Fresh Fic -- SPN Harlequin
For reasons we don't need to go into right now -- although they mostly have to do with how I don't even read romance -- this story really kicked my butt. Special thanks to
lunachickk who read it in pieces, laughed, and kept telling me it didn't suck. Written for
spn_harlequin.
The Original Prompt:
School headmistress Grace Stephens never thought her private fantasies could become public. But millionaire businessman Adam Bowen was used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted. And he wanted Grace to act out every word of the previously secret, suddenly missing steamy love story she'd written all about them.
Adam held her future-and every part of her body-in his hands. Leaving Grace no choice but to go from his make-believe mistress to his very real one.
The Adapted Prompt:
Gay in Texas was one thing, gay while teaching in an exclusive boy's school in Texas was another magnitude of something. When English Teacher Jared Padaleki falls hard for one of the school's richest alumni, oilman Jensen Ackles, he knows better than to act on his feelings and instead pours his desire into the writing of a steamy and explicit love story.
Jensen Ackles was not the richest man in Texas although he could give the other fifty states a run for their money. Rich and handsome, he has the reputation of being a cut-throat businessman and a heartless son of a bitch who trusts no one. When a copy of Jared's story falls into his hands, he realizes he's acquired the kind of leverage that could change the young teacher's life.
Forever.
A Twisted Proposal
staring, Jared and Jensen
also featuring Chad and Tom and Eric Kripke
special quest appearences by Samantha Ferris and Kim Manners
uncredited appearences by Mike and Sandy
17,000 words
NC-17
The moonlight laid silver highlights along Jensen's shoulders as he bent over the man in his bed. "This is love," he said. ''Never doubt that. I will love you for the rest of my life no matter what your answer is, but I have to know ..."
He stopped then, waiting, the love he'd just declared shining from his beautiful green eyes.
It took Jared a moment to find his voice and when he did, he only managed a single word. "Yes."
Jared sagged back in his chair and tried to roll the stiffness out of his neck. Finally. Finished. Oh, he'd have to do some re-writing - moonlight, highlight; one of those lights had to be turned off and it would definitely be safer to change the names no matter how hot it had been to imagine the scenes happening between himself and the most gorgeous man he'd ever seen - but the rough draft was done. Ninety-two thousand words of. ..
He pushed his hair back off his face and shook his head. Ninety-two thousand words of wishful thinking. Daydreaming. Working out the emotional tangle one short meeting had made of his life. "Literary masturbation."
"Sounds like fun."
"God damn it, Chad!" Fumbling for the keys on his laptop, he managed to hit save and clear the screen before Chad could get a look at what he was writing. Not that he'd ever seen Chad reading but schools like Ross Perot Prep surely didn't hire illiterate basketball coaches no matter how likely they were to get the team to the state championship. "Don't you ever knock?"
"Hey, if you're in here wanking to gay porn you should lock your door."
He's just being a prick, Jared reminded himself as the other man perched on one corner of his desk. He doesn't know.
"So, Kripke sent me up here to remind you that he needs that proposal for the new theatre you've worked up."
"He wants it now?"
"Not right now, dumbass, just bring it down with you. He's going to hand it over to Ackles at the alumni dinner tonight." Grey eyes narrowed as Chad leaned forward. "Are you blushing?"
"No!"
"You are!"
He barely managed to stop himself from clutching at his flushed cheeks. "Am not!"
"Are too!"
"What are you, twelve?" Jared shoved his chair away from the desk and stood, rolling down his shirt cuffs. "I'm just a little nervous all right? This is a big deal and Jensen Ackles is the only alumni with the cash to make it work. We need this theatre."
Chad snorted. "I need Alan Davis to hit a growth spurt over the summer 'cause he may be the best point guard in the school but it's not midget basketball and someone needs to do something about that tuna noodle surprise they keep dishing out on Thursdays but we don't need a theatre."
"Not arguing with the tuna noodle surprise." Jared shrugged into his suit jacket. "And if Alan Davis pays as little attention in summer school as he did all year, it won't matter if he's seven foot tall by September. And you can't be a first class school without an actual theatre."
"I didn't go to a school with an actual theatre!" Chad spread his arms. "And look at me."
"You're my best argument for getting this thing built." Grinning, Jared moved to slap him on the shoulder. Chad ducked the swing and got Jared's other hand across the back of the head.
"You're too damned tall to teach English," he muttered rubbing his head. "And please tell me you're not wearing that tie."
Jared stopped fiddling with his cuffs and dropped his chin to study his tie. "What wrong with this tie?"
"It's pink."
"Not all of it. It's mostly grey."
"The stripes are pink. Seriously man, it's just a little ..." He waved a hand. "Especially with the parents here tonight.
"They're diagonal pink stripes not a secret code for hey there I want to have butt-sex with your offspring." But as much as Chad's assumptions were pissing him off, he was already loosening the knot. Maybe it did make him look gay; truth in advertising and all that.
"First, never say the words butt-sex to me again. And second, wear that kind of khaki tie you had on at graduation. It makes your eyes look really green."
"It's vaguely disturbing that you're noticing my eyes."
"Vaguely?" Chad snorted. "I'm freaked the hell out." He slid off the desk and headed for the hall. "I'm going back downstairs. Move your ass. Not," he added hurriedly, "that I'm noticing your ass."
"Why are we friends again?" Jared asked the closed door. Sighing, because here and now he couldn't think of an answer beyond we work together and we're close to the same age, he rolled up the offending pink stripes and tossed them across the room onto his bed, and, because Jensen Ackles would be at the dinner and according to Chad it made his hazel eyes look green, he pulled out the khaki tie.
Seven fifty-two. The teaching staff was supposed to be downstairs and in the small reception room for drinks by eight. He had just enough time to back up his rough draft.
***
Jensen Ackles didn't believe in smiling for the sake of smiling. He acknowledged the other alumni he dealt with in the real world, he spoke to those teachers who had been at the school eleven years ago when he was in attendance - fewer of those every year - and he ignored everyone else. They all wanted something from him and he had no intention of listening to their barely disguised pleas for either his money or the prestige his money brought.
It was enough that he'd be listening to the not at all disguised pleas for money from the Headmaster of Ross Perot Prep, Eric Kripke. We need new uniforms. We need new textbooks. We need to build a computer lab. In his opinion, if they really wanted to improve the school, they could do something about the tuna noodle surprise; he'd be more than willing to pay for a year's worth of pizza pockets but they never asked about that.
Clutching his wine glass like a fake Waterford lance - and he'd given the school enough money over the years they could have sprung for real crystal -- he made his way across the room toward the headmaster, Tom Welling, his personal assistant, a solid, familiar presence at his back. If he got the begging over with early, he could make a fast escape after the meal.
***
Jared paused at the door to the small reception room and tugged at his sleeves. It hadn't been that long ago that his suits - well, technically suit, singular - hadn't quite fit and the habit of trying to make cheap fabric reach his wrists was hard to break. He stared in at the seething mass of Dallas' rich and famous, took a deep breath, and stepped over the threshold.
"Did you bring your theatre proposal?"
Two semesters spent teaching teenagers determined to put one over on the new guy kept him from shrieking like a girl but only just.
Chad stepped around the potted plant just inside the door and grinned up at him. "Knew you'd forget it if I wasn't there to actually put it into one of those shovels you use for hands." He grabbed Jared's jacket, keeping him from heading back out into the hall. "You stay, I'll get it."
"Don't be..." And then he saw the tiny brunette approaching with murder in her eyes. Jared was pretty sure she was Allan Davis newest stepmother and couldn't help but wonder how Chad had managed to piss her off so completely in the fifteen minutes he'd actually been at the reception. "Yeah, okay, go. It's on a flash drive in the upper, right hand drawer of my desk."
Clutching the room key like the lifeline it was, Chad ducked out the door just as the newest Mrs. Davis turned a gimlet gaze in their direction. Jared tried to look as though he had no idea of who Chad Michael Murray was and must have been at least partially successful as Mrs. Davis walked on by...
...leaving him with a direct line of sight to the headmaster who beckoned him over.
Okay, that wasn't good since it would take Chad at least ten minutes to get to his room and back -longer if he decided to check Jared's laptop for porn and actually took the time to try out passwords. Trouble was, Jared was at least five inches taller than anyone between him and Kripke so he couldn't say he'd hadn't seen the summons. Well, not and keep his job.
Plastering on a fake smile, he began to work his way through the crowd, hoping his size would at least slow his passage. Unfortunately, the crowd seemed inclined to let him through. He was about to fake tripping over his own feet when he felt a hand close around his arm.
"Jared."
"Governor." He turned, smiling more warmly at her than usual. Governor Ferris was one of maybe two people in the room who could delay him without Kripke expecting him to immediately disengage. Her father, an alumnus, had donated a great deal of money to the school in his day and she made it a point to attend every official school function. She'd even driven over from Austin, abandoning the legislature in session, for the final basketball game of the season.
And this time she'd grabbed his arm not his ass.
Her smile was predatory. "How many times do I have to tell you to call me Samantha?"
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, I just have too much respect for the office." The aw shucks, good o1' boy drawl was not entirely an act. The first time the governor had felt him up, he'd nearly had a coronary when he'd discovered whose hand had been pressing warm and inviting up his thigh.
"You call me ma'am and I feel old."
The hint of steel in those blue/grey eyes warned him to tread carefully. Dipping his head, he let his hair fall forward over his face and drop his age a few more years. "It's just when you're around I feel..." He examined and discarded half a dozen words finally settling on the one that should do the least damage. "... inadequate."
The fingers around his arm tightened slightly as her gaze swept down and up again. "Inadequate? Oh, I very much doubt that."
The heat in her voice suddenly made facing his notoriously prickly headmaster without the proposal he'd been explicitly told to bring seemed the lesser of two evils. "I'm sorry, Governor, but Mr. Kripke is waiting for me."
"I'd say let him wait but I certainly understand how it is when duty calls." With a final squeeze, she released him. "We'll talk again."
As he turned, Jared wondered how she'd made "We'll talk again." sound like "And when I get a moment I'm going to push you into a broom closet and ride you like a pony." He had a feeling the pink tie wouldn't have discouraged her.
Kripke was definitely looking impatient when Jared arrived.
"I'm sorry, Headmaster ... " Jared winced internally every time he said the word out loud. It made him feel like he was in bad British schoolboy porn. "...but I... " The excuse died as he realized who was standing at Kripke's side. Jensen Ackles. Jensen green-eyes, chiseled cheek bones, broad shoulders, narrow waist, long fingers, tight ass, spray of freckles and the most kissable mouth Jared had ever seen on any man or woman ever Ackles. The man who'd been front and center in Jared's fantasy life since their brief introduction back at the meet-and-great alumni dinner back in September. The man who'd inspired a ninety-two thousand words of pornographic prose/gay romance/really kind of pathetic love story written during those long lonely nights after Shakespeare, Joseph Campbell, and three floors of teenage boys hepped up on hormones and smuggled Jack had been given their due. The man who...
"Mr. Padalecki!"
"Sorry, sir." As Jared forced himself to shift his gaze back to his boss, he thought he caught a glimpse of a small smile on Tom Welling's face. The thought of Jensen Ackle's ever present shadow laughing at him actually helped him pull himself together. For the last four years where Jensen went Welling went, and hadn't that started a few rumours. Rumours Jared didn't believe. There was nothing lover-like about Welling's reactions and Jared knew that if he'd been permitted to touch he'd never be able to keep his hands to himself. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
"I wanted to see you fifteen minutes ago," Kripke muttered.
"Sorry, sir." Jared couldn't seem to stop apologizing. "Governor Ferris wanted to ... say hello."
To his surprise, Jensen - Mr. Ackles, except Jared had been thinking of him as Jensen, writing him as Jensen for months now -- snorted. "She leave bruises?"
"Not this time." His cheeks flushed as Jared realized his mouth had gotten ahead of his brain but the Dallas oilman was actually almost smiling and even Kripke didn't seem too upset.
"Jensen Ackles..." The headmaster had half turned and was gesturing in Jared's direction. "... this is Jared Padalecki, the junior member of the English department. You may have met him at the alumni dinner last fall."
Jared was just starting to wonder if he was supposed to say something here when two words shut down pretty much all higher function.
"I remember."
He remembered? Jensen Ackles remembered him? Him. Jared Padalecki remembered by Jensen Ackles. The room started to spin just a bit. Breathe, moron! He sucked in a lungful of air, realized no one but Welling was looking at him and realized a second later that Kripke was talking.
"...put together a proposal for a new theatre."
The almost smile had disappeared; the lines of Jensen's face hardened into an emotionless mask as he repeated, "A new theatre."
"You can't deny we need one." In contrast, Kripke was a bit too jovial. Jared was pretty sure he'd missed something but he couldn't figure out what. Just for an instant, as Jensen turned to face him, he'd looked disappointed. "Mr. Padalecki ... the proposal?"
"Right. Uh..." He shoved his hands into his jacket's pockets, wondering if he could claim it had fallen through a hole, just as someone bumped into him from behind.
"Sorry, man." Chad grabbed his arm and Jared felt the familiar shape of a flash drive drop into his palm. "Crowded in here, isn't it? Headmaster. Mr. Ackles." He paused, stared up at Welling and said, "Dude, you're tall. You play ball?"
"That will be enough, Mr. Murray."
"Yes, sir." With one last speculative glance at Welling, Chad sketched a salute in Jared's general direction and disappeared into the crowds.
"Basketball coach," Kripke said as though that explained it. And given that Chad had taken what had been a pathetic excuse for a team as far as the semi finals, it essentially did. "And now, if you don't mind..."
Before he could finish, Jared held out the flash drive. "It's all on here," he said, trying not to hyperventilate as he added, "Once you check it out, if you want to talk to me about it, I'll be here. Well, not here, here. Here, at the school."
"Mr. Padalecki is remaining on campus to teach summer school," Kripke explained dryly as Jared's cheeks burned and he wondered if he could possibly sound like more of a dork. He started as Welling pulled the drive from his fingers and let his hand fall back to his side. Too much to expect, he supposed that Jensen would take it from him personally.
"We'll be going into the banquet hall shortly." The headmaster continued, nodding toward the recently opened double doors. "I suggest, Mr. Padalecki, you find Mr. Murray and make sure he's sitting far from anyone he might antagonize."
"Yes, sir." Hopefully, keeping Chad out of trouble would keep him from spending the entire meal staring at the head table. He took a deep breath and held out his hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Ackles."
Jensen's hand was cool and dry -- like his eyes, like his voice -- as he said only, "And you."
***
Of course Jensen had remembered the young English teacher. How the hell was he supposed to forget someone who was six and a half feet of gorgeous? The hazel eyes, the broad shoulders, not to mention the dimples framing a smile so sweet he'd actually dreamt about it more than once over the long winter. He'd even had his people do a little checking and had actually started to believe Jared Padalecki was what he seemed to be, a sweet, smart, good looking guy who loved to teach -- what you saw, was what you got.
And then he'd turned out to want something, just like everyone else. Give me money for a theatre. Jensen turned the flash drive over and over between his fingers. He should have fucking known better. Everyone wanted something. It was more than stupid, it was asinine to feel betrayed because a man he'd met once wanted what everyone else did.
What else would he want?
He'd spent the long hours of the banquet deliberately looking anywhere but at Padalecki and his friend and had left directly after. No reason to stay, not with the only reason he'd been invited on a flash drive in Tom's pocket.
And now, on a flash drive in his hand.
Teeth clenched, he shoved it into the USB port on his laptop.
Padalecki had broken the proposal into chapters. Cute. Jensen clicked on chapter one and started reading.
Chest to chest in the small storeroom, Jensen stared up at the younger man and said, "I think you said you had something to prove to me?"
Heart pounding, Jared sank slowly to his knees, unable to believe this was actually happening. He fumbled with Jensen's belt, unable to prevent a small moan as strong fingers wound themselves into his hair and blunt nails scraped against his scalp. Finally forcing his hands to work, he slid the pale grey dress pants down off narrow hips and hooked his thumbs behind the black silk boxer briefs.
Jensen was already hard, his cock curving up out of a nest of reddish brown curls and pointing right at Jared's mouth as though it knew where it belonged.
Jared licked his lips. The musky scent was intoxicating and he almost forgot to breathe as he lapped at the fluid beading on the rosy tip. A strangled sound from above reminded him that it wouldn't be long before they were missed -- by the Governor if not the headmaster- - so he slid forward until his forehead was resting against the firm planes of Jensen's stomach and his throat closed around the swollen cock head. Then back, suction firm, rubbing his tongue against the nerve bundle just under the head. And down. Swallowing.
He cupped Jensen's balls with one hand, savoring the velvet feel.
The grip in his hair tightened as Jensen's hips began to slam forward. Eyes closed, weight back on his heels, he closed his fingers around the perfect angle of a hip, thumb resting in the hollow, but did nothing to stop or even slow the movement, allowing the other man to fuck his mouth. A slight stutter in the rhythm was all the warning he got as Jensen slammed forward one final time and his mouth filled with warm salty fluid. He swallowed what he could and let the rest dribble down over his chin.
When the pressure of Jensen's fingers forced his head up, he came in his pants like a teenager at the blissed-out expression on the other man's face.
"Well," Jensen murmured after a moment, "I'd certainly have to say you've made your point."
***
part 2