Chapter 16 #2
I leaned down and kissed him, slower than before, both hands cupping his face.
He made a soft sound against my mouth, and his other hand came up to my ribs, trailing along the lines of muscle there, learning them with his fingertips the way he learned things—carefully, thoroughly, like he planned to know them for a long time.
I eased him back onto the bed and came down over him, settling my weight on my forearms, and kissed him until we were both breathing hard. His hands moved over my back, my shoulders, into my hair, and I felt him everywhere, warm and solid and entirely willing.
I kissed down his jaw. His throat. The jut of his collarbone. He tilted his head back, and I felt his pulse against my lips, fast and steady, and I stayed there for a moment, just listening to it, because it meant he was here and he was mine, and I didn’t want to take that for granted.
“Daddy,” he said, hearing that come out of his mouth did something to me.
“I’ve got you,” I said against his skin. “I’ve got you.”
His breath shuddered out.
I took my time. That was the point of tonight—to take my time, to do this without the shadow of everything else falling across it.
I worked my way down his chest with my mouth, feeling him respond under me.
Taking note of every sound and every gasp as the small catches in his breath told me what he liked.
I paid attention to the way his hands tightened in my hair when I found a spot worth returning to.
I learned him the way I’d wanted to since the first morning at the cabin.
I got his jeans off, and mine followed, and then it was just us in the low lamplight with nothing between us and no reason to rush.
I pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist. His forearm.
The inside of his elbow. I kissed my way down his stomach and felt his muscles tighten under my lips and heard the small sharp breath he pulled in.
I mapped him slowly, hands and mouth, unhurried, until he was pulling in unsteady breaths and his fingers had gone from loose in my hair to holding on tight.
I worked my way back up his body, kissing his ribs, his chest, his throat, and when I reached his mouth, he kissed me back with both hands cradling my face, and it was the most deliberate thing, the most chosen thing, and I felt it everywhere.
I reached for the nightstand and grabbed a condom and some lube that I’d placed there earlier today.
It didn’t take long to get us both ready, and then I settled over him again.
He was watching me with those steady hazel eyes that had looked at me without flinching since a basement, since a woodshed, since a car chase down a Texas highway, and were looking at me the same way now.
“Still with me?” I asked.
“Always,” he said.
I pressed my forehead to his for a moment, just breathing, and then I began to move.
Slow. Intentional. Every movement was measured and deliberate because this mattered, and I wanted him to feel that it mattered.
His breath hitched, his hands gripped my shoulders, and I kept the pace slow.
I watched his face because it told me everything I needed to know, and what it told me now was that he was fully here, not managing but present and wanting.
“You feel—” He stopped. Tried again. “Fuck.”
“I know, baby boy,” I said, and I did. I felt it too, the specific gravity of this, the way it was different from anything before it.
His legs wrapped around me, pulling me closer, urging me on, and I gave him more—deeper, still measured but building now, the slow burn becoming something with more heat to it.
He arched under me and said my name again, just my name, and I dropped my head to his shoulder and gave myself over to it, to him, to the thing that had been building since long before either of us had named it.
I shifted my angle and heard him gasp, felt his whole body respond, and I focused there, attentive and thorough, watching him come apart under my hands in the best possible way.
He was beautiful like this, his face open in a way I knew he didn’t show the world.
He showed it to me. I was the one he let see it.
“Don’t stop,” he breathed. “Please don’t stop.”
I didn’t stop.
I reached between us and wrapped my hand around his cock and stroked him in rhythm with my movements, and felt him go taut beneath me, every muscle drawn tight, suspended for one long breathless moment.
“Daddy—”
And then he came apart, and I held him through it, kept moving, kept watching his face. But it was the sounds he made as he came undone that pulled me over the edge after him, my own release crashing through me in long waves while his arms wrapped around my back and held on.
I came down over him slowly, shifting my weight to the side so I wasn’t crushing him, and gathered him against my chest. His heart was hammering against mine. Both of us were breathing like we’d been running.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
His hand moved slowly up and down my arm—not going anywhere, just present, just touching. Outside, somewhere in the city, a car horn sounded and faded. The candle in the other room had probably burned itself out by now. I didn’t care about any of it.
“Jackson,” he said finally, quiet against my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
A pause. “I’m really glad you asked me to dinner.”
A laugh moved through my chest before I could decide whether to let it. I pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”