Chapter 7 #2
He grasped my elbows. The room tilted when he rolled us over and draped himself on top of me, all warm, naked skin. “Guess you are,” he said with a grin. “One little nudge, and I’ve got you on your back. I like it.”
I got both hands into his hair and kissed him—hard and deep, pressed one thigh up against the line of his cock until he was gasping into my mouth. I pulled back for a smile, embarrassingly short of breath. “Might be on my back, but I’m still setting the pace.”
“Control freak.” He sounded warm, fond.
“Problem?” I wrapped my arms around him, my hands mapping the curves and planes of his back, the swell of his arse. God, he was beautiful. And I no longer had to pretend I didn’t notice.
“No problem at all. Nothing I didn’t already know.” His breath stuttered when I cupped his arse and pulled him down. Our cocks aligned, slid together when he moved against me—a hint too dry but real, perfect. Every sound he made sent sparks shooting up my spine.
He curved down for a kiss, and I opened for him, lost in the sweet gravity of this moment. Kieran. Pressed close, his bare skin gleaming in the low light. It was a fantasy that I’d mostly denied myself because it had felt like a dangerously slippery slope. Now I could drink my fill.
I grabbed his shoulders and flipped us over. He laughed a little as he landed on his back, eyes happy, everything about him bright and immediate. Another kiss, his teeth tugging on my bottom lip before he released it.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but…” I shaped the words against the curve of his jaw. “I believe I promised you an orgasm?”
“Ah, yes.” His nails dug into my back, voice a tad rough. “Though I’d like to think of it as the apex of a coordinated neuromuscular crescendo.”
Is that a line you’ve used with others? Didn’t matter—he hadn’t loved them. So I slid down his body, asking instead, “Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?” I followed it up with a gentle bite to his hip bone.
He took a moment to answer, gaze heavy on me. “You act like that’s news.”
“Nope. But let’s see if I can make you shut up.” With that, I bent my head and licked a flickering stripe along the full length of his cock. He jolted, and I flattened his hips to the mattress before swallowing him all the way down. His breath stuttered on a broken moan. Yes.
I pulled off just long enough to study how his eyes had slammed shut, head thrown back and brow knitted—open, vulnerable.
My silly heart wanted to hold onto that image, wanted him to forget about anyone else who’d ever touched him before.
When he slit his lids open for a glittering look at me, I sank back down.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, a half-shaped sound. “Ash.”
“Not tonight,” I told him and dipped my head again.
Like restoring a piece of furniture—I strove to learn its every curve and angle, to find its tiny nicks and bumps and imperfections.
It was the same way I now catalogued each detail of him, every ragged exhalation and twitch of muscle, the warm musk of arousal.
How he said my name when I flattened my tongue against the underside of his cock, how his voice cracked when I nudged a finger between his arse cheeks.
I let out a low hum. I’ve got you. Soft rustle of sheets, the quiet room spinning around us, a universe inside my chest. My own arousal tugged at the edge of my vision like a feedback loop, fed by his pleasure.
His thighs tensed, at odds with his light hold on my hair. My beautiful, considerate boy. Mine. And God—he was.
I raised my head and found him watching me, his intense focus tinged with the same kind of wonder I felt. “I love you,” he said, like a prayer and a promise. And I believed him.
My smile had been a decade coming—like the slow surge of a wave that swept me up. “I know,” I said.
He laughed softly, so very bright in the dim room.
The sound tapered off into a moan when I took him back in, fingers splayed to catch each flex and shift of his stomach muscles.
I could tell he was close by how his legs tensed around me, hips moving in tiny, helpless twitches, so I pressed him even deeper into the mattress for another slow, deliberate pass.
His back arched off the bed, voice voice scraped raw as he gasped my name. “Ashby, Ash, fuck.”
A warning, maybe, and I pulled back just enough that I wouldn’t choke, my hand wrapped around the base of his cock for a couple of final twists.
He fell apart in seconds, unravelling under my touch like a knot tugged loose.
Fuck, he was a masterpiece. His taste warm and a hint salty on my tongue, not exactly pleasant—real, though.
Real. I shoved a hand between my thighs to hold off from following him right over the edge, let him ride it out, my chest hot, my heart still thudding heavily even as he caught his breath.
Slowly, I moved up his body—lips catching on the coarse trail of hair starting below his navel, nose brushing over a nipple. He tightened his hold on my hair to tug me up into a hot, messy kiss, sharing his taste.
“Jesus, Ash,” he mumbled, words caught in the space between one kiss and the next. “That was—I… Wow.”
“Did I blow your mind?” I asked, half-laughing, couldn’t stop myself from grinding down against his thigh. White sparks shot through my veins.
He blinked up at me with a little smile, face flushed, hair stuck to his forehead. “Sorry, what? My brain’s still offline.”
“That’s all right, babe.” I sat up, thighs bracketing him in as I finally, finally got a hand around myself. “You just lie there and look pretty.”
“Dream on.” He reached for me, thumb brushing across the head of my cock. Oh, bloody hell. I was trembling already, pleasure coiling tight, years of hopeless desire rushing out.
“Kieran,” I started, not even sure what I was trying to tell him.
“Yeah,” he said as though I’d asked a question. His gaze slid down my body and back up. “Show me what you like?”
“I like you,” I said, which—cheesy. True, though, and his mouth curved up into a fond, sweet curve.
“You love me.” It held a teasing lilt, and then he wrapped a hand around me, his grip sure and steady. Every sensation sharpened.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I managed, our banter as familiar as breathing. Still us, just more.
“Speaking of…” He twisted his wrist. “I want you to fuck me.”
My head was a galaxy, new stars flaring, exploding into blinding bursts of light. Sweet surrender as my orgasm slammed through me and left me gasping, folding into the crook of his neck as he held me through it.
For maybe the first time in a decade, my mind went truly quiet.
“What did it?” Kieran asked much later, slightly muffled around the spare toothbrush I’d found for him. The glimmer of my neighbours’ light show, softened by the frosted bathroom window, danced across his features.
“What did what?” I slung an arm around his bare waist, and he leaned into me, easy as breathing.
“What convinced you I was for real?”
“It wasn’t just one single thing. More a combination of stuff.
” I leaned past him to spit and rinse before I continued.
“All of it, I guess. You being you. Perfectly happy to give up a big opportunity for me, and I could tell that you meant it. How Dom and Ezra didn’t seem surprised at all—and that you told them and Jude, just like that. ”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He sounded genuinely confused. “I mean, even if you’d decided you were too much of a wuss to give us a chance—”
“A wuss?” I cut in, and he turned his head for a gleaming smile.
“A scaredy cat. A tottering chicken. A certified wimp. Need I go on?”
“I had legitimate concerns,” I began, only for him to make clucking noises. Idiot. God, I loved him. Didn’t stop me from going for the ticklish spot just below his ribs.
“Anyway,” he said once he stopped laughing, sagged against the sink, a tad out of breath. “Point is that even if you had decided I’m not worth the risk—well, I love you. Why hide it?”
“You’re talking to someone who’s done just that for a decade,” I reminded him.
Everything about him went soft. “Yeah,” he said, drawing me in. “But not anymore.”
“Not anymore,” I agreed, throat a little tight with happiness.
I let him fold me up, relaxing into the circle of his arms. Just breathing for a minute.
“I think,” I said then, “the final piece—like, what made me kiss you? It was exactly that—realising you weren’t about to hide this.
Like, when we’re with our families tomorrow, I know you won’t hesitate for a second to kiss me in front of them. ”
“I won’t.” He paused, a sudden grin shining through his voice. “So it wasn’t my smokin’ body, then?”
I swallowed my chuckle. “Ah, no. Matter of fact, it was your modesty that won me over.”
“Dom will be so disappointed.”
“Dom?”
“Said I should throw you down and have my—and I quote—‘sexy way’ with you. He seemed sure that’d do it.”
Yeah, that sounded like Dom. I smiled against the corner of Kieran’s mouth. “Not quite how this went down, is it? More the other way around.”
“No complaints.” He caught my mouth for a gentle kiss, and for a long, lazy moment, we stood like that—pressed together from head to toe, naked, the golden light of my, of our Christmas tree twinkling through the open door.
“Fair warning, though,” I said once our kisses slowed. “Pretty sure it’ll take more than your smile and a couple of tugs to get me off next time.”
“Good.” Kieran’s eyes were bright. “I’m willing to work for it.”
His tone made it clear he meant much more than just between the sheets, and I knew him, knew he meant it. “Goes both ways,” I told him even though right now, it seemed hard to believe that this, us, could ever be anything but easy.
“I know.” He rubbed a thumb along the nape of my neck, attention dropping to my mouth only briefly. “Hey. How do you feel about adopting a dog together?”
Typical. I shook my head with a laugh—not a no, just a way to handle the warm swell of affection. “Finish your time in London, okay? Come home. Then we’ll talk.”
“Deal.” He sounded utterly happy. “Let’s find the sweetest, saddest dog in the shelter and give it a great home.”
God. No wonder I’d fallen for him all those years ago—how could I not? And now... Now, nothing stopped me from kissing him again and again.
So I did.