Chapter 16 #2
Leo kissed him again. Harder. Dawson’s hands pushed Leo’s jacket off his shoulders, and it hit the floor. Leo got both hands on Dawson’s chest and walked him backward out of the kitchen, past the table, toward the couch. Dawson sat and pulled Leo down into his lap, and Leo went.
Leo pushed Dawson’s shirt up, and Dawson pulled it the rest of the way off.
The view of his broad shoulders, thick through the chest, dark hair tapering down his stomach would never get old.
Leo’s hands followed his eyes. Down Dawson’s sternum, across his ribs, the line of dark hair below his navel.
Dawson’s stomach tensed under his fingers and his breath came out slow, and Leo felt the control it was costing him to hold still.
“Your turn,” Dawson said.
Leo pulled his shirt off. Dawson’s hands went to his ribs, his waist, up the center of his chest. Rough palms, every callus sharp against Leo’s skin.
Dawson’s eyes followed his hands, taking his time, and Leo held still and let himself be studied because Dawson touching him like this, careful and thorough and mapping, was worth the patience.
“Jesus, Leo.” Dawson’s voice had dropped, rough and low, and his hands had stopped moving. He was staring at Leo’s chest, his stomach, the line of his hips above his waistband, and the naked want on his face made Leo’s pulse hammer.
“You can touch me.”
Dawson’s hands were on him before the sentence was finished. Leo’s hips dropped against Dawson’s, and they both went still, foreheads together, breathing hard.
“This okay?” Leo asked.
“Don’t stop.”
Leo rolled his hips. Dawson’s grip tightened on his waist, his head tipped back against the couch, and the sound he made, low and unguarded and surprised, cracked something open in Leo that he wasn’t getting back.
Leo’s fingers found Dawson’s belt. Got it open.
Dawson sucked in a breath when Leo’s knuckles brushed below his navel, and his hips jerked up before he could stop them.
Leo wrapped a hand around Dawson’s cock, and Dawson’s eyes went half-shut, jaw slack, a sound pulling out of his throat that Leo wanted to chase with his mouth.
Dawson reached for him. Got Leo’s belt open with hands that knew what they were doing, shoved his waistband down, and wrapped his hand around Leo’s shaft. Leo’s hips bucked, and a groan tore out of him that he didn’t recognize as his own voice.
“Look at me,” Dawson said.
Leo opened his eyes. Dawson was watching him, dark-eyed, jaw set, his hand moving in a slow stroke that made Leo’s thighs shake. The calluses on his palm dragged against sensitive skin, and Leo’s breath fractured.
“Harder,” Leo managed.
Dawson gave him exactly what he wanted. Leo dropped his forehead against Dawson’s neck and rolled his hips into Dawson’s fist, and Dawson’s free hand came up to grip the back of his head and hold him there.
Leo could feel Dawson’s cock pressed against his wrist, hot and hard, and he adjusted his grip.
Dawson’s breath caught and his hips stuttered up.
They found a rhythm. Not coordinated, not graceful. Leo’s knees kept slipping on the corduroy. The angle was wrong for both of them, and neither of them cared.
“Right there,” Leo said against his ear. “Just like that, don’t change anything.”
Dawson made a sound against his throat, raw and low, and his grip tightened. Leo’s whole body shuddered.
“Fuck, Dawson. I’m close.”
Dawson’s mouth found the spot below his ear and his thumb did something on the upstroke that whited out Leo’s vision. Leo gripped the back of the couch with his free hand, pressed into Dawson’s fist, and stopped being able to form sentences.
Dawson came first. His whole body went rigid under Leo, his hand stilling, his cock pulsing in Leo’s grip.
The sound he made was wrecked, barely a breath, and his forehead dropped against Leo’s shoulder.
Leo stroked him through it, felt every shudder, and the sight of Dawson coming apart under his hands was enough.
He pressed into Dawson’s grip and followed, Dawson’s name broken apart in his mouth.
Quiet.
Leo stayed where he was. Dawson’s hand moved slowly from his waist to shoulder blade and then back down again. The couch cushion was wrecked. Neither of them moved.
“Okay?” Leo asked.
Dawson pressed his mouth to Leo’s shoulder. Held it there. Then: “Yeah.”
Leo eased back enough to see him. Dawson’s eyes were open, soft in a way that was new. Leo touched his jaw, and Dawson turned into it, and that one gesture, the lean, the trust of it, hit Leo harder than anything that had come before.
He climbed off Dawson’s lap and went down the hall for a towel.
When he came back, Dawson was still on the couch, head tipped back, one arm along the backrest, looking at the ceiling with an expression Leo couldn’t read.
Not regret. Closer to disbelief, processed through a man who didn’t let himself be surprised.
They cleaned up. Leo pulled his shirt back on and sat next to Dawson, their shoulders touching. Dawson’s hand found his knee.
“You hungry?” Leo asked.
“I could eat.”
“I’ll cook.”
He went to the kitchen and started pulling containers from the fridge.
Chicken, peppers, the rice he’d made yesterday.
Behind him, Dawson stretched out on the couch and picked up the crime thriller Leo had borrowed from the library because Dawson had mentioned it two weeks ago.
He didn’t comment on it. He opened it to where the receipt Leo had used as a bookmark held his place and started reading.
He hadn’t called Phil in over a week. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, he’d just stopped pestering his agent.
One morning after practice, he’d scrolled past Phil’s number, and the next morning, he’d done it again, and the daily check-in he’d kept up since August had gone quiet without him noticing.
He noticed now, standing in his kitchen with peppers in the pan and Dawson turning pages behind him.
His phone lit up on the counter. Mom.
Leo looked at the screen. Looked at Dawson on his couch with his boots off and a book in his hands. Looked back at the screen.
He let it ring out. Whatever his mother wanted, it could wait. Right now, he was savoring the first bit of real normalcy he’d ever felt. This was the life he wanted, one where his boyfriend was relaxed in his space while Leo cooked for them.