40. Nico
Later—much later, after goodbyes and leftovers and a drive back to Toronto through softly falling snow—I collected on my end of the night present.
Adrian was a wreck by the time we got to his apartment.
Hours of teasing had left him strung tight, desperate, begging before I even got his clothes off.
He was wearing a red jock underneath his jeans—very festive—and when I pulled the plug out slowly, watching his hole clench around nothing, he whimpered.
When I pushed it back in, twisting it against his prostate, he nearly sobbed.
“Nicky—please—”
“Please what?”
“Please just fuck me already.”
I pulled the plug out again. Set it aside. Ran my thumb over his stretched rim just to feel him shudder.
He practically ripped off my Christmas cardigan.
He did rip off a few buttons on the shirt I'd been wearing underneath—I heard them scatter across the hardwood and couldn't bring myself to care.
My glasses were tossed unceremoniously onto the nightstand.
He was fumbling with the button fly of my jeans, cursing under his breath when his shaking fingers couldn't work fast enough.
“Fucking—button fly—who designed these—”
“You picked them out for me.”
“Past me was an idiot—finally—”
He shoved them down along with my boxer briefs and then there was nothing between us. Just skin and heat and want. He dropped to his knees in front of me and took me into the wet heat of his mouth and every rational thought I'd ever had left my brain.
He was good at this. Obscenely good. Hollowed cheeks and lazy eye contact and those fucking lip rings dragging along the underside of my cock in a way that should have been illegal.
He took me deeper, throat relaxing, one hand gripping my hip to control the pace while the other palmed himself through his jockstrap.
The sound he made around me—low and greedy, like he'd been starving for it—vibrated through me until my knees nearly buckled.
“Oh fuck—as good as that feels, I was promised your ass.” I tugged gently at his hair until he released me with a slick pop, a string of spit connecting his swollen lower lip to the head of my cock.
He looked up at me—wrecked, pupils blown, mouth red and wet—and the sight of him on his knees nearly broke my resolve entirely. “Get on the bed. Face down. Ass up.”
He did not need to be told twice. He climbed onto the bed and got onto all fours, arching his back before I was even fully positioned behind him. The jockstrap framed him perfectly. His thighs were trembling.
I ran my fingers down the length of his spine, a whisper of contact, just to watch him shiver. “Mmm. Impatient?”
“God, Nicky. I think you enjoy torturing me.”
“You do squirm so beautifully.”
I planted my fists next to his on the bed, pressing my front to his back, letting him feel how hard I was between his cheeks. He reached out with his pinky to trace the bracelet now locked on my left wrist.
“Fuck, I love seeing this.” His voice was rough, wrecked. “Will you give me something else tonight?”
The same hands that had locked the bracelet onto my wrist were gripping the sheets now, knuckles white.
Around his neck, the cherry blossom pendant caught the light—the necklace I'd given him.
A delicate gold chain with a single blossom I'd found at a jeweller near Dotonbori the afternoon after we'd first slept together.
It had reminded me of his neck tattoo. He'd added the tiny gold key that unlocked my bracelet to the chain before putting it on.
The only way to free me, resting against his skin.
“Anything.”
“I want you to be the first one to fuck me bare. I'm on PrEP.”
I went still.
I had never had sex without a condom. Not even with Théo. We had regular physicals, so I knew I was clear. But the idea—the thought of being inside him with nothing between us—was like kindling catching fire. Pretty soon the desire to fill him was all consuming.
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure.” He turned his head, catching my eye over his shoulder. “I want to feel you. All of you.”
“I’ve never gone bare before either.”
He whimpered at my confession—a broken, desperate sound that went straight through me. I reached over to his nightstand for the lube.
He squirmed impatiently as I flicked open the cap. “Shh. I've got you.”
I slicked myself up, gripped the waistband of his jock, and yanked him back against me. His rim was still slippery from wearing the plug all evening. I sank into him and it felt like coming home.
The warmth. The rightness of it. The beautiful moan it pulled out of him. Nothing between us now—just him and me and the impossible intimacy of skin against skin.
“Oh God—” His voice cracked. “Nicky—”
I pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade. Another to the nape of his neck. Let my lips trace the shell of his ear.
“I've got you,” I murmured against his skin. “I've got you.”
I started to move—slow at first, savouring it, feeling every inch of him around me. But I wanted more. Wanted to see him.
“Turn over.”
He made a sound of protest when I pulled out but he obeyed—rolling onto his back, legs falling open, looking up at me with those dark eyes blown wide with want.
The front of his jock was soaked through, dark red with precum, his cock straining against the fabric.
The cherry blossom pendant and the gold key lay against his chest, right over his heart, rising and falling with every ragged breath.
“I want to watch,” I said. “I want us both to watch.”
I positioned myself between his thighs and pushed back in—slower this time, letting us both see where we were joined. His head fell back against the pillows, mouth open, chest heaving. I held still for a moment, letting him adjust, letting us both feel it.
“Fuck—Nicky—you feel—”
“I know.” I lowered myself over him, found his mouth, kissed him deep and slow. “I know.”
When he was ready, I started to move. Unhurried.
Rolling my hips in long, deliberate strokes that made him gasp against my lips every time I bottomed out.
His legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me deeper.
His hands roamed my back, my shoulders, traced the line of my spine with a tenderness that made my chest ache. Like he was memorizing me by touch.
I pulled back just enough to watch his face as I rolled my hips. The flush spreading down his neck. His lips parted and swollen. The cherry blossom pendant shifting against his chest with every thrust.
“You're so beautiful like this,” I told him. “I like you needy.”
“I’ve been waiting all day,” he breathed, voice breaking on the words. “Thought about this through dinner—through dessert—every time you pressed that fucking button—”
I reached between us and freed him from the jock. He was slick with precum, twitching in my hand, and when I stroked him in time with my thrusts he arched into it with a sound that unraveled me.
“That's it. Let me hear you.”
His hands found my face. Pulled me down. Kissed me like he was trying to pour everything he couldn't say into my mouth. I kissed him back just as desperately, my hand never stopping, our foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air.
“Nicky—I'm close—”
“Me too. Look at me.”
His eyes found mine. Glassy. So open it almost hurt.
“You're mine,” I said quietly. Not a question.
“Yours.” The word came out like a confession. “Always yours.”
I kissed him one more time—soft, slow—and felt him shatter.
His whole body tensed, back bowing off the sheets, my name dragged from his throat as he spilled between us.
The feeling of him clenching around me, the look on his face, the word always still hanging in the air—it pulled me over the edge with him.
I buried myself deep and came, filling him for the first time.
I collapsed on top of him and we lay tangled in his sheets. Breathing hard. Neither of us willing to move.
“Merry Christmas to me,” Adrian mumbled into my shoulder.
I pressed a kiss to his hair and held him against my chest.
This wasn't just good sex. This wasn't just companionship or convenience. This was something else entirely. Something I told myself I had to stop chasing if I wanted to stop getting hurt.
Adrian's breathing had evened out against my shoulder. His hand was resting over my heart like it belonged there. The bracelet he'd given me caught the dim light from the window—gold and diamonds and a promise I was only beginning to understand.
Fall seven times, get up eight.
I'd been falling for weeks now. Maybe since he'd stepped between me and Renaud in that corridor and said someone needed to say it like protecting me was instinct.
Maybe since Osaka when he'd kissed me and the whole world rearranged itself.
Maybe since the gym when he'd worked the cramp out of my calf with steady hands and steadier eyes—the ones that always saw past the golden veneer to whatever was actually underneath.
I was falling. And for the first time in a long time, I wasn't afraid of where I'd land.
Because Adrian would be there. Eighth time. Ninth time. However many it took.
I pulled him closer and let myself fall.