
Once the girl had left, throwing Jacob a decidedly dirty look as she went, he leant forward over the table and hissed furiously, "What the fuck are you doing?"
Ezekiel blinked in that willfully obtuse way of his, taking a sip of his pint. "What d'you mean?" And even as he said it with that so very innocent tone, his damn foot nudged against Jacob's again, hooking around his ankle like they were teenagers playing footsie in the cafeteria.
Fuck this. Jacob shoved back from the table so hard he nearly tipped his chair, grabbed Ezekiel by the arm, and dragged him away from the bar. Since they couldn't go outside with the snow coming down the way it was, he hauled the thief into the stairwell, since it was the only place that was remotely private. "What are you playing at, Jones? I don't just mean this, I mean the whole damn week. What's the point of all this? What's your deal? What the hell are you even doing here?" he demanded. He wasn't really angry, or at least, he didn't think he was. He was something, but it wasn't quite angry.
The corners of Ezekiel's mouth twitched just slightly, but he managed not to smile at all. Instead, he just gave Jacob a playful, mischievous look, dark eyes sparkling with something very near glee. "I think you know why I'm here, Stone."
"Could you just give me a straight answer?" Jacob nearly shouted.
With flagrant insolence, Ezekiel cocked his head to the side and grinned. "I don't think a whole lot about this is straight, do you?"
"Oh, would you shut up?" he snarled.
"Make me."
Make him? Make him? Fucking fine. Seizing him roughly by the front of his hoodie, Jacob hauled him around and shoved him back against the wall hard, bracing a forearm across his chest even as Ezekiel wriggled against his hold. He pinned the thief in place and kissed him with ferocity, the same way he wanted to from day one, when he shoved him back against the shelves at the Library.
All the squirming tension left the thief almost immediately, mellowing under Jacob's hands; his arms slid around Jacob's waist, fingers curling in his shirt. "I win, I win, I win…" Ezekiel murmured in a satisfied chant as the historian mouthed a path down his jaw to his neck.
Jacob pulled away to look him in the eye. "Crow all you want, but don't you dare laugh," he growled. At me. Don't you dare laugh at me, he was thinking but didn't quite have the nerve to say aloud. He'd taken leave of his better judgement from day one with Ezekiel Jones, but he wasn't sure if he could handle this turning out to be some kind of prank or joke or just a convenient way to get off.
Ezekiel's smirk froze and slid away into a small frown, and his gaze cleared of arousal, instead sharpening with the keen shrewdness that he pretended not to have. "Wait, what do you think this is, cowboy?" he asked.
"I…I don't know," Jacob replied.
The thief made a little grimace of distaste, his nose scrunching up in a way that was entirely too adorable for his own good. "Look here, I'm not a Boy Scout, okay? My standards aren't exactly top-notch. But I don't trick people into sex. I don't lead them on and I don't yank the rug out from under them. Or whatever you think it is that I'm doing here. I mean, bloody hell, just look at you! All…surly and awkward and flustered," he insisted, gesturing inarticulately at Jacob in a way that was perhaps meant to indicate those traits as somehow desirable, even if Jacob didn't feel all that desirable at the moment. "C'mon. No, mate, I'm going to bloody well swan dive into bed with you because—surprise, surprise—I really want to." He slipped his hands into Jacob's back pockets, squeezing his arse through the denim and pulling them a little tighter together so Jacob could feel just how interested he was. "So what d'you say?"
Jacob stared at him for a moment, then untangled his hands from Ezekiel's jacket and seized him by the wrist instead. They darted up the stairs, and he pulled Ezekiel down the corridor towards his room, quickly fumbling his card key out of his pocket to let them in. The door hadn't even shut all the way when Ezekiel was practically climbing up him, kissing his neck and jaw. He wrapped both arms around the lean body, helping the thief climb him like a tree, leaning back against the wall so they didn't unbalance.
"What, uhm…what exactly is on the table here?" Jacob asked uncertainly, realising for the first time that he didn't know what he expected to happen. Blow jobs? Maybe blow jobs…? He'd take what he could get, even if that meant he'd be the one with sore knees tomorrow; it'd be more than he ever hoped to get from Ezekiel Jones, anyways.
Ezekiel smirked and squeezed his thighs on Jacob's hips suggestively, rolling his body up against him in a way that made their clothing-clad erections press together. "Well, cowboy, I am terribly partial to the idea of you bending me over the foot of the bed and fucking me until I don't know my own name, but I'm always open to ideas."
Oh. Well then. He'd never fucked another man in the true sense of the word; his past experience with men had never gone beyond hands and mouths. And a large number of women didn't like anal sex at all. He had no idea what Ezekiel would like or want, and he was pretty sure that he'd have to throw himself headfirst into the Sun Room if he messed this up. "I—I could do that," he said quietly.
"Excellent." Dropping lightly to his feet, Ezekiel took a step away from him, further into the room, towards the bed, and shrugged off his hoodie. "Then let's get this show on the road." He waggled his eyebrows in a come-hither way.
Grinning, Jacob strode across the room to him and seized him around the waist, hauling him in close and kissing him deeply. He grabbed the bottom of the thief's shirt and yanked it off, flinging it to a far corner of the room. Ezekiel pressed up against him like he wanted to make them one person, clever fingers slipping under Jacob's shirts to warm, bare skin, tugging both shirts up without bothering to unbutton the flannel; Jacob lifted his arms to get them off without thinking about it, but his mind kicked back in when Ezekiel touched his side, very lightly. "Oh…"
"What's this from?" Ezekiel asked, his voice surprisingly soft as he brushed his thumb across a scar curving over Jacob's ribs. It wasn't new, but it still looked rough.
"It's…that's nothing."
The thief gave him a look that said he knew very well that it was not nothing, but he'd let it go for now because there were more important things to take care of at the moment. So instead of pressing the issue, he ducked down and licked across the length of the scar. Jacob made an eager noise, the warm slide of his tongue unexpectedly erotic, and then groaned as the thief got his belt and zipper open in record time and shoved a hand down his jeans, giving him a brief squeeze through the thin fabric of his shorts. "Oh, yes," Ezekiel murmured. "That's gonna rock my world."
"Stop it," Jacob hissed, swatting his hand away. He shoved his jeans down and stepped out of them; Ezekiel grinned as he did the same. "You don't wear underwear?" he asked before he could quite stop himself.
"It's a seasonal thing. And they only get in the way," Ezekiel noted with a pointed look at Jacob's plaid shorts, standing there naked, golden, and ready.
"Excellent point," he mumbled, shucking them off.
"Oh, wait, wait. Hang on, cowboy," Ezekiel said quickly.
Jacob stilled mid-motion, untangling his shorts from his foot. "What is it?"
"It's just, you've…you've got something…just here—" He reached out, his fingers brushing over the shell of Jacob's ear, and then he held up a small clear tube. "Oh, never mind, it's just some lube."
Jacob straightened up and punched him. Not half as hard as he deserved, but Ezekiel let out a dramatic sound anyways, one hand reaching up to rub at the offended shoulder. "There is something seriously wrong with you," he growled.
"Yeah, I know, who knows what you see in me."
"Mm-hm." Jacob wrapped his arms around Ezekiel's waist, pulling him flush; his cock brushed against the thief's stomach, and damned if that didn't feel good. "Well, master thief, impress me. You gonna pull a condom out of thin air too?"
"What, you mean like this?" Ezekiel asked, holding up a slim foil packet between two fingers and waggling his eyebrows.
Jacob rolled his eyes as he snatched the condom away from him. He grabbed the thief's lean waist and manhandled him around, putting a hand on the back of his neck and shoving him face-down over the end of the bed. A part of him thrilled at the small, eager sound Ezekiel made; it wasn't a sound that Jacob ever expected to hear from him. He wriggled eagerly, and Jacob splayed a hand out in the middle of his back, holding him down.
"This…this is what you want, right?" he asked. He leant forward a little, letting his hips press against Ezekiel's upturned arse.
"Holy fuck," the thief moaned quietly. "Yes—yes, please."
He grabbed up the small bottle that Ezekiel had dropped on the bed and slicked up his fingers, rubbing them together to warm it up. And to make Ezekiel wait, too, impatient little wriggles and huffs escaping him every few seconds. He reached down and started slipping a finger in, watching the other man's face intently; his eyes were closed, mouth half open, a deep flush settling in his cheeks. Jacob was almost more interested in watching his face than what he was doing, even as he added another finger, twisting and pressing.
When he curled his fingers just so, Ezekiel hissed like a scalded cat, muscles twitching. "You okay?" Jacob murmured, leaning over to kiss the ridge of his backbone.
"Riding high, cowboy."
So, slicking more lube on his hand, he added a third finger, enjoying the strangled cursing that spilled out of the thief's mouth, accent so thick he was nearly incomprehensible. Leaning forward, he began to nip and kiss the smooth expanse of Ezekiel's back, sucking wine-coloured hickeys into his flushed skin, biting sharply and then tonguing the red marks to soothe them away; Ezekiel moaned and whined, his hips thrusting against the sheets as Jacob's mouth slid away from the blooming bruises. He worked his way downwards to the small of Ezekiel's back, lingering for a moment, and then, with a sudden surge of daring, he sank his teeth into the soft, tender flesh of his hip. The thief let out a sound that probably only dogs could hear, writhing against the covers. Jacob moved to bite the other hip too, working his fingers apart, pressing right against his prostate.
"Jacob. Jacob. I'm ready, okay? I am so motherfucking ready," Ezekiel insisted, pressing back against him.
He picked up the condom and tore it open with his teeth, rolling it on in one hell of a hurry, slicking himself up and withdrawing his fingers; he started pushing in, slowly, not wanting to hurt Ezekiel by mistake, until the younger man hissed at him to kindly hurry the fuck along and emphasized his statement by pushing back shaprly. Keeping a bruise-worthy grip on the thief's hips, Jacob slid in deeper with a low sigh of relief, shuddering all over at the tight, slick heat that enveloped him. Buried in Ezekiel up to the hilt, he slowly rocked against him, lashes fluttering. He had to take deep, slow breaths in order to keep himself from coming right then and there, shivering and sweating until the swell of pleasure eased back.
All the while, Ezekiel was swearing under him, his face pressed into the crook of his elbow, hands fisted around the bedspread. "Sweet holy mother—son of a bitch—God—"
Jacob stroked his bite-mottled back. "You good?"
"Jesus, I am more than alright. Way bloody more. C'mon. Do it. Fuck me."
All of the carefully collected, labeled, and filed frustrations and other emotions he had towards Ezekiel came out, finding release. Jacob pounded him into the mattress, hands clutching at his hips, the perfectly obscene sound of skin on skin filling the air, mingling with their panting and groaning and swearing. Ezekiel's hands clenched and unclenched on the bedspread spasmodically as he rocked back against Jacob. Close, so close. He tugged at the thief's hips, canting him up off the sheets just enough to slip a hand between and stroke his cock, slick with pre-come, his pace automatically matching the rhythm of his hips until Ezekiel's hand curled over his, urging him to go faster.
Ezekiel made a strangled sound somewhere between a scream and a groan when he came, his entire body humming like a plucked harpstring, spilling into Jacob's hand. The tightening of his body was enough to bring the historian to the very edge, tumbling over it with another few thrusts.
He collapsed against Ezekiel's hot, sweat-slick back, gasping for breath; every bit of him felt like melted butter, and he was honestly surprised that his legs were even supporting him at this point. "Jesus Christ. That was insane," Jacob panted as he ran his hands over Ezekiel absently, petting every bit of him in reach whilst they both came down off the high, sinking down into the hazy aftermath. "You okay?" he asked when Ezekiel winced as he pulled out, getting rid of the condom.
"Absolutely." They crawled up the middle of the bed a little unsteadily and flopped down against the pillows before one of them collapsed on the floor, and the thief snuggled against Jacob's chest. "Limping around sore after awesome sex is the best."
Jacob let out a breath, wrapping an arm around Ezekiel's back and pulled him closer. "Huh. That…that was easy," he remarked.
"Hm? What d'you mean?"
Jacob shrugged, running his fingers across warm golden skin, thinking about how he'd miss all those hickeys and love-bites once they faded. "Easy," he repeated with a smile. It was the only way he could think to describe it.
Ezekiel arched an eyebrow but didn't ask again; instead, he dropped his head to Jacob's chest and tucked his arms more securely around his waist. Jacob rested his cheek against the thief's shock of dark hair and closed his eyes, remembering who it was he had curled up against him. He waited for the snappy one-liner, the 'gotcha' moment, the punchline.
It never came.