20. Anders
TWENTY
ANDERS
Exhaling a ragged breath, Henry collapses forward onto my chest, his palms only stopping his fall a second before his cheek slaps into my pec.
“Oh my god,” he pants, his chest heaving up and down, his sweat-damp skin slipping over mine.
“I love you,” I rasp, wrapping my arm across his back and kissing the top of his head.
He doesn’t say it back, and even though I long to hear the words from his lips, I understand why he’s not ready yet.
For the last three days, I’ve done my best to stop myself from fighting my dominant urges. Henry seems to have an uncanny knack for knowing when I’m holding back and calling me on it.
Every time he’s asked what I really want, I’ve told him the unsanitized truth, and instead of being appalled, he’s been willing and excited.
In our time apart, I’ve done my best to try to understand my needs.
When I broke down what I wanted from Henry, I was shocked to realize that it wasn’t preplanned scenes or total submission.
What I really want and need is just him.
I want him to be happy and healthy and mine. I still want to boss him around, demand he obey my rules, and be a part of every millisecond of his life, but for the first time in years, those things don’t feel terrifying.
A decade of believing that I’m capable of abusing my power over someone hasn’t been forgotten in the face of learning that Gabe lied all those years ago.
But the guilt I’ve been stifling my needs beneath has loosened enough for me to consider my desires and analyze what their impact on Henry would be.
What I’ve realized is that everything is about him.
Henry has, in such a short span of time, become the center of my universe.
I want to be there for him, from helping him get dressed to showering with him.
I want to cook breakfast with him and make him a brown bag lunch.
I want to drive him to work and send him teasing text messages all day.
I want to be waiting for him at the end of his day and eat him for dessert after dinner.
I want to fall asleep with him and know that I get to do it all again the next day.
I still want to be in charge. I want to watch him struggle to follow my rules and make him beg me to let him come when I’m not with him. I want to tell him what to do and know that he’s happy to let me set the pace and lead.
But above everything else, I want him to be happy, and if something I want or need isn’t something he wants or needs, I know that it won’t be something I want or need anymore.
He’s young and innocent, and there’s so much about him that I haven’t had a chance to learn yet, but we have time because he’s mine and he’s not going anywhere.
Now that I’ve realized that all I need is him, I need to figure out what he needs and how I can be that for him.
Our heaving chests and racing hearts slowly settle, but with my arms wrapped tightly around his back, he doesn’t try to move.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, my lips pressed to the top of his head.
“Perfect,” he says with a contented sigh.
“We should get cleaned up.”
“Okay,” he agrees, but doesn’t attempt to move.
In the end we fall asleep, sticky and messy and perfectly content.
Two weeks later
“I should go home, I haven’t been to my apartment in days,” Henry whines, leaning into my lips as I press hot kisses against his throat.
“We’re going home,” I whisper into his skin.
“We’re going to your place.”
“Our place,” I correct, scraping my teeth over his fluttering pulse.
“Your place. My place is above the garage.”
“Your place is with me. You live with me now,” I growl, not quite making it an order, even though that’s how I want it to sound.
“Anders.” He chuckles sweetly.
“Me and the guys will move all your stuff while you’re at work tomorrow.”
“What?” he squeaks, pushing at my chest and dragging himself away from my touch.
“I want you here. You live here now; this is where you want to be.”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” he asks boldly.
In the weeks since we met, Henry has gotten braver, more confident, and sometimes even a little bratty, especially when I refuse to let him come.
Most of the time he can’t stop himself, but I enjoy his moments of attitude when he snarls and hisses like an angry kitten when I deny him what he wants.
Before Henry, I’d have considered myself a pretty stern Dom.
When it comes to my boy, I’m a pushover, and he knows it.
That’s not to say that he’s disobedient—he isn’t.
Despite my fears, Henry adores my obsessive control. He enjoys being doted on and coddled.
Since the day of Danny and Parker’s wedding, I’ve spent every moment getting to know the man I love. We’ve talked about our pasts, his time in foster care, his fears of rejection and how scared he is that he could become a little too dependent on my urge to take care of him.
At the start it was hard for me to understand why my needs didn’t scare him, but now that we’ve had a little more time to get to know each other, I understand why my controlling nature appeals to him.
It’s because he grew up without a family.
He moved from house to house, but he never had a home until he moved to Bozeman for college.
Even then, he never gave himself the chance to find friends or a partner.
He was alone for so many years that instead of my desire to be entrenched in every aspect of his life feeling suffocating, he thrives beneath my attention. The more I demand of him, the more he gives, and so far, neither of us has found the other’s desires too much.
“Which would you prefer?” I ask, smirking at him.
His gaze goes contemplative. “Why do you want me to move in with you?
“You already know the answer to that, but I’ll tell you again if you need to hear it.
I want you to move in with me because your world can’t start and end with us if some of you is still clinging to a separate life.
I want all of you and you want to give me all of you, and secretly, you want to belong to me so fully that everything you have is entwined with everything I have.
Literally. I want your clothes in my closet, your soap in my shower, your sheets on our bed.
I want everything, and until I have every inch, every molecule of you, it won’t ever be enough. ”
“And how do you know that I want to give you all of me?” he asks.
Scanning his face, I search for any hint of uncertainty, but I don’t find any. He’s not begging me to convince him that this is what he wants. He just likes it when I remind him how perfect we are for each other.
“I know because you wait for me to pick your clothes in the morning. I know because when I’m at work you text me the moment you open your eyes, just to give me a chance to ask you what you’re having for breakfast and if you’re wearing the underwear I like.
I know that you want to give me every inch of you, because even when I know exactly what your plans are for the day, you still call me to tell me what you’re doing.
I know because even though you can rarely stop yourself from coming when you’re excited, you still beg me to give you permission.
I know that you want to give me all of you, because you gave me you the first time we met and even when I hurt you.
Even when I was an asshole, you never took you back.
” Breathing fast, I cup his cheek and lean in until our foreheads are rested together.
“And the main reason I know that you live here with me now, is because even though I’ve never heard you say the words, I know that you love me, just as much as I love you. ”
Blinking slowly, Henry looks up at me from beneath thick lashes as his tongue dips out of his mouth and runs a glistening path over his full bottom lip. The silence of his unsaid words stretches, lingering until the very air between us seems to thicken.
“You’re right,” he whispers. “I was so scared the day we met. You were beautiful and older and so out of my league. But I think I slid my heart into your pocket right there in the diner, and you’ve had it ever since.
I need you so much, Anders. I need you to care about me.
I need you to worry and coddle and smother me, because I didn’t know that one person could be the center of another person’s world, but now that I do, I know I want to be your everything. ”
“You are my everything,” I say on a shaky exhale.
“Good.” He chuckles softly. “Because I love you, Anders. I love everything about you, and I always have.”