The Label Maker

Set between Chapters 17 and 18 — the first Saturday as boyfriends.

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The label maker was Jasper’s idea.

Which was ironic, because the label maker had been Ryan’s most prized domestic possession for eleven months and Jasper’s primary source of mockery for ten of them. He’d called it “the most unsexy object in human history.” He’d called it “a monument to your inability to let things just exist.” He’d once stuck a label on the label maker itself that read INSTRUMENT OF TYRANNY and Ryan had left it there for two days because he found it funnier than he’d ever admit.

But now they were boyfriends. Officially, declaredly, sticky-note-on-the-fridge boyfriends. And Jasper was lying on Ryan’s bed at 3 p.m. on a Saturday in nothing but boxers, turning the label maker over in his hands with an expression Ryan had learned to identify as “creative and dangerous.”

“I want to label you,” Jasper said.

Ryan looked up from his book. He was beside Jasper on the bed, propped against the headboard, wearing glasses and a T-shirt and the particular expression of a man who had just been told something that was simultaneously absurd and intriguing. “You want to label me.”

“With the label maker. Your label maker.” Jasper sat up, cross-legged, holding the device with the reverent focus of a man who’d discovered a new application for existing technology. “I want to put labels on you. On your body. Little printed strips that say exactly what each part of you does to me.”

Ryan closed his book. Set it on the nightstand. Removed his glasses—the gesture that Jasper had learned meant I’m transitioning from thinking mode to something else—and folded them on top of the book.

“That’s going to use a lot of label tape,” Ryan said.

“I’ll buy you a new cartridge.”

“The adhesive might irritate skin.”

“Ryan.”

“I’m raising practical concerns.”

“You’re stalling because the idea is turning you on and you need a minute to process it.”

Ryan’s jaw did the thing. The attractive clench that Jasper had been cataloguing since day one and that now, eleven months in, still sent a direct signal to his cock. “I’m not—”

“Your ears are red.”

Ryan’s hand went to his ear. Dropped. He looked at Jasper—at the label maker in his hands, at the grin on his face, at the particular energy in his green eyes that meant I’ve had an idea and you should either run or take your clothes off, and both options end the same way.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “Show me.”

Jasper’s grin went nuclear. He typed on the label maker—the tiny clacking keys, the mechanical whir of the print head—and tore off the first strip.

He leaned forward. Pressed the label to Ryan’s forehead.

Ryan reached up and peeled it off. Read it: BIG BRAIN — OPERATES AT DEVASTATING EFFICIENCY

“That’s not—”

“Shh. I’m working.” Jasper printed another. Pressed it to Ryan’s jaw. Along the sharp line of bone that Jasper had once described as load-bearing.

Ryan peeled. Read: ARCHITECTURAL MARVEL — DO NOT MODIFY

His mouth twitched. “These are reviews.”

“They’re labels. Your favorite thing.” Another strip. Pressed to Ryan’s throat, over his Adam’s apple. “Read it.”

MAKES THE BEST SOUNDS WHEN KISSED HERE

“That’s—”

Jasper kissed him there. Right on the label, right on the spot, mouth open and warm against the vibration of Ryan’s throat. Ryan’s head tipped back. The sound he made—quiet, involuntary, a rumble that Jasper felt against his lips—proved the label accurate.

“See?” Jasper murmured against his skin. “Correctly labeled.”

He printed the next one. Pulled Ryan’s shirt up—over his stomach, his chest—and Ryan, who was apparently done protesting, raised his arms and let Jasper strip it off entirely. Jasper pressed a label to his left collarbone.

KISSED HERE FIRST — HISTORIC LANDMARK

Ryan looked down at it. His expression was doing something complicated—amusement and tenderness and the particular vulnerability of a man who was being catalogued by someone who thought every part of him was worth naming.

“You remember where you kissed me first?”

“I remember everything about your body. I’ve been studying it for eleven months.” Jasper typed again. The label maker clicked. He pressed the next strip to Ryan’s sternum, dead center.

HEARTBEAT — JASPER’S FAVORITE SOUND

Jasper moved lower. Pressed a label to Ryan’s right side, over his ribs, where he was ticklish and would never admit it.

SENSITIVE — HANDLE WITH MOUTH

He demonstrated. Kissed the spot—open-mouthed, tongue tracing the ridge of bone beneath warm brown skin—and Ryan sucked in a breath and his hand found Jasper’s hair and gripped.

“You’re—” Ryan’s voice was rougher now. “This is an abuse of office supplies.”

“This is the intended use of office supplies.” Another label. Ryan’s left hip, the bone that jutted above his waistband. JASPER WAS HERE — PERMANENTLY

“More,” Ryan said. Quiet. The voice that had shed its composure and arrived at something rawer. “Label more.”

“I plan to.” Jasper typed. He printed a strip. Pressed it to Ryan’s lower stomach, just above the waistband of his joggers.

FOLLOW THIS LINE — REWARD BELOW

Ryan read it upside-down. His abs contracted. “Jasper.”

“Patience, Patel. I’m conducting an audit.” He hooked his fingers in Ryan’s waistband. Pulled the joggers down—slowly, an inch at a time, pressing labels as he went. Inside of Ryan’s right thigh: TREMBLES WHEN BITTEN — CONFIRMED REPEATEDLY. Inside of his left thigh: GRIP HERE DURING [REDACTED].

“Redacted?” Ryan’s voice was barely there.

“I’m maintaining plausible deniability.” Jasper pushed the joggers the rest of the way off. Then the boxers. Ryan was hard. Jasper looked at him—fully naked, scattered with little white labels, beautiful and aroused.

Jasper printed one more label. The longest one. He pressed it, carefully, to the inside of Ryan’s wrist—the pulse point, where the vein tracked blue beneath brown skin.

PROPERTY OF JASPER COLE — NON-NEGOTIABLE

“That one stays,” Ryan said.

“It’s label tape. It’s going to fall off in the shower.”

“Then relabel me. Every day. That one stays.”

Jasper kissed Ryan—deep, slow, the kind of kiss that communicated everything the labels had said and everything they hadn’t.

“Now,” Jasper said against his mouth, setting the label maker on the nightstand with exaggerated care, “that the audit is complete, I’d like to demonstrate the functionality of the labeled assets.”

“That is the worst sentence you’ve ever constructed.”

“Let me make it up to you.”

He started at the top. Forehead—kissed the spot where the first label had been. Jaw—kissed the architectural marvel. Throat—lingered, tongue tracing the tendon, pulling the sound the label had promised. Collarbone—the historic landmark. Sternum—he pressed his ear there for a moment, listened to the heartbeat that was his favorite sound, then kissed it and moved on.

Down Ryan’s chest. Each rib, each scar, each plane of muscle that Jasper had memorized over eleven months and still found new things in.

The hip bone. JASPER WAS HERE — PERMANENTLY. He bit harder this time. Ryan’s hand twisted in the sheets and his hips lifted off the bed.

The trail. He followed it—tongue tracing the dark line of hair below Ryan’s navel, down, down, while Ryan’s body tightened beneath him.

“Jasper.” Not a request. An instruction.

Jasper took him in his mouth. No teasing. No buildup. He took Ryan deep and heard the sound—the guttural, helpless groan that Ryan only made when Jasper’s mouth was on him.

“Your mouth—” Ryan’s voice was wrecked. “Jasper, you—every time, I can’t—”

Jasper pulled off long enough to say: “Every asset performing as labeled.” Then he went back, deeper, and Ryan’s body arched off the mattress.

But Jasper didn’t finish him. He pulled back and reached for the lube.

“I want you inside me,” Jasper said. “I want to ride you while you’re covered in my labels. I want to look down and see ‘Property of Jasper Cole’ on your wrist while you’re holding my hips.”

Ryan’s eyes darkened. “Then get on me.”

Jasper prepped himself—fast, efficient. Ryan watched, the labels scattered across his body like small white flags of surrender.

He straddled Ryan. Sank down. Took him in one slow, devastating slide that punched the air from both their lungs simultaneously.

Ryan’s hands flew to Jasper’s hips. And there it was—on the inside of his right wrist, pressed against Jasper’s hip: PROPERTY OF JASPER COLE — NON-NEGOTIABLE.

“There,” Jasper breathed. “That label on your wrist—I can see it—Ryan, I can see it—”

“I know.” Ryan’s voice was raw. “Move. Jasper, please—”

Jasper moved. Slow at first—the deep, rolling rhythm they’d made their own. Then faster, because the sight of the labels and the sound of Ryan’s voice and the fullness of him inside was building something that wouldn’t be contained.

He rode Ryan hard. Hands braced on his chest, over the HEARTBEAT label, feeling it pound against his palms.

Ryan sat up. Pulled Jasper against his chest, face to face, mouths almost touching. The labels crinkled between their pressed-together skin, peeling, shifting, the adhesive giving way under sweat and friction. “You’re everything. Every label, every—” He thrust deep. Held. “Jasper, I love you.”

“I love you.” Said into his mouth, between breaths, between thrusts. “I love you, Ryan, I’m—I’m close—”

Ryan’s hand wrapped around Jasper’s cock. Stroked in time with the rhythm of their hips.

“Come for me,” Ryan said. The command. The cadence. The voice that had been dismantling Jasper since the first night on the couch. “I want to feel you.”

Jasper came with Ryan’s name on his lips and the word PROPERTY pressed between them like a covenant. Ryan followed within seconds—the grip of Jasper around him pushing him over the edge with a groan that vibrated through Jasper’s chest and settled in his bones.

They collapsed. Sideways, tangled, breathing hard. Labels everywhere—stuck to the sheets, the pillows, one on Jasper’s shoulder that must have transferred. Jasper peeled it off. Read it:

HEARTBEAT — JASPER’S FAVORITE SOUND

He stuck it on his own chest. Over his own heart.

“Labeling yourself now?” Ryan murmured.

“Seems accurate. Your heartbeat, my heart.”

“That’s the most sentimental thing you’ve ever said.”

“You literally engraved ‘OURS’ on a key.”

“That was functional signage.”

“That was a love letter to a storage unit.”

“It was a love letter to you formatted as functional signage.”

“Same thing, different label.”

Ryan laughed. The real one. The full one. Jasper caught the sound and held it the way he held everything about Ryan: carefully, greedily, with the full attention of a man who’d spent his life being told he was too much and had found someone who thought he was exactly the right amount.

He kissed Ryan’s wrist. The label was still there—edges curling, adhesive weakened by sweat, but still legible. PROPERTY OF JASPER COLE — NON-NEGOTIABLE.

“Relabel me tomorrow?” Ryan asked.

“Every day,” Jasper said. “Every single day.”

He would. Not with a label maker—not always. But with hands and mouth and presence and the daily, unglamorous, extraordinary act of choosing someone and being chosen back.

Some things didn’t need labels.

Some things just needed to stay.

Want the full story? Read Roommates with Benefits — 82,000 words of cozy high-heat MM romance.

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