Chapter 22 #2
“I love when you call me that,” I told him. “When you call me any of those names, to be honest.”
“I love when you act like one.” Lincoln’s lashes fluttered, and I kissed his eyelids.
“Does the…” I paused, groaning at myself for trying to broach the subject. It was too early to talk about the mechanics of our dynamic.
He rolled onto his back and stretched, reaching toward the headboard with both hands. “Tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I assured him, untucking my socks from each other so I could put them on and finish getting ready for work. “What other people think or do isn’t important. The only thing that counts is what we think and do.”
With a tired grunt from behind me, Lincoln flung himself out of bed. He wrapped around me like a cat, taking the socks out of my hands before settling on his knees at my feet.
“We are whatever suits us,” he whispered, rucking up one sock before using his chin to gesture at me to lift my foot for him. “As we’ve always been.”
It was a simple—yet profound—observation, one that had any further comment dying in the back of my throat. Lincoln put my other sock on and adjusted them both around my calves before smoothing my slacks back into place. He rocked back on his heels and let his hands rest on his thighs, palms up.
He was a sight, on his knees with a hard cock and eyes still half-closed. His hair a tangled mess on top of his head, skin flushed from sleep and pierced nipples hard as rocks.
“I particularly like calling you Sir when you’re on your knees for me,” he murmured, letting me manipulate the angle of his head with every stroke of my hand through his hair.
“Do you now?”
He nodded, closing his eyes with a smile.
My heart slammed against my sternum, and I surged forward and down, taking Lincoln’s face into my hands and crashing our mouths together.
He startled, but quickly fell into the kiss, curling his hands around my forearms and holding on while my tongue dipped deeper into his mouth.
I kissed him until I couldn’t breathe and then longer still until I could breathe again.
“I love you,” I promised, sealing it with a hard press of lips against the corner of his mouth. “Are you staying here today?”
He smiled sleepily. “I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Wednesday.”
“For a while. My laptop is at home, and I’ve got to catch up on editing or I won’t have enough money to pay rent this month. And I have to check on Feeny.”
“Feeny?”
“My new fish,” he said.
“Right.”
I had paid for a subscription to his videos, and if he was always around, I’d never get a chance to watch them.
The real thing was of course better, but there was something to be said about the way he played for the camera that really got me going.
Even the video he’d made for me in the shower was something special from the way he acted when we were face to face.
On camera he was less restrained, and that was saying something.
But I wanted to tell Lincoln not to worry about rent, that I could easily afford my apartment, and I wanted him and all of his things inside of it.
That we could make a spot for Feeny in whatever room made him happiest, but we’d already confessed we were in love and that was on the cusp of being too much, too soon.
Lincoln was the kind of man who valued his independence, even if he hated it, and I didn’t want to take that away from him.
“Okay,” I said instead, trusting there would be a time and a place, and neither of them were here and now.
“Friday nights are my nights with Silas, by the way,” he said. Our mouths were still so close, his fingers still so strong around my forearms. “Since you’re with your brothers.”
“Every Friday?”
He nodded. “Sometimes we go to Rapture. Does that bother you?”
I pulled back enough to see his face, to stroke my thumbs across the stubble on his cheeks.
“Are you doing something there that would bother me?”
He swallowed hard. “Sometimes Silas and I kiss, but it’s not…not the way I kiss you.”
I knew this about him already. I knew the way he chased affection in any and all forms. It wasn’t for me to question or doubt his intentions. That wasn’t what love was about, and it was surely not the love I was going to show him.
“I know,” I reminded him. “Nothing about you bothers me.”
Except the fact you’re not here all the time.
He smiled up at me, eyes narrowing into slits until he looked like a cat. I kissed the tip of his nose, then gave his face a squeeze.
“We have three days until Friday, and I need to get to work.”
“Would it be bad if I asked you to call in sick?”
I bit the inside of my cheek, forcing myself away from the minx at my feet. “It would be very bad for me to call in sick the day after I was made partner, yes.”
Lincoln was up like a flash, grabbing me by the biceps and pulling me to a stop.
“I almost forgot all about that. I can’t believe you snuck it in last night, but now that I remember, this calls for a celebration!”
I huffed out a laugh, nodding my agreement. “Tonight?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” he said, chuckling when I frowned. “Don’t be greedy. I need time to get it ready.”
“This sounds like you already have a plan.”
“Of course I do,” he said, grinning and taking a step away from me. He was giving me the space I needed to go to work, which was patently unfair because the last thing I ever wanted to do was leave him. But Lincoln understood I needed to go, and that was the way he loved me.
Respectfully and wholly.