Zhao Zi is the first to wake, an unusual turn of events for a Saturday morning. He doesn’t know what woke him, whether it was the distant sound of a motorcycle engine that must have roared past their street a few seconds ago or the incandescent golden light the sun casts onto their white walls through a slit in their bedroom curtains. He blinks sleepily against the encroaching morning. Hefting the covers up to his chin, he turns onto his other side to regard his boyfriend beside him. Jack is still slumbering peacefully, one arm thrown across his face. Soft snores fracture the silence.

Zhao Zi giggles quietly. Jack claims he doesn’t snore—because doing so would be terribly uncool—but here he is, doing exactly that. Zhao Zi considers recording a video as irrefutable proof, but Jack sleeps lightly. There is only a million-to-one chance that Zhao Zi will manage to successfully roll back around, pick up his phone from the nightstand, and hit the record button before Jack wakes. But Zhao Zi has nothing to lose, so he gives it a shot.

He moves with agonizing slowness, his only chance at preserving his lover’s somnolent state. With every passing second he moves just a fraction, taking care not to rustle the sheets needlessly and drawing only shallow breaths. Finally, he has maneuvered himself into position, and he extends an arm outward, curling the edges of the duvet upward so he can slide his hand, then wrist, then forearm soundlessly from beneath it. When his fingers alight on the glass screen of his phone, he moves them around until he is sure he has gripped the sides of it steadily—it wouldn’t do to drop it and give Jack a rude awakening—before lifting it. He pivots at full extension around his shoulder in a calculated, deliberate arc. His muscles twinge from holding the weight of his limb aloft for so long, but this is his best chance at real, tangible evidence that Jack snores. And adorably too, with little merry murmurations of air that curl and whistle past his lips. Zhao Zi must have this footage.

He winces when he finally retracts his arm, it is sore from the effort, but it seems he has succeeded. Jack doesn’t stir, and there is not a hitch in the ebb and flow of his breath. For a moment, Zhao Zi wonders if his boyfriend is faking it, but then he taps the camera app, and records anyway. After five seconds, he is half-expecting Jack’s eyes to snap open, for his phone to be snatched, for him to be tackled.

He takes thirty seconds of video for good measure, and then saves it. Jack hasn’t moved a muscle. He is either asleep for real—probably the first time he’s ever woken after Zhao Zi—or playing the long con. Difficult to tell which, without purposefully trying for a reaction.

“Jack?” Zhao Zi whispers quietly, knowing that his lover can’t resist him calling his name.

There is no response.

Zhao Zi recalls that Jack said he is a light sleeper by necessity. A mercenary spy within the ranks of the mafia would meet a grisly end if he weren’t aware of his surroundings at all times, if he didn’t wake in the presence of another unexpected person. It has been many months since Jack has had to worry about his cover being blown, chiefly due to the fact he doesn’t need to have one anymore, but he has still woken every single time that Zhao Zi has used the bathroom in the middle of the night. Reportedly, he also rouses every time he hears a car rolling past their house, or when the neighbors are dropped off by taxi at three o’clock in the morning coming back from the bars. Jack has confessed that he’s not great at going back to sleep when he’s awakened, and Zhao Zi wonders if this is why he hasn’t woken up yet. How long did Jack lie awake last night, when Zhao Zi had long nodded off?

Still unconvinced that Jack is truly asleep—surely, he must be playing—Zhao Zi opens up his social media. He surfs around for a while, checking in on his friends who are all still asleep, glancing at the headlines, and even taking an unflattering selfie he decides not to post, before he notices the time. Nearly an hour has passed since he first woke up, and he’s starting to feel a bit hungry. He stretches furtively out of habit, and then spends a long moment regarding Jack, still sprawled on his back.

It occurs to him it’s possible that Jack’s died. Zhao Zi’s breath hitches before he realizes that that can’t be—Jack is still snoring. Obviously. Zhao Zi heaves a quiet sigh, and berates himself for what a silly thought that was. Good thing he didn’t think it out loud.

“Jack?” he tries again, raising his voice just above a whisper. “Jack?”

As if to punctuate his words, his stomach growls, louder than he has spoken.

“Jack, please wake up. It’s not like you to be asleep for this long,” Zhao Zi frowns. “You’re freaking me out.”

Zhao Zi watches apprehensively as a smile begins to spread slowly across Jack’s face. He huffs indignantly, just as Jack opens his eyes and snickers.

He knew it!

“You’re the worst!” Zhao Zi gives Jack’s shoulder a playful shove.

Jack laughs and turns, throwing off the covers and catching Zhao Zi’s wrist in his hand. He lifts it to his lips, placing an audacious kiss in the center of Zhao Zi’s palm.

Zhao Zi flushes at the self-confidence in his boyfriend’s gesture of affection, and a hunger of an entirely different kind—one that can’t be sated with toast, congee, or soup dumplings—kindles deep within his belly. He can’t help but stare at Jack’s bare chest. Even in the dark of winter Jack runs hot, and sleeps without a shirt on. It’s unfair that Zhao Zi has to deal with that before he’s had his coffee, and he holds Jack’s sculpted pectorals entirely responsible for all the times he’s been late to the morning briefing at work.

“How long have you been awake?” Zhao Zi asks, trying to distract himself from the tempting curvature of Jack’s muscles by summoning more indignation.

“Since when you were taking a selfie. Did you post it?”

“No way! I would never post a bedroom selfie. Imagine what my friends would think!”

“They’d think you’d just had sex with your boyfriend,” Jack grins and pushes himself up on an elbow. “I hear he’s a total heartthrob, by the way.”

Zhao Zi sniffs. “You wish.” He pretends to regard Jack with stern indignance, but that falters as he feels a sharp, keening pang of need. He tells himself that this is because he is hungry for breakfast—he’s been awake for an hour and not fed yet. But his eyes betray him by slipping downward, straight to Jack’s chest again.

Jack lowers his voice to a whisper. “Yes, I do wish,” he says, following Zhao Zi’s gaze to where it rests on his own body. He flips Zhao Zi’s hand around, the one Zhao Zi hasn’t bothered in all this time to snatch back, and kisses the back of it, all the playfulness of the past few moments gone and replaced instead with tenderness.

Zhao Zi draws a sharp breath.

Jack leans closer. “You know, I’ve been wanting you since I woke up.” He shifts so he can stare at Zhao Zi, his eyes alight with the bright, unrelenting interest that Zhao Zi has grown intimately familiar with over the past few months of their association. Coiled tightly inside of him, Zhao Zi’s own corresponding desire begins to unspool.

"But what about breakfast?" Zhao Zi puts up a half-hearted defense against Jack’s advance.

"Which would you rather have?" Jack growls, as he lowers himself to Zhao Zi’s ear. His musky scent fills Zhao Zi’s nose. "Breakfast or me?"

A conflagration starts as but a spark. Zhao Zi tenses against the heat rising inside him, the hunger that can never be truly satisfied, the fire that can never truly be doused. It blazes across his skin, burning his blood until he feels his arousal stir.

"How about both?" Zhao Zi suggests, knowing this is his last stand before his inevitable surrender. Might as well get a meal out of it.

Jack knows it too, but he accepts Zhao Zi's request. "Me first," he says, in a voice so heated that Zhao Zi is drawn inexorably forward. "And I'll make us breakfast afterward."

Zhao Zi seals his fate by turning his head away from Jack, baring his neck. He slings an arm around his boyfriend’s back, pulling him down that final inch. He trembles from the sheer force of Jack’s teeth sinking into his skin, an involuntary moan escaping to fill even the distant, still spaces of the corners of their bedroom. Jack’s lips and tongue soothe the spot where he has bitten down, though he can’t seem to help the occasional extra nibble as he moves down toward Zhao Zi’s collarbone. Pleasure blooms within Zhao Zi, so dazzling that he smiles.

Jack retreats and rises, one thumb caressing soft circles in Zhao Zi’s shoulder as he inspects something he seems to have left behind. Under normal circumstances, Zhao Zi doesn’t let his lover leave any hickeys—what would Unit Three think—but the deed is done and he is too turned on to reprimand Jack.

“Sorry,” his boyfriend says with a lopsided grin that is anything but.

Then it’s Zhao Zi’s turn to growl at Jack. He clasps both arms around his boyfriend’s neck and tugs him down again. He can find a better use for that mouth.

“You better make it up to me.”

“Oh, I will.” Jack gives him a smirk so self-assured, so full of promise that Zhao Zi feels a thick tendril of flame licking his very core.

He loves that look on his boyfriend, equal parts mischief, arrogance, and sensuality, though that last one Jack saves for when they are alone. It’s the smile that only Zhao Zi has seen, the one that incinerated everything he thought the world had taught him about love and intimacy. Zhao Zi loves nothing more than to kiss Jack when he has that look.

Their mouths meet, their teeth almost clashing as they surge toward each other, Zhao Zi yanking Jack back down to the bed and Jack shifting until he is straddling Zhao Zi’s leg. Zhao Zi stretches his body against his lover’s, desperate for Jack’s weight, Jack’s touch.

His boyfriend is a good kisser. Zhao Zi knows it to be true, not because he has any other point of reference, but because whenever Jack kisses him, he never wants it to end. Zhao Zi sighs as Jack nips at his lower lip, and then brushes him with the lightest hint of tongue. He returns the favor, feeling Jack grin through their kiss. One hand wrapped around the base of Jack’s skull, fingers buried in short tufts of sweat-damp hair, Zhao Zi arches, crushing their bodies together, as if through mere proximity he might achieve some modicum of satisfaction.

Something hard presses itself against the inside of Zhao Zi’s thigh, and its contact reverberating in the throb of his own growing erection. His senses are drawn away from Jack’s mouth, and plunge downward, toward all the possibilities of Jack doing something more with him. Zhao Zi’s body tightens with his many memories of Jack inside of him—Jack bent over him, groaning, thrusting, and then gently brushing his sweaty bangs aside after their climax.

Zhao Zi's legs open on instinct, his knees rising and splaying so he can rub Jack's stiffness against more of his thigh. It's a pity they're both still wearing pajama bottoms, Zhao Zi thinks vaguely as he floats in the sensation of Jack's tongue seeking his own, all of his usual self-consciousness evaporated by the heat radiating from his boyfriend’s body. He would much rather there be no barriers between their skin.

Jack seems to be reading his mind, as the next thing Zhao Zi knows there are fingers tugging at the waistband of his pajamas and boxers, threatening to denude him with a swift, expert motion. Jack pauses with a questioning look. Even the backs of his fingers, tickling the skin below Zhao Zi’s navel, still. For a moment they are motionless, static, as Zhao Zi gazes at his lover, and Jack gazes back, waiting.

Zhao Zi’s instinctive modesty, normally so potent, is muted now, its protests beating with all the effectiveness of a moth’s fluttering wings against the backdraft of his desire. His response to Jack’s query is to lift his hips. Jack smiles, and in unison, they begin to move. He strips Zhao Zi with practiced, efficient motions. Jack lifts the duvet and sits back on his haunches, tossing the discarded clothing onto the floor.

The corners of Zhao Zi’s mouth lift as Jack stares at him with hunger. He is naked, but he does not feel exposed, not with all the warmth of an inferno aflame in Jack’s gaze. Zhao Zi spreads his legs again and raises his arms, beckoning his lover back into them.

Hastily, Jack sheds the remaining layer of fabric between them. Zhao Zi openly admires his boyfriend’s nude physique, from the taut sinew of Jack’s biceps to the chiseled contours of Jack’s chest. Zhao Zi licks his lips as his gaze is lured downward by the molded terrain of his lover’s abs, traveling past the trail of fine, dark hairs that gather below Jack’s belly button. His eyes come to rest on Jack’s erect cock, and he feels every capillary, every vein within him pulse with lust. Zhao Zi shifts, impatient for his lover’s embrace.

Jack returns where Zhao Zi has invited him. As he drags the covers back over them, Jack’s weight bears him into the mattress. Zhao Zi locks his arms around his lover’s back, his legs about Jack’s thighs, and then they settle close, nestled skin-to-skin.

They tighten around each other, rocking together in symmetrical time. Zhao Zi’s erection juts against Jack’s abdomen, and his hips move reactively, seeking more friction. A bare shoulder presents itself to him, and Zhao Zi bites it in entreaty. Jack hisses. Even so, it seems forever until his hand slips between them and wraps around Zhao Zi’s shaft, stroking it slowly with the rise and fall of their bodies.

Through heavy lids, Zhao Zi regards his lover fondly, though he grimaces as he feels his ardor swelling beyond what his skin can contain. It batters at the edges of him, as if it were some creature he might be harboring, one that would rather split him open and devour Jack entirely. Satiety continues to elude him, so scorching that not even their entwined limbs, the slide of Jack’s fingers, or the fervor of their kisses combined can possibly come close to quenching it. There is but one remedy.

Months ago, Zhao Zi would have been horrified to learn how brazen, how licentious he was to become when in bed with Jack. He would have balked at the thought of having to ask for Jack to make love to him, but now it comes as naturally as asking for a goodnight kiss.

“Jack,” Zhao Zi gasps. He pauses before he can say anything more, shuddering from a pure frisson of pleasure as Jack’s thumb glides over the tip his cock.

Jack did that on purpose, Zhao Zi realizes slowly as his lover’s hand pumps him a little faster, and it is impossible for him to be anything but pleased about Jack’s intentions. He exhales a puff of breath in a dazed smile, Jack’s fingers squeezing so tightly he can hardly form the words in his mind for the flashes of ecstasy coursing through him.

“Jack,” he begins again, adoring the way the foreignness of his lover’s name rolls off his tongue. Zhao Zi’s fingers tense, digging amorously into the muscles of Jack’s back. “I want you to fuck me.”

The admission wrings a snarl from his lover’s throat. Jack ruts into him harder than before, and Zhao Zi swears he can feel his boyfriend’s lust boring into him as deep as the marrow of his bones.

“There’s so much more I want to do before that.” Jack’s grin carries just a tinge of regret.

“Next time,” Zhao Zi promises, his voice almost a whine as he lifts his hips so that Jack’s cock can slide along the crook of his thigh and closer to where he wants it. “Next time, you can do everything.”

Next time, he might be so desperate that he’ll beg Jack to fuck him again, but there will always be a time after that, and yet another one beyond. Every morning and every night stretches out in the future, a potential time when his and Jack’s desires might converge and meld together.

“So impatient,” Jack admonishes with a murmur, but obeys by snatching the bottle of lube from where it sits upon their headboard, within easy reach.

“You love it.”

“I love all of you.”

Zhao Zi beams, opening his arms again and enticing Jack to return. He sighs when Jack’s fingers enter him, not even minding that his arousal is left untended as result. The memory of their first time—when he was nervous and shy and so tight that even one of Jack’s fingers felt like it might sunder him—is barely a faded reflection to him now. They’ve joined so many times since then that his body welcomes Jack’s touch with eagerness. Zhao Zi pushes down on Jack’s fingers wantonly, rolling his hips so that bliss floods his senses.

An eternity passes as Jack prepares them both, Zhao Zi’s patience fraying with each slow, unnecessary second. Jack loves to tease, fingers gently roaming his entrance, but Zhao Zi doesn’t let his lover taunt him for long, encouraging alacrity with whines and the scrape of nails across skin.

The blaze within Zhao Zi burns so savagely that it threatens to consume him wholly with its heat before Jack finally spreads his knees to the side. Zhao Zi twines his arms closely about his lover as he feels Jack’s hardness nudge against him, and then glide in slowly, smoothly. Jack has never been anything but tender when entering him, even when Zhao Zi might want the first stroke to be faster, fiercer.

He reaches up with his hands, cupping his lover’s face so they can kiss while Jack’s hips roll into him, while they find a cadence to rock their bodies to. Pleasure crests and breaks, unfurling and spreading as jolts of euphoria. Jack ruts against him, palms pressed against the mattress for purchase. Zhao Zi clings to his lover, his breath buffeted by the force of Jack thrusts, by the undulation of Jack’s entire body as he plunges his arousal deep in regular, reverent strokes.

Zhao Zi revels in the sensation of being filled, in Jack driving fervidly inside him, plowing into him as if his boyfriend exists for nothing else than to bring him pleasure and be pleasured in return. Zhao Zi had never imagined before his first time that he might someday beg Jack to make love to him, that he would close his eyes and float in the expansive rapture of Jack buried in him, of Jack pressed as closely to him as possible.

Passion swells within Zhao Zi as he holds Jack, the fire flaring ever hotter than he can endure, so insistent that he struggles against the limits of what their physical forms can do, so desperate for fulfillment that each breath of his against Jack’s cheek is a ragged, juddering gasp. His kisses turn sloppy as he pants and whimpers, and his hands scrabble against Jack’s sweat-slicked skin, seeking an impossible proximity, an unachievable intimacy—even if he folded Jack into himself it would still not suffice.

They groan in tandem, their throaty voices echoing across the ceiling in syncopation to the thud of the headboard against the wall and the creak of the bed frame beneath their frantically bucking bodies. Jack’s exhalations are a warm wind in Zhao Zi’s ear, broken only by gasps of pleasure and the occasional reverberation of a growl from deep within his chest.

When it seems as if it’s about to end, Zhao Zi clutches Jack close, simultaneously willing and reluctant to hurtle himself to his climax. It is what he has been wanting this entire time—the moment when the hunger inside him immolates itself to embers—but he also doesn’t want the pleasure to end. He could be stuck in time, joined with Jack like this, forever.

Release comes what feels like all too soon and Zhao Zi freezes in Jack’s arm as his orgasm takes him. He trembles with the force at which he is drowned in a deluge of ecstasy, sweeping through every cell, every nerve, every glowing tinder in his body. His strangled cry is cut short by the arrival of Jack’s mouth, by a kiss so deep that Jack can only be drinking up his voice. Jack is still inside, still thrusting even as Zhao Zi shudders in waves, emptying himself between them. Even as Zhao Zi’s completion begins to recede, he can still feel himself come with each jerk of Jack’s hips.

When his peak finally subsides, Zhao Zi stays where he is, legs splayed, knees pushed up to his chest. He is happy to float in the remaining shivers of delight his lover has brought him, while whispering fond encouragements to Jack, who has yet to reach his own climax. He clasps his lover to him when Jack finally crests, willing his body to absorb every quaking tremor tearing through Jack’s perfect musculature.

They lie in each other’s arms even long after the bliss has faded, even long after they’ve wiped themselves clean and Jack has tossed the tissues in the trash can and returned to bed. They blink sleepily and gift each other soft, tender caresses. Zhao Zi nestles into Jack’s embrace, relieved for this moment of satisfaction, when no need, no want rears its insistent head, when he can simply lie in bed with Jack and enjoy his company, wallow in the fact that they’ve just had amazing sex.

Jack is good at sex. Zhao Zi hopes he is good at it too, since he’s had a good teacher.

From where he is tucked into the crook of Jack’s shoulder, Zhao Zi glances up at his boyfriend. Jack notices his movement, and shows him a rare, unguarded and earnest smile.

He’s good enough, Zhao Zi concludes. Good enough for Jack is all that matters.

“So, are you going to take another selfie?” Jack asks, just when Zhao Zi is finally beginning to feel a little restless.

“Sure,” Zhao Zi grins. His phone has somehow migrated to the floor, so he picks it up and they take a post-coital snap, leaning their heads together. Zhao Zi doesn’t post it. He decides to save this picture for later, for himself to stare at when he’s pulling the late shift at work and missing the companionship of his boyfriend, who is a total heartthrob, even though he snores.

Just as he finishes, his stomach lets out an aggrieved gurgle, intruding on their contented silence.

Jack waits until Zhao Zi’s stomach has finished complaining about its empty state before he laughs. “I believe I promised you breakfast.” He pushes himself up.

“We can make breakfast together,” Zhao Zi offers, and flings the covers off his side of the bed too.

They rise for a short shower, where they both crowd into the narrow stall, and then Zhao Zi and Jack make it downstairs to indulge in a late, lazy start to their Saturday morning.