Chapter 28
COOPER
Something tickled my nose as I woke, the first hints of dawn glowing beyond the thin drapes covering the bedroom window.
I smiled when I realized what it was. Felix’s hair.
I pressed a kiss to it, shifting my weight. Felix was still curled up against me, the knee of his injured leg tucked between my thighs. Deliciously naked.
He grunted as I ran my fingers along the soft skin of his thigh. When he pulled back, eyelids fluttering open, it was like something out of a fairy tale. As though I’d woken him from a hundred years of sleep with true love’s idle touch.
“Morning,” I murmured, running my thumb over his lower lip.
“Does it have to be?” Felix asked.
I laughed. It didn’t quite break the spell, but it reminded me this was real. It wasn’t a fairy tale. All of it had really happened.
It was still a little hard to believe how lucky I’d gotten.
“Sorry. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, but I can’t do anything about the sunrise.”
Felix huffed, tucking his face into the crook of my neck. “When does Benji get up?”
“Not for a while yet. Unless that was my hint to leave?” I teased. Felix had made it very clear last night that he wanted me around.
“Literally the opposite,” he said in confirmation of what I already knew.
I pressed another kiss to his hair, smiling into it.
“Well, stop me if I’m getting ahead of myself, but if you’re staying… there’s this little place I’ve been looking at.”
Felix pulled back to look at me again, eyes wide.
I stroked my palm up and down his leg, heart thumping in my ears. This was a lot—maybe too much, too soon, but…
“Little way out of town. Probably too far to walk, but I do own a functional people mover and we could get you a car. It’s a cabin, really. Trees all around. Space to run around outside. Just the two bedrooms.”
Now that I’d let myself imagine it, I wanted it more than anything. I also didn’t want Felix struggling his way through living in an upstairs apartment that kind of sucked any longer than he had to. It was my job now to take care of him.
“I can share with Benji.” Felix grinned. “I’ll even let him have the top bunk.”
I laughed, relief flooding through me. Maybe it wasn’t too much, after all.
“I think he’d unironically love that.”
I didn’t doubt Benji would be okay with this, or that Felix understood he had to be my priority.
I could have two priorities, though. If there wasn’t enough of me to go around, there was no hope for anyone.
“Cabin in the woods,” Felix said, reaching out to toy with one of my curls, twirling it between his fingers. “Tell me more?”
“It needs a little work,” I admitted. “Cosmetic, mostly, but that’d mean we could put our own stamp on it.”
“Our,” Felix repeated, as though he was feeling out the shape of the word in his mouth. “You know I dated Piotr for six years and he never even hinted we should move in together?”
“We’ve established he sucks, I think.”
I was normally the kind of man who wouldn’t start a fight, and was the first to back down, but I was starting to think I’d make an exception for that particular asshole. He’d definitely hear exactly what I thought of him if we ever crossed paths.
Felix smiled, snuggling closer again, nuzzling my collarbone. “Is there enough of a gap in these trees to see the stars?”
“It actually backs onto one of the cliffs around the bay,” I said, picturing the view I’d half-fallen in love with, the waves glittering in the sunlight.
“I was imagining putting a little gazebo or something out there, for warm nights. There could even be wine. If you’re cool with teaching me about it. ”
I’d need to put up some kind of fencing, too, for Benji’s sake. It could work, though. I’d been afraid to think too much about it before, because it’d seemed impossible.
A lot of impossible things had happened of late, though. Maybe I could swing another one.
“You’ve thought a lot about this.”
“I have,” I admitted. “I can’t live with Mom and Dad forever. Benji deserves to have a home he feels is his. Went and saw the place months ago. I’ve got some savings and it’s priced to sell. I was just scared to make a move on it.”
“Because it’d make all this permanent,” Felix said.
I remembered the talk we’d had about how he should probably be using a cane when he walked.
“If you’re really staying, then permanent doesn’t sound so scary anymore,” I admitted. “Permanent sounds like exactly what I want.”
Felix hummed. “Let’s go see it,” he said. “All three of us.”
“Yeah?” I asked, something warm and bright welling up in my chest.
“I’ve done the shoebox apartment,” Felix said. “And I’m not staying in this one. You can’t carry me up the stairs every time.”
“I could,” I offered. I would, if he wanted. I would if he’d let me, because I loved doing it. Having Felix in my arms was one of the best feelings I’d ever known.
“Okay, well, I can’t live a life where my boyfriend carries me up the stairs every time. Hot as it is that you can do that.”
Boyfriend.
All my other thoughts shuddered to a halt as I buried my grin in Felix’s hair, toes curling at how happy that one word made me. Boyfriend.
“Boyfriend,” I said aloud. Even to my own ears, I sounded like an excited kid.
“Boyfriend,” Felix repeated, curling his fingers around mine where they were resting on his thigh. “If that’s okay.”
“Gosh, let me think about it,” I said, shuffling down the bed so I was eye-level with him. “The sweetest, most beautiful man I’ve ever met, who my nephew adores—”
“—and who adores your nephew.”
“And who adores my nephew,” I agreed, yet another smile tugging at my lips. “Who picked me over his dream job…”
Felix snorted, rolling his eyes. “I give them six months before the funding runs out.”
“Uh huh. Who picked me over a job that definitely wasn’t exactly what he told me he wanted to do.
Who is unbelievably sexy,” I added, leaning in for a kiss.
We must both have had morning breath, but I didn’t care if Felix didn’t.
I didn’t even notice. “And actually famous, by the way. People recognize him in public.”
“People recognize you in public,” Felix pointed out.
“Because I fixed their car.”
“Which is way more helpful than prancing around a stage.”
I kissed him again for that. “Lucky people are going to start recognizing you as their kids’ ballet instructor, then.”
Felix hummed happily. “Small town.”
“Small town,” I agreed. “Anyway. Where was I?”
“Go back to unbelievably sexy,” Felix said, nudging my nose with his.
“Oh?” I shifted closer to him, moving my hand up to the perfect curve of his butt. His breath hitched as I gave it a firm squeeze. “Like that?”
“Like that.” Felix swallowed.
“Unbelievably sexy,” I repeated, slipping my fingers between his cheeks. I really would have to go sooner rather than later, but I had a little time to tease. “That man wants me to be his boyfriend?”
“He really does,” Felix said, voice gravelly.
I kissed him again. Just the press of mouth to mouth, soft lips, touch. I didn’t need more than that. Knowing he was there was enough.
“I guess I could do that,” I murmured against his lips. “If he really wanted it.”
Felix tutted, surging forward to kiss me a lot harder than I’d kissed him. I rolled onto my back when he pushed at my shoulder, making a happy sound as he followed. He sat up, perched on my hips like a prince on his throne, eyes glittering as he looked down at me.
“He really wants,” Felix said. “And he’ll apologize to Benji.”
“What for?” I asked, brow raised.
A slow smile spread over Felix’s face as he rolled his hips against mine, angling them so his hard cock skimmed over the sensitive skin of my stomach. “For making you late this morning.”