Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-five
TRISTAN
Tristan stirred, slowly surfacing from sleep, his whole body heavy and relaxed. Colby was warm and solid at his side, breath slow and steady, one arm slung across Tristan’s waist like he couldn’t bear to let him go, even in sleep.
Tristan smiled against the pillow. It felt early. No one else awake, probably. Just the hush of the house and the quiet thud of his own heartbeat, slow and content. And his cock, insistently hard and pressing into Colby.
He turned carefully, not wanting Colby to wake up to that, not knowing how it might seem to him when he was still half asleep. The moment he moved, Colby’s arm tightened.
“Morning,” Tristan murmured.
Colby didn’t answer at first. Just nuzzled into his neck, sleep-rough and warm. “Mmm. Still early.”
Tristan grinned. “Yeah. But if we stay like this much longer, I’m gonna combust.”
That got a low, sleepy chuckle. “You combust pretty easily.”
“Only with you.”
He shifted again, enough to lean in and kiss Colby, slow and soft and a little clumsy from sleep. Colby kissed him back, like he was waking up to more than just morning. His hand slid up Tristan’s back, fingers tracing the curve of his spine, then settling at his waist.
Tristan’s heart gave a happy thud. “We don’t have to get up yet,” he whispered.
Colby’s mouth was warm and sure, no hesitation in the way he kissed Tristan—just hunger in slow motion, like he had all the time in the world to taste him. And Tristan melted into it, pressing closer, his hands exploring familiar skin.
“Touch me?” Colby murmured against his lips, voice low and rough and so different from their first times together.
There was no flinch in his body now, no tension hiding beneath the want.
Just heat, and trust, and need. Tristan loved it when he asked.
He so often waited for Colby to ask, giving Tristan the quiet certainty that he was wanted, chosen.
Tristan slid his hands lower, brushing over the curve of Colby’s ass, then squeezing lightly. “Yeah?”
Colby nodded, eyes dark, breath catching. “Want your fingers again.” Then he paused, before adding quietly, “If you want that too.”
That made Tristan’s heart twist with affection even as arousal surged low in his belly. “God, yes,” he said, kissing Colby again, slower this time.
They moved together easily now that they’d learned one another, and it was an extra layer of intimacy that Tristan had never known.
Clothes didn’t exactly slide off, the way they did in the movies, but they got them off, with soft laughter and Tristan only getting tangled up in his pajama bottoms once.
Tristan reached for the lube from the drawer, and Colby held his gaze, steady and open in a way that made Tristan ache.
He kissed along Colby’s throat as his fingers worked lower, slow and slick, teasing at the edge of his hole. Colby’s breath hitched—just once—and then he relaxed into it, legs falling apart in silent invitation.
Even after just two nights, Tristan knew how much Colby liked this, how he gasped and clung and went boneless, trust written in every line of him.
“You’re so fucking hot like this,” Tristan whispered, voice catching as he circled before easing a finger in, slowly. “I can’t get over it. How good you feel. How much I want you.”
Colby let out a low groan, hips shifting. “More,” he whispered. “I’m okay, Tristan. I want it.”
Tristan gave him more. Carefully. Then more still when he felt Colby start to rock into the rhythm, pushing back with soft, breathy sounds that made Tristan’s own control unravel.
When he finally slid down to take Colby in his mouth, one hand still working him open, Colby’s whole body shuddered. “Fuck, Tristan—God, don’t stop—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tristan said, kissing along his hip bone, before nipping lightly and grinning up at him. “Not until you come like this.”
He slid his mouth back down, and Colby did—beautifully, messily, his hands tangled in the sheets and Tristan’s name on his lips like it was a prayer.
Afterward, Tristan kissed his way back up Colby’s body, pressing gentle kisses to his chest, his neck, until their mouths met again—open and hungry, still chasing the heat between them.
Colby cupped his face and stroked his thumb across Tristan’s cheek. Colby was breathing hard, flushed, but when he pulled back just a little, his gaze was steady.
“That was amazing,” he said, voice rough. “And I wish I could return the favor. I just… I can’t. Not yet.”
Tristan didn’t even pause. “Okay,” he murmured, as he nibbled along Colby’s jaw. “Then don’t. Though, for the record, it isn’t a favor if I love doing it. And I do.”
But he’d heard the note of frustration in Colby’s voice.
Not quite shame, though too close for comfort, but more the feeling of wanting and not being able to.
Like his body hadn’t caught up to his heart.
And Tristan wanted to make sure Colby knew, with every part of him, body and soul, that Tristan meant what he said.
That if this was all he ever had with Colby, it was abundance.
He moved, aligning their bodies as he rocked against Colby’s thigh, kissing him slowly, and this was his favorite thing in the world, taking his time like this. Letting it build while touching Colby, kissing him. It was everything he could ever want because Colby was everything.
He came like that, with Colby’s hand on his back as Tristan cried out his name.
Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets, legs twined, Tristan waiting for his heart rate to return to normal.
“You okay?” Tristan murmured after a while, because he always asked, even now.
Colby was quiet for a long moment, his hand still warm on Tristan’s back. Then he said, softly, “Sorry.”
Tristan propped himself up for a better look at Colby. “For what?”
“Not blowing you. It’s not because I don’t want you that way—I do.” He hesitated. “There’s other stuff too. Things I’d like to do, but… it’s like I still think they’d hurt you, even though I know they wouldn’t.”
Tristan hadn’t even thought of that, but it made a sickening kind of sense. Colby’s body had learned to link certain kinds of touch with pain, with control. Of course something that had once hurt, that had been used to hurt him, would feel dangerous to give.
His heart ached, and he was still trying to think of the right words to say when Colby spoke again.
“And sometimes…” Colby hesitated. “When it’s me touching you—me choosing—I get scared I’ll do it wrong. That I’ll hurt you, or push too far. There’s no one telling me what to do anymore. And that’s good, I know. But sometimes it’s a lot. Being trusted like that.”
There were no right words to say, not with Colby choosing to show Tristan the very heart of him. Helping Tristan understand, more fully than before, how very much Nico had taken from Colby. All he could do was be there and make sure Colby knew he was loved.
He threaded their fingers together. “You don’t owe me anything. Ever.”
“I know.” Colby’s voice stayed low. “I just… I don’t want you to think this is how it’ll be forever. Some things might change. But then, they might not. I don’t know.”
Tristan squeezed his hand, his heart full. “You never have to give more than you want to. What we have, it’s not about keeping score. You’re enough. You always have been.”
Colby looked at Tristan, and his eyes were the softest Tristan had ever seen them. “I really fucking love you, you know that?”
Tristan grinned, and he didn’t think he’d ever stop. “Good. Because I really fucking love you back.”
COLBY
Colby lay boneless, stretched out on his back, the sheets tangled around one leg, Tristan curled against his side like he belonged there.
One of Tristan’s fingers traced slow, looping patterns across his stomach—absent, soothing.
Colby’s whole body felt loose and warm, like he’d been melted and reformed in this bed, in Tristan’s hands.
It’d taken him a while to shake the tension that had curled tight in his stomach ever since Chaos’s bleat of alarm.
Nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen.
Still, he hadn’t quite been able to let it go.
But then Tristan had kissed him like he was made of wonder, and for a little while, Colby let the fear bleed out of him.
He thought about the conversation they’d just had. How simple it had been, once it was out. How Tristan hadn’t looked at him any differently. He didn’t know if things would always be this easy, but he was starting to believe they could be safe.
And that brought him back to the thought he’d been circling for days—quietly, cautiously, like it might bite if he looked at it too hard.
Some days, it felt impossible. He was arrogant even to think of it.
But other times, he couldn’t stop wondering.
What if he belonged here? What if he didn’t have to leave?
He needed to know for sure. He didn’t want it always to haunt him that if he’d just asked, things could have been different.
“I’ve been thinking about asking Matt,” he said quietly.
Tristan blinked. “Asking him...?”
“I keep waiting for him to say it’s time for me to leave. But I don’t want to go. I want to stay. To belong.”
That pulled Tristan up onto one elbow, staring down at him. “You want that?”
Colby nodded, certainty filling him. “Yeah, I do.”
Tristan’s smile could have lit the entire world. He was still grinning when he kissed Colby. “Then let’s talk to him.”
* * *
In the end, Colby went to see Matt alone.
He trusted Matt now—a trust Matt had earned—and he knew Tristan wouldn’t be punished violently if Matt were angry at Colby’s impertinence.
But he didn’t want even the shadow of Matt’s disapproval to fall on Tristan.
He understood how important Matt and Bryce’s good opinions were to him.
Bryce. That was another issue, one Colby would worry about later.