Chapter Five #2
He took Sterling into his mouth, slow and thorough, and the sound that came out of Sterling was something I’d never heard from him and would probably never hear again—a low, broken groan that started behind his sternum and didn’t stop until it had worked its way through every defense he’d ever built.
His head dropped forward. His shoulders curved. His hands left the wall and found Caleb’s hair—not gripping, not controlling, just resting there, fingers threading through the copper strands like he was afraid Caleb might disappear if he didn’t hold on.
“That’s it,” I said against his ear. My hand slid around his waist, palm flat against his stomach, feeling the muscles jump and tighten under my touch. “Let go. I’ve got you. Both of us have got you.”
Sterling was shaking. Full-body tremors, the kind that come from somewhere deeper than physical pleasure, the kind that happen when something breaks that’s been holding for too long. His breathing had gone ragged, uneven, and I could feel his heart hammering against my chest through his back.
Caleb worked him with that same gentle certainty, one hand braced on Sterling’s thigh, the other wrapped around what his mouth couldn’t take, and the sight of it—Caleb on his knees, Sterling coming apart between us, the low, desperate sounds Sterling couldn’t stop making—did something to my chest that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with watching someone you care about finally, finally stop fighting himself.
“Close,” Sterling managed. One word, wrecked, like it had been dragged through gravel on its way out.
“Then come,” I said. Simple. Direct. The way Sterling liked things. “Come for him. Come for us.”
He did. His whole body went taut against mine, his head dropping back onto my shoulder, and the sound he made was raw and unfiltered and entirely, devastatingly real.
I held him through it, both arms around his waist, feeling every tremor, every aftershock, the way his muscles jumped and released and jumped again like he was coming apart in slow motion.
Caleb stayed with him. Gentle. Steady. Taking everything Sterling gave him and asking for nothing in return except the privilege of being there when it happened.
When it was over, Sterling slumped against me. His weight settled against my chest, his breathing ragged, and for a long moment none of us moved.
The three of us in the hallway, rearranged.
Sterling between us, naked and trembling, his defenses nowhere to be found. Caleb on his knees, looking up with that gentle, unguarded warmth. Me behind them both, holding Sterling upright because his legs didn’t seem entirely reliable and because I wasn’t ready to let go.
Caleb wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
The small, practical gesture of a man who had just done something intimate and wasn’t making a production of it.
He looked up at Sterling, and the smile he gave him was the one I’d been collecting since week one—warm and steady and completely without agenda.
“Okay?” Caleb asked.
Sterling nodded. Couldn’t speak. His throat worked, his jaw tight, and I watched something move across his face that I’d never seen there before—not the flat green stare, not the tactical assessment, not even the raw want from earlier.
Something quieter. Something that looked, from where I was standing, dangerously close to peace.
I pressed a kiss to the damp skin behind his ear. “Bed,” I said. Not a question. Not a command, exactly. Just the obvious next step for a man whose legs were shaking and whose defenses were currently undergoing renovations.
Sterling didn’t argue.
Another first.
We moved to his room. Me behind him, one hand on the small of his back, steadying. Caleb beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed with every step.
The bed was unmade—blanket pulled up to the pillow, Sterling’s version of housekeeping—and Sterling sat on the edge of it like a man who had run out of operational directives for the evening.
Caleb sat beside him. I sat on his other side.
The mattress dipped under our weight, the three of us shoulder to shoulder to shoulder on a bed that had probably never held more than one person at a time, and the silence that settled around us was the kind that happens after something true has been said and nobody feels the need to qualify it.
Sterling’s hand found mine on the blanket.
His fingers were warm, his grip firm, and he didn’t look at me when he did it.
He looked straight ahead at the wall, his profile sharp in the low light from the hallway, and I felt the weight of his hand in mine like something I’d been carrying for months without knowing it.
His other hand found Caleb’s. The same grip.
The same certainty. Caleb’s fingers curled around his, and I watched Sterling’s throat work, watched his jaw clench and release, watched the struggle of a man who had spent years rationing words trying to figure out which ones were worth spending on this.