Chapter 26
HUNTER
Smith and Finn fell asleep on my couch, one after the other, and I carefully untangled myself from their limbs so I could go sleep in my own bed. I hadn’t heard from Lincoln since dinner, but I wasn’t surprised to be woken up just before three in the morning by a phone call.
“Hello?” I answered sleepily, rolling onto my side and rubbing my eyes.
“Sorry for calling so late,” Lincoln said.
“Never apologize for that.”
“Are you home?”
“Yeah. Yes. In bed.”
There was a small pause. “Will you come let me in?”
I bolted upright, suddenly wide awake. “Are you here?”
“In my car in a parking spot, but yes,” he said.
“I’ll unlock the door, but be quiet. Finn and Smith are asleep on the couch.”
Lincoln made a tired, but amused sound in my ear. “I’ll be up in five.”
He made it in four, locking the door behind him and tiptoeing through the apartment and right into my bedroom. Lincoln closed my bedroom door and pressed his shoulders against the wood, and I sat on the edge of my bed, mouth dry.
“Did you end up going out after all? To Rapture with Silas?” I asked.
He nodded, and we both looked down at the loose tank top he had on, the huge scoops that showed all of his ribs and the tease of his nipples, the tight black shorts, the leather boots.
“Did you have fun?”
“Met some friends of Marshall’s,” he answered, chewing at the inside of his cheek.
“Were they nice?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, sucking in a deep breath.
Tension rolled off of him in waves, but I couldn’t figure out what was making him so uncomfortable.
When we’d texted at dinner, I didn’t get the impression anything was amiss, but the man standing in front of me now was more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him, seconds away from itching like he wanted to peel himself out of his skin.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Just confused.”
I scratched an itch beneath my right eye, not letting my stare waver. “Did you want to talk about it?”
He shrugged.
“Take off your boots, Lincoln.” I scratched the same spot a second time, letting out a breath. “Take off everything.”
His chin quivered, but he didn’t argue.
Lincoln undid the laces on his boots, then stepped out of them and peeled out of his socks.
The tank was next, then his shorts and an indecently tight pair of briefs that I almost told him to keep on.
The sight of him was breathtaking. My need to come after three days aside, Lincoln was perfect…
even if he didn’t see it when he looked in the mirror.
“Come here.” I beckoned him with a crook of my finger, and as soon as he pushed off the door and headed for me, I scooted back until my head was against the pillows.
Lifting the covers back, I made room for him on the side of the bed that had already become his, then waited patiently while the sheets fanned out on top of us.
There was space between us, more than I would have liked, but clearly what Lincoln needed, so I forced myself to sit with it.
Five minutes, ten, and finally he said, “I miss Silas.”
“I know.”
“I don’t like that I miss him because it makes me feel like I’m nothing without him.” Lincoln swallowed hard, throat clicking. “I don’t like missing you.”
“I don’t mind missing you,” I whispered. “It reminds me of how much I love you.”
His weary eyes went wide, and I finally closed the gap between us, reaching out and tracing my fingers over the rise of his cheekbone. I shook my head, letting him know he didn’t have to say it back. He didn’t need to say anything back.
“I…” Lincoln pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, sucked in a sharp breath. “I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore. I thought I was one way when I had Silas, but now I don’t have him—”
“Yes, you do.”
“Not in the same way,” he said quickly. “And that’s fine. But I don’t have him the same way, and it’s making me question all the other things about myself.”
I thought about my brother then. About how forlorn Smith was over the same things and how much it hurt me to see him struggle with finding his own footing separate of us and of our last name.
“I think that’s just something that happens in life sometimes,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to say. “But I know that doesn’t make it easier to go through.”
Lincoln didn’t say anything.
“I felt the same way before I met you,” I whispered, leaning in a couple of inches but not too far, not too close. “Finn was the one who put me on that app, who wanted me to be different than I was.”
“A man who fucks for money,” Lincoln teased, smiling sadly.
“No lies detected.”
He leaned into my hand and I curled my fingers into his hair.
“Are you different?” he asked.
“Very, and it’s because of you, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m grateful for the things you’ve shown me about myself. For what I’ve learned being with you.”
“Tell me.” He breathed the words more than spoke them.
“I learned how good it feels to be on my knees for you,” I said, because it was the truth. “How amazing it feels to trust you enough to give that to you. But I’ve also learned how amazing I feel when you kneel for me.”
“I like it too,” he said. “I like the things I call you and the way it makes me feel to use those words no matter who is kneeling.”
I slid my fingers a little further into his hair, and Lincoln scooted closer, bringing our chests flush.
It brought my mouth toward his forehead, and I kissed his still sweaty skin.
The only thing between us were my pajama pants, which I wouldn’t have worn if I’d known he was going to come over, but didn’t think to take off before he’d arrived.
“I also like when it’s not either of those things, when it’s none of those words,” I told him, skating my fingers down his back, relishing the way he shivered in my arms. “I like just being with you, all of that aside.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he tipped his head back enough I could see his face.
His eyes were watery, but he wasn’t crying, and I shifted enough to take his face into my hands and bring our mouths together.
He let out a soft cry when I slipped my tongue into his mouth, and I kissed him slow and deep until the noise turned into something more like a needy kind of whimper.
There was probably a conversation that needed to be had about Lincoln’s insecurities around himself, but we talked just fine with our bodies. It was late, and we were both tired, and it was easier for us both this way.
And that was okay.
“You really love me?” he asked, breathing hard when I broke the kiss to make my way up the curve of his jaw with my hungry lips.
“I love you,” I told him again, drowning in the rightness of my confession. “I love your little fish and your indecision.”
He made a very unimpressed sound, and I brought my mouth back to his until the only sounds he made were gibberish.
I reached behind me, not willing to separate our mouths again, slapping my hand around the nightstand until I found a discarded bottle of lube.
I made a mess of my hand and the sheets trying to get my hand wet with it, but when I reached down between our bodies and speared two of my fingers into Lincoln’s body, his gasping moan was worth a thousand laundry bills.
“I love your sharp edges,” I said next, hooking his leg over my thigh so I could get closer and deeper. “I love your softness.”
Lincoln shook his head, and I shoved down my pajama pants, replacing my fingers with my cock.
Sinking into him felt a whole lot like coming home, and he shivered and trembled in my arms, gasping harder after every inch.
Once I was fully inside of him, I pumped my hips, thrusting deeper.
He made the most perfect sound I’d ever heard in my life, and I rolled him onto his back, adjusting his knee into the crook of my arm and pumping into him once more.
He threw his head back and moaned, and I buried my face against his neck and kissed him hard.
I wanted to fuck him hard, rut into him with abandon and let out three days’ worth of pent-up frustration, but I was nowhere near ready to walk away from how his body trembled beneath mine, so I went slow and easy with him.
Long and measured thrusts that punched the air out of his lungs until Lincoln was a sweaty mess, his cock hard and leaking between our stomachs.
“I love who you are right this second,” I promised, arousal burning hot at the base of my spine. “And I’ll love who you are tomorrow, and when you learn to love yourself, Lincoln…I’ll love you then too.”
He cried out, definitely loud enough to wake my brothers—and the neighbors—a searing splash of cum shooting against my chest as he came untouched.
I curled my hand over the top of his head and thrust into him, stare locked on the wash of pleasure on his face as he came, and that was all it took for me.
My hips slapped against the backs of his thighs, and the first shot of cum burst out of my cock like a firehose on full blast.
Burying my face into the sheets beside his, my entire body ached with the force of my orgasm, spilling into Lincoln’s body until my cum dripped down his sac. My orgasm was long finished before my cock softened, and I rolled us onto our sides so I didn’t have to pull out of him again.
Lincoln’s cheeks were flushed and streaked with tears, and I kissed both of them, not wanting him to say another word.
I understood how hard it was to not know yourself, to not trust yourself.
It had been a very long time since I’d had those feelings for myself, but I remembered how unmoored I’d felt…
all the days I’d spent questioning myself and my life.
I was grateful I’d come through it.
Grateful now that my brother had a friend like Lincoln, and they could see each other through it together.
“This is probably horrible timing, but my firm is hosting a party to celebrate me becoming partner. Would you come with me?”
“Yeah. Okay. Of course.”
“Not right now.”
Lincoln snorted, nodding his agreement. “That’s a relief because I don’t think I can meet your colleagues with your cum dripping out of my ass.”
I laughed harder, easing my softening dick out of him with a wince. “You are definitely going to meet them with my cum dripping out of your ass. Just not this second.”
Lincoln rolled onto his back and covered his eyes with his forearm, breathing hard.
“I feel so silly for coming over here like this,” he muttered, hiding his face from me. “It felt so dramatic and horrible when I wasn’t with you, but as soon as I you were here…”
He didn’t need to finish the thought because I agreed with it fully.
Everything was easier when Lincoln was around, and I was relatively confident that had to do with the being in love with him thing, but I wasn’t going to bring it up if he wasn’t ready to talk about his feelings on his own.
He’d already given me so much, I didn’t need three words out of his mouth that his body told me every day anyway.
“I’m glad you came home and found what you needed.”
He hummed, making a loose fist around his cock and giving a slow, overhanded stroke downward toward his thigh. His shoulders shook, and he turned onto his side, pressing a chapped kiss against my sternum.
“So am I, Daddy.” An amused exhale, a smile against my heart. “So am I.”