Chapter 13 #2
“That he cannae sleep without his supper and wee bath. Some comfort food and a soak sets him reet.”
I close my eyes at her butchering of Dair’s Highland heather and focus on what feels vital to discover. “Did he tell you what his was? His comfort food, I mean.”
Dair did.
The minute she says, “Stovies,” I remember my first visit to his place. I also get a sensory flashback, only not of him soothing me with salve. I can almost smell the savoury scent of Dair’s supper that evening.
Marilyn doesn’t need to read out a recipe for me. Any of my apps could tell me what to purchase. None of them can share what else she tells me. Her suggestions mean I can fill my basket with more than the ingredients for a last meal, and I’m pretty sure I thank her.
Much later, in the early hours of the morning, I make a mental note to thank her again.
I’ll need to for the way Dair reacts when he finds me waiting on his doorstep.
A bright-white streetlight shows his surprise bloom.
So does pleasure, and I love to see it. I’m less of a fan of the tiredness that streetlight also shows me, and I’d be lying if I said taking him straight to bed wasn’t right at the top of my wish list. I make myself hold up a carrier bag.
“Made you something to eat,” I say quietly while the rest of this street is sleeping.
The bag holds another offering Marilyn recommended. “And got you something for your bath.”
There’s no denying he’s delighted. And not just because I’ve brought him presents. “You’ve been waiting here for me?”
“Course I have.” I glance at the building someone else will own tomorrow. “Because I watched you pack up everything in your kitchen and bathroom this afternoon, didn’t I?”
Technically, he did that packing yesterday. I’ve lost track of time, apart from a constant nagging that ours will soon be over. My voice pitches lower with how much I wish that wasn’t the case.
“Couldn’t have you coming back here to nothing on your last night here, could I?” That’s an excuse. We both have to hear it. I hope he also hears how much I want him to disagree with my next suggestion. “I can just leave these with you.”
His refusal includes the word cannae, and if Marilyn was here, she’d echo him, I’m sure.
Tease me worse than any Heppel Ex, and I wouldn’t stop her.
She’s the reason I’m armed with these goodbye gifts as Dair wrestles his front door open one-handed.
His other hand threads with mine, not letting me go until we’re both inside a hallway where we’ve already shared a few shiny-eyed moments.
Tonight, it’s lined with packing boxes where we share another.
He unscrews the lid of a wide-mouth Thermos me and Marilyn debated over in a crowded supermarket. Dair looks up from the steaming meal it contains, his eyes bright for happier reasons than I’ve seen lately. “You made stovies for me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. To say thanks.”
“You’re thanking me? Why?”
I’ve struggled for words so often. Finding them for him is easy.
“For showing me how you see me.” I saw it on his lock screen.
On his face too, like right now, and my voice pitches even lower.
“Can’t promise the food will taste good.
I didn’t have the leftover roast Marilyn said it needed.
Had to improvise. Dunno if it will be anything like the real deal. ”
I don’t have to wait long to find out. He digs in, loading the fork I packed for him like he once packed teaspoons for me when my kitchen drawers were empty. Dair takes a first mouthful, stopping mid-chew, and my heart stutters like Kev’s van does on icy mornings. “I-is it okay?”
The groan he lets out spells yes, and so what if I wouldn’t recognise that word even if I saw it.
My heart purrs like Kitty. Purrs even harder when he feeds me a mouthful, and yeah, I will have to thank Marilyn again—it’s tasty.
And it’s as warming as the bath he lets me run for him once he finishes his supper.
In the bathroom where I first kissed him, I pass over my second goodbye gift. “Marilyn said this helped her to drop off faster when her brain was buzzing.”
Dair reads a label that I already got my phone to read out twice. “Bath salts with essential oils?”
I’m back to stuttering. “Y-yeah. The magnesium is meant to help with sleep. The lavender oil too.” I don’t mean to scratch my chest or to blurt, “You aren’t allergic, are you?
” Dair tracks that scratching movement, his lips pressed tight together, and I hope to fuck he isn’t holding in a laugh at me being this gone on him that I spent the evening crying over onions and checking labels for hive activators.
He shakes his head like he heard my inner worry. Then he nods and lets me take care of him like I want to.
I start by slipping off his fleece jacket and the layers he wears underneath it until he’s bare-chested.
His hair glints, and not only on his head.
Embers glow in the trail bisecting his belly, heading southward.
One of my knuckles heads south too, following that path, and Dair shudders. He also grabs my hand when I pull back.
“Keep going,” he tells me, and I could undress him some more.
It would be easy, no need to even loosen a belt or pop a fly button.
A single tug on a drawstring and his trousers would puddle at his ankles, but I can’t stop touching that thin line of dark-red hair.
This time, I follow a path north like he will soon, and maybe there’s something to be said for map tattoos like Adey’s.
At least I’d know exactly where to find him on that island if work ever took me that far from London.
For now, I touch him and discover I’m greedy for more than ice cream—one knuckle isn’t enough skin-to-skin contact for me. Nor for him. He grabs my free hand, and just like that, both of my palms are flat against his chest.
I like how the planes of his pecs feel. Like even more how the pink points of his nips tighten at my touch.
What I like best is the sound he lets out.
It’s a repeat of the groan I last heard in his kitchen, and so what if I left school without a certificate to my name.
I study Dair so fucking hard, fully focused on his reactions, and I got no problem reading this body language.
Each brush of my thumbs provokes another of those hungry noises, and pinching increases his volume.
I sit on the side of the bath, pull him between my spread legs, and add my mouth to this farewell party.
His next shudder comes with his nails digging into my shoulders. Dair tells me without words that he likes it sharp and spicy, and I wish to fuck we’d met so much sooner.
I’d pay him this kind of attention forever. All I’ve got is tonight, so I give him what he wants until his knees buckle.
Only for a moment.
Dair regroups to tug me upright. His hands find my belt buckle like he thinks what made me stalk his doorstep was a last chance to get my dick inside him. The scent of lavender is a clue this means more than any of the one-and-dones I used to walk away from before they could get to know me.
I didn’t want any of those hookups to discover which part of me was shattered. Tonight, I’m with someone special who already knows, and who sees more than my broken pieces. He looks at me like I’m something special as well.
If there’s a cure for me liking that so much, I don’t want it. I’m hardwired to want his brand of caring. And I’ve been trained by Kev to give it.
I must have been. I test the temperature of the bathwater, sounding as gritty as he always sounds about me. “Yeah, that’s perfect.” That’s how Dair feels to me. “Get in before it gets cold.”
He doesn’t. He kisses me instead and takes his time about it. His mouth opens, slick like I hope the water will feel. Soft too until he kisses harder.
Steam rises. So does the lavender scent. It thickens the air and breathing gets tough.
I can’t blame that on any allergic reaction. It’s caused by Dair breaking off to lose the last of his clothing.
He kicks out of scrub trousers, socks, and his undies, then steps into the tub, and I gotta say, his dick doesn’t look one bit sleepy. His gaze tells a different story as Dair extends a hand, inviting me to join him.
Doing that would flood this bathroom. Would also mean hunting down a mop and bucket in belongings that are already packed and waiting for tomorrow. I’m not about to make more work for him on his final night here, so I sit on the side of the tub instead of setting off a tidal wave of water.
The first time I took this spot, we barely knew each other. He still kissed me all better with aloe vera. That moment must be on his mind for him to murmur, “I gave you antihistamine, and you took it.”
I nod and swirl one hand in the still-running water, testing the temperature again. Oil sheens the surface. Something else sheens his eyes and he sounds worried. “Vincent, I could have given you anything.”
“But you didn’t. Besides, I saw the box.” There was no mistaking those bees and pollen illustrations. And there’s no mistaking how much he means this.
“Don’t do that when I’m gone.” He reaches for the taps and stops the water flowing. It’s suddenly so much quieter. He’s never sounded more determined. “Don’t trust anyone you just met. Or your phone. Not when it comes to medications. Send me a pic of the label.”
So he can read it for me.
“Promise me, Vincent.”
I nod, and Dair nods back firmly. He also sinks back into steaming water.
His cock breaks the milky surface. He holds it higher.
Strokes himself once, twice, ripples spreading.
A third time, and I’m done with only watching.
Done too with caring if me taking over ends up splashy.
My shirt is damp already, and it gets even wetter after I lean over the side of the bath to take over his hand job.
His dick is as warm as the water. Silk slides over the kind of steel my own cock is in a rush to catch up with. His is a good fit for my hand. Perfect, really. My thumb catches someplace he likes, and his breath hitches.
Just like that, I’m ruined for hookups. He confirms it by sinking even lower, like he knows I’d never let him go under.
Of course, I won’t. I hook an arm underneath him and hoist him up so his dick breaks the surface, and I blow him.
My tongue finds the same place that made his breath catch, and water does splash. Dair slings a wet leg over the side of the bath, his hips lifting even higher in a clear sign I don’t need an app to dictate for me.
He wants more than the head of his dick in my mouth.
I take a deep breath, steam curling around us like what pulled me here this evening. I wouldn’t recognise the word attraction if it was written. Man, do I ever feel it. And I like it.
Dair likes my mouth on him. He tells me so by giving up another of those deep groans, and me dipping the tip of my tongue into his slit gets me a repeat.
His hips rise even higher. That tells me to keep going.
So does the clunk of his head against cast iron and enamel, so I take a second deep breath and take him deeper, even if it might drown me.
The movement of my own hand up and down his shaft splashes my face. I can’t care. Or stop, not even when his groans stop. This silence only broken by my own splashing tells me he’s holding his breath. His gaze is locked on what I’m doing to him, darker than ever. Gorgeous.
Don’t ask me why I wink.
Or why he laughs.
We’re both surprised, I think. He laughs again, gets a mouthful of bath-salted water, and I don’t know how I keep from choking at the look on his face.
Then I do choke, because he squirms, and I say a silent thanks to my genetics and for every sofa I ever had to carry.
The muscles they built mean I’m more than strong enough to stop his slip-sliding.
I take all his weight, more water splashing, my head bobbing faster, and like before, his fingers find my shoulders. My biceps. The back of my neck.
His nails dig in again, but he can go ahead and hold on to me as tight as he likes.
I’m going nowhere until he gets at least one happy ending.