Chapter 15 Nicholas #4
Nicki hides his smile in the top of Andrew’s head, trying to recall if being near anyone else has ever made him happy.
For so long, he’s chased this feeling—a fleeting sense of happiness that came and went too fast from winning hockey games, or buying expensive shit he didn’t need, or fucking a willing body.
The gratification had been swift, but so too, had been the crash.
Andrew’s presence is a quieter feeling, but bigger too, and Nicholas might not understand what it means, but he knows he wants to keep it.
“Do you smell yourself this much?” Andrew asks the third time Nicholas sniffs his hair on the way upstairs.
“Nope,” Nicholas answers.
“And yet, you’re still smelling me.”
“Yes.”
“Brute.”
Despite his words, the hitch in his breathing and the way he rubs his hand over Nicholas’s forearm makes it clear he’s enjoying the situation. Despite this obvious enjoyment, when they get to the top of the stairs he starts to turn right.
“Uh, that’s not the way to my room.”
“You said you didn’t hit your head, so I assumed you’d be able to find your own room.”
“I can find my own room,” Nicholas frowns, reaching for Andrew the second he’s out of Nicholas’s arms. “But you’re supposed to join me.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“I have very soft sheets. Silk. Like your jersey.”
At the mention of the jersey Andrew flushes, fingering the hem. “You didn’t use your bedsheets, did you?”
“Pretty sure there’s no amount of money that could’ve gotten Denise to do that.”
“Good point.”
“So, you’ll come to my room.”
“Why?”
“How else will you know I’m sleeping? You gotta make sure I rest.”
“I do?” Andrew’s expression is questioning, but he inches closer to Nicholas.
“Yes.” Nicholas’s hands grab Andrew’s hips, manhandling him to within holding reach. “I need to see you in my bed, princess.”
“I don’t know.” Andrew pretends to debate it, but Nicholas can tell he’s going to come, just needs to pretend to think about it first. If that makes Andrew feel in control, Nicholas can play this game.
“I’ll put a shirt on.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Andrew says, eying Nicholas’s heavily tattooed chest with clear interest. The fact that Andrew likes looking at him makes Nicholas feel so fucking good. He wants to look good for him, to know he enjoys what he sees.
“Then I won’t put a shirt on. All night. You can map out every tattoo.”
“It won’t lead to sex.”
“I didn’t think it would.”
“I just want to look and—” Andrew holds his breath, laying his hand at Nicholas’s throat to skim his fingers over the intricate line work that goes from the hollow between his collarbones up to his jaw. “Touch.”
“Touch me all you want, princess.”
“I don’t want you to be mad.”
“Why would I be mad?”
Andrew shrugs, but Nicholas is pretty sure he understands, even if Andrew can’t verbalize.
“Will you get mad if I get hard?”
“Of course not,” Andrew says.
“Then why would I get mad if you don’t?”
“I might get hard though,” Andrew explains. “But that doesn’t mean I want sex. Not always. Definitely not tonight.”
“Has someone gotten mad before?” Nicholas asks.
Again, Andrew shrugs which says enough. The amount of rage Nicholas feels that someone would do that is enough for his teeth to grind.
“If I ever make you uncomfortable, you can punch me,” he says, unsure what to do with the sudden sense of helplessness.
“I’m not going to punch you,” Andrew scoffs, his tone suggesting he thinks Nicholas is joking.
“Fuck me up. Hit me. I can take it.”
“I’m not going to hit you,” Andrew hisses.
Nicholas is endlessly fascinated by this contradiction of a man. So bossy and firm at times, his boundaries for others so strong, yet his own seemingly nonexistent.
“Fine, then talk to me. Tell me. If I upset you, you’ve got two options—tell me or punch me.”
“Fine,” Andrew sighs, the expression on his face making it clear he’s not a fan of either option.
Andrew’s fingers skim down Nicholas’s throat, over the arch of his Adam’s apple and down to trace the wings of the death moth tattoo whose wings wrap around his entire throat.
This particular tattoo fucking hurt, but Nicholas had wanted something no clothing or uniform would hide.
Somewhere along the line, from getting his first tattoo to piss off his father to a sleeve of them to really piss him off, he’d stopped caring what people thought and got them for himself.
“It’s beautiful,” Andrew says, both hands on his throat now. Nicholas shivers, unused to being touched like this. “The line work is so clean, the symmetry of the wings identical.”
“You like it, princess?”
“Yeah. It does something to my brain,” Andrew admits, stroking each of his thumbs over Nicholas’s throat in a way that has Nicholas’s dick thickening in his sweats.
He doesn’t move a muscle, not wanting to startle Andrew in case he stops.
“When things match up, when they make sense, everything in my brain goes quiet. So often things don’t make sense.
So much of life doesn’t make sense and…it’s stressful.
But your tattoos are like the perfect pattern.
Random, but not—the use of space, the symmetry—looking at them makes my brain calmer somehow, happy. ”
Pride wells up in Nicholas. His body, his tattoos, make Andrew feel that way. He’s never given a fuck about making anyone else happy before, but right in this moment, he cares a whole fucking lot.
“I’ve got more.”
“I know you do,” Andrew laughs softly, “I’ve seen your social media remember.”
“More than that—ones I’m not allowed to show on camera.”
Andrew’s eyes trail down his chest, “Where?”
“Come to my room and I’ll show you.”
“You’re just still trying to get me into your bed,” Andrew laughs.
“Is it working, princess?”
“Yeah,” Andrew whispers as his hands move from Nicholas’s throat down to his chest then lower towards his hips.
The touch isn’t teasing or a prelude, simply exploratory and almost reverent as he explores Nicholas’s bare skin before dropping both hands.
It takes Nicholas a second to realize the reason.
Andrew’s reaching for his hand, sliding his fingers into Nicholas’s.
Hands joining, Nicholas guides Andrew to his room.
Though he’s had more bed partners than he can keep track of, Andrew is the first person he’s brought into his bed for no other reason than not being ready to be without them.
When they climb into bed, Andrew is particular as always, situating himself on the right side of the bed then staring at Nicholas with a rather pointed look until he too climbs beneath the covers.
“You can get closer,” Andrew says, all the permission he needs to tug Andrew against him.
“I said get closer not manhandle me, you oaf,” Andrew huffs.
Despite this protest, Andrew doesn’t try and get out of Nicholas’s hold, but rather curls into him.
He tucks his face into Nicholas’s neck, laying a hand over Nicholas’s side.
His breathing slows, his entire body relaxing, and Nicholas hardly knows what to do with the rush of protective affection he feels for this man.
Reaching for Andrew’s hand, he takes it in his own, once more breathing in the scent of Andrew, relishing in the feel of his smaller body safely cocooned in Nicholas’s.
The contrast of their joined hands is stark.
Andrew’s hands are smaller, more delicate, infinitely more fucking precious.
For once in his life, Nicholas doesn’t want to rage, doesn’t want to break something, he wants to protect something.
Fuck.