Chapter 13 #5
And Connor gasped, biting back a moan as he tried to find Nate’s lips again, the slide of his fist over their cocks too slow.
“I got you,” Nate said, his voice tight and hitched. “You got me so pent up, I could come right now. Think you could come for me?”
Could he–
The sound Connor made was a cross between a gasp, a moan, and a laugh–a hysterical little sound he might otherwise have done anything to keep a secret from Nate. But then he thought, to hell with it.
Let Nate hear him.
No, he wanted Nate to hear him, every little breathy sound he made. And Nate was far from silent, throaty groans that rumbled in his chest, his voice catching on the edge of his breaths just the same as Connor’s.
“Yeah,” Connor managed, forehead pressed to Nate’s, his hand joining his, fingernails scraping over the back of his hand with each stroke, each pump, each slide of fists over swollen, weeping cocks. “Fuck, Nate. Nate–”
It was the closest he could manage to a warning before he came with a shudder, painting Nate’s stomach with three streaks of pearly white between them.
Over their hands, too, he realized, smeared into their skin as Nate stroked up and finished right behind him, head thrown back against the sheets as he rode it out.
And even when it was over, his eyes didn’t open, and Connor didn’t move from where he straddled him. All was silent but for the sound of their breathing, heavy panting that slowed into a background stillness.
His thighs quaked under the strain of trying to hold himself up, straddling Nate in this position. Connor let himself sink down, all but laying flush atop him as his cheek found Nate’s chest.
They were both fully soiled now, covered in come and sweat, both in terrible need of a shower. And they would–just not now.
Now, Connor only wanted to feel the warmth and sturdiness of Nate beneath him. More than that, he didn’t want to move. If he did, then perhaps whatever spell had come over them might be broken, and they’d be forced to contend with their impossible reality.
Nate’s arm twitched, then he was the one to move–not breaking the spell, but to rest his hand against the small of Connor’s back. Asking a question he couldn’t possibly answer, so instead Connor didn’t move. He stayed as still as he could manage.
But Nate wasn’t still. Beneath Connor, he shifted again, but not to push him off. Connor felt his hair rustling, felt Nate’s lips against his temple.
He was kissing his hair.
But Connor still didn’t move. He closed his eyes, felt the rise and fall of Nate’s chest against his cheek with each breath. Maybe he’d be able to hear his heartbeat if he tried, if he quieted his own breathing and surrendered to the moment.
Did he have any right to that?
Soft. That’s what Nate was. Soft and tender and rounded where there should have been hard, brutalist edges.
And Connor had never had anything so soft, never thought anything like this might possibly be his.
He, who came from bitter cold and harsh salt and weathered callouses, who arrived to unyielding hierarchies and hard lines and cruel expectations…
To think this could be his would have been ridiculous. But here he was–and Connor knew he’d be damned to give Nate up for anything.
When he was eighteen and laying next to Dawson for the first time, just like this, Connor had known there wasn’t a lot he wouldn’t do for that man. And pressed so close to Nate now, he found himself feeling that again.
But this was different. Connor was almost a decade older now, a decade of experiences behind him. Nothing this good could be had without a cost. But whatever it cost him, he’d pay it.
Anything to keep this man.
He shifted atop Nate, pressing a kiss to his collarbone, then his jaw. But when he pulled back, there was only that same nervous expression Nate had worn the last time they’d found themselves in bed together.
Like he was expecting Connor to get up and leave.
A strange elephant in the bed with them, one that was only there because of the way he'd practically fled that first night.
“We’re both gross,” was what he said, a coy smile playing at his lips.
“Yeah,” Nate answered, finding an uncertain grin of his own. “Pretty gross.”
“You want to…” Connor's voice trailed off, tracing along the soft warmth of Nate's jaw with the tips of his fingers. “Shower? Clean up, come back here…”
“Come back here?”
“Yeah. You could sleep over, if you wanted.”
There was a long moment where neither of them spoke, Connor hardly able to believe he'd just offered that, and Nate seemingly in disbelief, like he expected him to just take it back.
But he didn't. He meant it.
And slowly, Nate's grin gained a bit more confidence.
“You really want me to.”
“Wouldn't offer if I didn't,” Connor said decisively. And he rolled off Nate, sitting up before offering him his hand. “Shower with me?”
And Nate took his hand with little hesitation, sitting up, his expression gone soft.
“Yeah, I'd love to.”
Maybe Connor mirrored him. But he didn't wonder for long before tugging Nate up with him, the two making their way into his tiny bathroom for a cramped–but close–shower.