Chapter 12
Shiloh
I woke with an ache in my hip and rolled to my other side, but ow, just as uncomfortable. I squirmed around, plastic squeaking beneath me, until my brain came online and I realized the air mattress had gone flat.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Above me on the bed, Holden sighed and turned over. Ah, the soft, lovely bed I’d willingly given up. Silly Shiloh.
Not that I’d wish this on Holden. At least I could get up and go to the sofa. He might not like it when he discovered it in the morning, but I’d never get any sleep on the hard floor.
I unzipped the sleeping bag and crawled out. I slept naked, so I took a few minutes to find a pair of briefs and a T-shirt to pull on. Once dressed, I stood up and tiptoed toward the door.
Banshee perked up on the foot of the bed, huffing a breath at me and thumping her tail. I lifted my finger to my lips, as if the dog was going to understand the universal sign for be quiet.
“Shiloh?” Holden murmured, voice groggy. “Wha’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
He pushed himself up against the headboard and turned on the bedside lamp. That was the opposite of going back to sleep. “You’ve been tossing and turning,” he said. “The air mattress get low again?”
“Totally flat,” I said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Don’t apologize that my shitty mattress is letting us down,” he said. “We can’t keep going on like this, can we?”
My heart lurched. Was he about to tell me I needed to find other arrangements?
I’d been looking at rentals online, but between a deposit and first and last month’s rent, I’d be giving up every dollar I’d saved.
And a paranoid part of me was afraid Brick and Curtis would show up the moment I was on my own without any cash or protection.
They hadn’t found me, but they weren’t gone. I knew that much because anonymous users kept popping up on my cam site and making threats.
“Just get in the bed with me,” Holden said.
I froze, shocked. “What? But what if I touch you in my sleep or something?”
“I can zip myself into the sleeping bag, and we can put some pillows between us,” he said. “I should have just done that from the beginning, but…”
I hesitantly took a step toward the bed. “But it takes a lot of trust?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” Holden rolled out of the bed and gathered up the sleeping bag. “Logically, I do. With my heart, I do. It’s that my body is very distrusting. I once trusted my parents, even as they hurt me, and so my nervous system wiring doesn’t trust me. That’s the truth of it.”
“Are you sure this is okay, then?”
Holden set his jaw, a determined look taking over his expression. “I want it to be.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
He nodded. “I know, and you won’t. I feel safe with you. We’ve shared the same space for days.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. “Just tell me if I do anything wrong. Anything at all.”
He smiled faintly. “You always do everything right, Shy. You’re good for me. This is good for me. Letting someone closer.”
He seemed to mean it. If he’d only been trying to make me feel better, I might have insisted on the sofa. But Holden wanted this, and I couldn’t bring myself to deny him anything he wanted. Not when he asked for so little.
“Okay.”
Holden pulled down the blankets. “You take the side farther from the door. I need a quick exit, if you’re okay with that?”
“Sure.” I crawled into the bed, aware as I did that my tiny briefs gave Holden a good view of my ass cheeks.
I wiggled my ass playfully, because I could never resist flirting, and he laughed.
“Don’t tempt me right now,” he said.
I gazed over my shoulder. “Would anything I did really tempt you?”
He rolled out the sleeping bag on top of the comforter I’d just climbed under. “Everything about you tempts me, Shy. Believe me, the fact I don’t touch isn’t because I don’t want to.”
“Oh. I guess…I don’t really understand how it is for you.”
“I barely understand it, and I’ve been living with it for most of my life.”
Holden clicked off the lamp, and the bed shifted as he climbed into the sleeping bag and zipped it up. He put the pillow I’d been using between us.
Banshee wiggled up there too, and when I moved onto my side, a quiet growl rumbled from her throat.
“Whoa,” I muttered. “Someone’s protective.”
“Shh, Banshee,” Holden murmured. “It’s okay. Shiloh’s a good one.”
Banshee nuzzled in against his side, a more effective blockade than any pillow. He slipped a hand out of the sleeping bag to stroke her head, and I was officially jealous of a dog.
Holden sighed. “I do want touch. I get lonely. I hate that my trauma defines me like this.”
“It doesn’t,” I said quickly. “You’re so much more than this one thing.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. I hate that I can’t control it.”
“I bet.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, control freak, guilty as charged. So you can imagine how much it bothers me. I guess that’s why I’ve avoided really dealing with it.
That might not make much sense, but I found it so frustrating every time my body reacted outside of my control that I just didn’t even want to try. ”
“I can’t possibly understand what it’s like, but I understand what you’re saying. I wish I could help.”
“You already are. Just this, having you in my bed, is a big step.”
“As long as it’s not too much for you.”
“No, but…would you talk for a while? Just tell me about your life? I need to distract my mind so I can fall asleep.”
“Sure. Um. Well, when I was teaching class, the day before I came here, my best student was filling out a map, and she drew a little corncob in Nebraska, and I thought to myself, that’s where Holden lives. Never thought I’d be here, though.”
“Do you miss your students?”
“I really do,” I murmured. “When I lost my family, I was just a teenager. It was hard. They didn’t love me enough to accept me, so did they love me at all? I know that’s nothing compared to your childhood…”
“Still valid,” he murmured. “It’s not a competition.”
“Anyway, teaching those kids was kind of my replacement family.”
“And now you have us.”
His words startled me. His family had welcomed me so easily. But I was still just a guy crashing here for a few days, wasn’t I?
“You’re lucky to have your brothers,” I said. “I envy you all. I was an only child, and I’m not sure my parents even wanted kids, but…”
I continued rambling about my upbringing, my childhood friends, my favorite students until Holden’s even, steady breathing echoed between us.
I closed my eyes, and sleep came fast.
When I next woke, morning light was streaming through the window, and Holden was watching me with a content expression on his face.
“Sleep okay?” I asked.
“Mm. Woke a few times when I noticed you moving, but really, better than expected.”
He unzipped the sleeping bag enough to pet a wiggly Banshee. She was all happy doggy smiles and lolling tongue now. I guess she’d decided I wasn’t going to hurt her person.
Or maybe it was Holden’s anxiety she’d sensed, and now that it was gone, she was happy. If that was the case, I might be able to use her as a barometer of whether Holden was really okay. Because I wasn’t sure he’d tell me when he wasn’t.
I threw back the blankets, thinking a bathroom visit was in order, and Holden’s gaze dropped to my very obvious morning wood.
“Are you as horny as me?” I palmed my dick, and Holden stopped breathing. “I have an idea of something you might like, if you have time…?”
He licked his lips and glanced at the dog. “Yeah, let me take Banshee out real quick.”
“Don’t take too long, or I might have to start without you.”
Holden rushed across the room, making me laugh to myself. The man wanted me, no doubts there. After what he’d said last night about his need for control—and all my experience with him bossing me around on camera—I was pretty sure he’d love my idea.
I hit the bathroom, then dug through my duffel of cam supplies until I found the prostate massager with the remote control. I shucked the rest of my clothes, grabbed the lube, and positioned myself on the end of the bed so he’d see me in all my glory as he entered the room.
Holden slipped in, closing the door behind him. He took in my position on the bed, then glanced toward his laptop, which was positioned to catch my every move. “You’re not—”
“No,” I said. “This is just for us.”
He swallowed. “Okay. What did you have in mind?”
“Well, you’re the boss, Holden,” I said flirtatiously. “I found this toy, and there’s this remote, so you could control it, but only if you want.”
I peeked at him from under my lashes.
Holden crossed to me in two big strides and snatched the remote from the bed beside me. He studied it for a minute, then glanced at the massager.
“Do you need to prep?”
“Just some lube.”
He backed up, taking a seat in his office chair, while he watched me intently. “Do it.”
I lubed the end of the phallus-shaped shaft and leaned back, raising my feet to the edge of the bed and rolling my hips up so I could line it up with my entrance.
I worked with dildos and other toys enough that I could take them without prep.
Still, it was wide enough that when I pushed it inside, it stung a bit.
I hissed, going slowly, aware of how exposed I was to Holden. My rim stretched until it tightly gripped the toy, the thick shaft sliding slowly inside.
“You like that feeling?” Holden asked. “You’re stretched and full.”
I groaned, reaching for my half-hard dick. My erection had flagged a bit as I eased the toy inside me, but now it was begging for attention.
I wrapped my fingers around it, squeezing tight. “Love this feeling.”
“And if it was my dick inside you? Would you want that?”
My cock gave a throb of want. “Fuck yeah.”
“I bet you would. But you can’t have it today. You only get this.”
He clicked a button, and it pulsed inside me, rubbing my prostate.
I gasped at the sudden jolt. “Fuck!”
“Keep it quiet, or I might have to gag you, Shy. My brothers will hear everything.”