Chapter 5 Boone
Boone
One moment he’s with me, the pleasurable aftershocks still rippling through us and the next he’s gone.
His eyes are still open but glazed over, pupils blown so wide there’s barely any color left.
His body goes slack against the mattress, like someone cut every string holding him upright.
His hands, which had been digging half-moons into my shoulders, unfurl and drop to his sides.
His breathing shifts to something slower and more shallow, unnervingly even.
I ease myself out from under him, my eyes on his face for any flicker of reaction. There isn’t one, no wince, no sound. He’s staring past my shoulder with a look that’s both peaceful and empty, lips parted, tears tracing silver lines through his hair.
“Ash,” I say. I draw him upright against my chest, and he collapses into me without resistance, his head lolling against my shoulder.
I slip my arms around him, offering something solid to cling to.
“Listen to my voice, Dove. We’re in my bedroom, at the ranch.
You’re safe. I’ve got you. Nothing bad is happening. ”
He stays silent. His breathing holds that same eerie evenness.
His hands rest in his lap, palms up, fingers slightly curled.
I’ve seen this before. I know what it looks like coming on, what it looks like letting go and I know it will pass.
Maybe I should have expected it tonight.
A man starved for touch, wound impossibly tight, desperate to let go of everything he’s been holding…
of course, his body seized the first chance to collapse.
The surprise isn’t that he fell. The surprise is how long he held on.
I whisper close to his ear, "You went somewhere. Your body let go. It isn't dangerous. It will pass. I'll be right here when you return."
His fingers move first, just a twitch, then a curl, then they find my forearm and wrap around it. His breathing fractures from that eerie smoothness into something raw. Awareness floods back through him, every muscle in his body goes rigid against mine, his spine arching slightly.
"There you are," I say. "Easy. You're okay."
"What—" His voice is scraped raw and confused as he tries to pull back. I let him go far enough to see my face, but keep my hands on his arms because I can feel him starting to shake as he fully comes back to himself. "What happened? Did I pass out?"
"No. You dropped."
"I don't, what does that mean?"
"It means your body trusted me enough to let go of everything. All the control, all the tension, all the walls you've been holding up. It let go, and you went somewhere safe inside yourself where none of that existed for a little while."
He stares at me with an expression that's half wonder and half terror. "I couldn't hear you," he says. "I mean, I heard your voice, but I couldn't find it. Like you were underwater, or I was." He looks down at his hands. "I thought something was wrong with me."
"Nothing is wrong with you, Dove."
"That's never, in the two years with Marcus, that has never happened.
Not once. Nothing even close." He stops.
I watch the realization land as it does its damage.
His eyes fill with fresh, new tears running over the ones that haven't dried, and when he speaks his voice cracks down the middle. "He never even got me close to that."
"No. I’m not sure he would have."
"Is that normal? What just happened? Does that happen to people?"
"It's called subspace. It doesn't happen to everyone, and it's not something you can force.
It happens when your body feels safe enough to surrender completely.
" I brush the hair off his forehead. "It means you trusted me, Ash.
All the way. And that's not a flaw. That's the bravest thing a person can do. "
A heavy sigh falls from him as he curls into my chest, another raw sound pulling from him a second later. I tighten my hold on him, letting him slowly rise out of that headspace.
Two years my son had him. Two years of lying under a man who must have treated sex like a chore and affection like currency, who never once got Ash anywhere close to this because getting someone here requires attention and patience and care, and Marcus has never possessed any of those things in his life.
Ash cries into my chest until the shaking stops and then past that, into the quiet part, where the sobs have run out but the tears haven't and his breathing comes in long shuddering pulls I can feel against my ribs. My hand moves through his hair in slow passes.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles into my chest. "I don't know why I can't stop."
"Don't apologize for this."
"I got your sheets all—"
"Ash. Don't apologize."
He's quiet for a while longer, his hand finding my heartbeat and resting there, fingers spread, the tremors subsiding by degrees. "Boone?"
"Yeah."
"Will it happen again?"
"It might. If we keep doing this, it might."
"Does it always feel like falling?"
"It can. It can feel like floating too, or just being very far away. Depends on the person and the moment."
"I wasn't scared," he says, and there's surprise in his voice. "While it was happening, I wasn't scared at all. It was after, when I came back. That's when I got scared."
"That's normal. Coming back is harder than going under. Everything feels too loud, too bright, too much. That's why I'm here. That's why you don't do this with someone who doesn't know how to catch you."
He turns his face into my neck and I pull the covers up over his shoulders because the sweat has dried and his skin is prickling in the cool air.
He makes a small sound against my throat, somewhere between gratitude and comfort, and his body settles against mine with a finality that tells me the fight is over.
"I should go back to the guest room," he says, without moving.
"No."
"Your sons are going to—"
"My sons are going to mind their own business."
"Boone—"
"You're staying in this bed. That's not a request."
He exhales, surrendering further, his body softening against mine.
I feel the moment he stops running the calculations about what he should do, where he should be, and what kind of person this makes him.
He just stops. What’s left is a twenty-six-year-old man curled against my chest in the dark, wrung out, raw, and trusting me more than anyone’s ever deserved.
I stay awake long after his breathing evens out. He twitches once in his sleep, a full-body jerk pressing him tighter against me, and then he’s still.
He mumbles something in his sleep, shifting again to bury his face in my neck.
I’m going to have to be careful with this one.
He’ll give me everything if I ask, every boundary, every wall, every last scrap of self-preservation.
Proving I’m worth that kind of trust will take time, patience, and a restraint that doesn’t come naturally when someone this beautiful trusts me this completely.
But I’m a man who’s spent his whole life doing hard things slowly and well, and Ash Dunne is the best hard thing I’ve ever been handed.
My son had him for two years. Never once did he see what I saw in a single night.