The Valentine Arrangement

Chapter Five #2

Two fingers. I grabbed his shoulder and breathed through it, my body adjusting to the intrusion. His fingers were longer than mine, thicker, and when he curled them just right—

“There—” I rocked back onto his hand. “Right there, oh fuck…”

He did it again. And again. Worked a third finger in and kept hitting that spot until I was shaking, my cock leaking against his stomach, my thighs trembling with the effort of holding myself up.

“Holden, baby,” I gasped. “I'm ready. I need—”

I grabbed the condom, tore it open, rolled it down his length. Added more lube, then positioned myself over him, his cock notched against my entrance, and slowly, slowly sank down.

The stretch was intense. Even with the prep, he was almost too much. I had to stop halfway, breathing hard, my body adjusting around him.

“God, Jamie…” His voice was strained, his hands gripping my hips like he was using all his willpower not to thrust. “You good?”

“Yeah. Just—give me a second.”

“As long as you need.”

I breathed. Relaxed. Let gravity do its work, sinking down another inch, then another, until finally I was fully seated and he was all the way inside me. So full, so fucking full.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “You feel—”

“Amazing.” He pulled me down for a kiss, tender and desperate. “You feel amazing.”

I started to move.

Slow at first. Rocking my hips in small circles, getting used to the fullness, the way he filled me so completely there was no room for anything else. His hands spanned my waist, not guiding, just holding. Like he needed the contact to convince himself this was real.

“Hey.” I braced my hands on his chest, lifted up, sank back down. “I've got you. Just feel it. Just let yourself feel it.”

Something broke open in him then, the last of his resistance crumbling, the walls he'd built coming down. His hands slid up my back, pulled me close, and when he kissed me there was nothing held back. Just raw need and desperate hunger.

I rode him hard, harder. Faster. Found the angle that made sparks shoot up my spine and chased it. He matched my rhythm, his hips rising to meet mine, driving deeper with every thrust.

“Jamie—” My name in his mouth like it was the only word he knew. “I can't—I'm close—”

“Me too.” I reached between us, wrapped my hand around my own cock. “Come with me. I want to feel you.”

He grabbed my hips and thrust up hard, once, twice, and then he was coming with a groan that vibrated through my whole body. I felt him pulse inside me, felt the heat of it and that was enough to tip me over the edge. I came with a loud groan, spilling hot over my fist and his stomach.

For a long moment, neither of us moved.

Then Holden pulled me down against his chest and held on like he never wanted to let go.

“Hey,” I said against his skin, kissing his cheek. “You okay?”

He didn't answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was rough. “I forgot what this felt like.”

“What?”

“Being close to someone.” His arms tightened around me. “Being wanted.”

My heart cracked open a little wider. I pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart.

“Get used to it,” I said. “Because I'm not done wanting you.”

He made a sound that might have been a laugh, or might have been something else entirely. His hand came up to stroke through my hair, gentle and reverent.

We stayed like that until our breathing slowed, until the sweat cooled on our skin, until he finally had to pull away to deal with the condom and the mess we'd made.

But even then, even when he came back from the bathroom with a warm washcloth and cleaned us both up, even when we finally settled under the covers, he didn't let go.

He pulled me against his chest, my head tucked under his chin, his arm wrapped around me like a shield.

“Stay,” I said. “Tonight. Stay with me.”

“Yeah.” His voice was rough, already half-asleep. “I'll stay.”

I fell asleep with his heartbeat under my ear and his warmth all around me, and for the first time in months, I didn't feel alone.

Holden

Something wet touched my hand.

I opened my eyes to find Marceline six inches from my face, her tail wagging, her nose nudging my fingers where they hung off the edge of the bed. Bubblegum sat behind her, patient, waiting her turn.

Jamie's apartment. Jamie's bed. Jamie's dogs, staring at me.

I turned my head. The other side of the bed was empty, but the sheets were still warm. From somewhere beyond the closed door came the sound of a coffee grinder, cabinet doors opening and closing.

My arm was stiff from sleeping in one position too long. My body ached in ways that had nothing to do with discomfort and everything to do with the man currently making noise in the kitchen.

Last night.

The memory hit me in fragments. His hands on my skin. His mouth on my cock, Jesus, his mouth. The sounds he'd made when I worked him open, when I pushed inside. The way he'd looked riding me, flushed and desperate and beautiful, his head thrown back, his body taking everything I gave him.

His voice afterward, soft and fierce: Get used to it.

Marceline licked my hand again, more insistently.

“Okay,” I said. My voice came out rough. “I'm up.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and both dogs immediately pressed against my shins, wiggling with the force of their excitement. Bubblegum rested her chin on my knee. Marceline tried to climb into my lap.

“Not designed for this,” I told her, but I was already scratching behind her ears. “You're not a lapdog.”

She disagreed.

I found my boxers on the floor, pulled them on and headed to the bathroom first to take care of business. Thought about finding my jeans too, once I finished, but the dogs were already leading me toward the door, and the smell of coffee was stronger now.

Jamie was at the counter with his back to me, wearing only his boxers and—

My flannel shirt. The one I'd worn yesterday. It swallowed him completely, sleeves rolled three times at the cuffs, hem hitting him mid-thigh.

Something primal clenched in my chest. Mine. This man in my clothes, in my arms last night, riding my cock, looking like he belonged there.

Like he'd always belonged there.

“Morning,” he said without looking up. “Coffee's almost ready.”

I crossed the kitchen. Put my hands on his hips, bent down to press a kiss to the back of his neck.

He leaned into it. Tilted his head to give me better access. Made a small, satisfied sound that I felt more than heard.

“Dogs woke you up?”

“Kinda. Marceline has opinions about sleeping late.”

“Oh yeah, she always does.” He turned in my arms, looked up at me. His hair was mussed, his eyes soft with sleep, and there was a mark on his neck that I didn't remember leaving. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Thanks for not leaving in the middle of the night.”

My brow furrowed. “Did you think I would?”

Jamie shrugged a shoulder. “I hoped you wouldn't, but we didn't talk about it before I passed out.”

“Never crossed my mind.”

His smile widened. He rose up on his toes and kissed me, soft and brief, then pressed a mug into my hands.

“Good answer.” He turned back to the counter. “I can make eggs. Or there's bakery stuff Brandy brought me Friday, pastries.”

“I can cook.”

“You're a guest.”

“Let me help.”

His kitchen was small, with sloped ceilings, odd angles, barely big enough for one person.

I had to duck under the cabinets, navigate around the island that ate most of the floor space.

Every time we moved around each other, we touched.

His shoulder against my arm. My hand on his lower back when I reached past him.

His hip bumping mine when we ended up at the same counter.

I cracked eggs into a bowl while he fed the dogs.

“Tell me about your grandmother.”

My hands stilled.

Jamie was watching me, his coffee cup cradled in both hands. Morning light caught his hair, turning it gold.

“You said she taught you the trade,” he continued. “What was she like?”

I turned back to the eggs, smiling at the happy memories. “Stubborn. Opinionated. Thought she knew better than everyone, and usually she was right.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

My mouth twitched. “She ran the shop for forty years. Started it in the sixties, when women didn't open businesses on their own in towns like this. Especially not widows.”

“She was a widow?”

“From the start, basically. My grandfather died in Vietnam before my dad was even born. She raised a kid alone, built a business from nothing, kept it going through every recession and bad year.” I poured the eggs into the pan, watched them spread and set at the edges.

“People told her to sell, move somewhere easier. She never did.”

“Why not?”

“She used to say some people are built for leaving and some are built for staying. Neither one is better. They're just different.” My throat went tight. “She knew what she was. Knew where she belonged.”

“And then she raised you too.”

I nodded. Didn't elaborate. Some stories were too long for morning conversation, too tangled up in things I didn't talk about—my mother's addiction, the system that had shuffled me around for years before Grandma found out and came to get me.

The long drive from California to Colorado, my whole life in two garbage bags in her back seat.

“She sounds amazing,” Jamie said quietly.

“She was.” I pushed the eggs around with a spatula. “The shop was her baby. After she died, I couldn't—” I shook my head. “Couldn't let it go.”

Jamie was quiet. When I looked up, his expression had gone soft.

“You stayed,” he said. “After she died.”

“The shop was the only place that ever felt like mine. Like home.”

More honest than I intended. I turned back to the eggs, throat tight.

“Landon used to talk about leaving Denver like there was always somewhere bigger and better.” Jamie's voice was quiet. “Like staying anywhere too long was failure. If you weren't climbing, moving, leveling up, you were falling behind.”

“Is that why you guys broke up?”

“One day he just said he was moving home, and he was building a future that I wasn't a part of. Breaking up wasn't the surprise. By that time I was tired of being “too much” for him. He wanted someone who needed less, and I wasn't going to be less for him. Not for anyone.”

I set down the spatula.

“You're not too much.”

Jamie's smile was crooked. “Yes I am.”

I crossed the kitchen, stopped in front of him. Lifted him up and set him on the counter, stepping between his legs. He made a small sound of surprise, hands landing on my shoulders for balance. Our faces were close now, and I could see every shade of green and brown in his beautiful eyes.

“You're not too much,” I said again. “Not for me.”

He stared at me for a long moment. Then his fingers threaded through my hair and he pulled me down for a kiss that started soft and turned into something else entirely.

The eggs burned. Neither of us cared.

Our lazy Sunday morning stretched into afternoon.

We ate reheated pastries because the eggs were unsalvageable.

Walked the dogs around the block, Jamie's shoulder bumping mine, our breath fogging in the cold.

Came back and collapsed on his couch—overstuffed, not designed for someone my size—and Marceline claimed my lap while Bubblegum wedged herself between us.

“We could watch something,” Jamie said, scrolling through options on the TV. “I haven't seen anything new in months.”

“Whatever you want.”

He put on a movie. Something with a heist and complicated family dynamics. I couldn't have told you the plot.

I was too aware of him tucked under my arm, his fingers tracing absent patterns on my thigh. The weight of the dog on my lap. The easy silence that had settled over the room.

This doesn't feel like the arrangement anymore.

The thought arrived fully formed.

This morning—the coffee, the kitchen, the conversation about my grandmother—none of it had been for show. No audience, no Landon to perform for, no deal we were fulfilling. Just us, in his house, spending a Sunday like it was something we did.

Like it was something we could keep doing, like we’d silently agreed to just be ourselves here, open and free, keeping the problems of the outside world far away.

My hand found his hair. Sifted through the waves, traced the curve of his ear. Jamie made a small sound and pressed closer, eyes drifting shut.

“Holden?”

“Mm.”

“What are we doing?”

The same question I kept asking myself. The same question I still didn't have words for.

“I don't know,” I said honestly. “Do you want me to go?”

Jamie turned his head back to look at me. His eyes searched my face for something I hoped he'd find.

“No,” he said. “Of course not, silly.”

I kissed his forehead. His temple. The soft skin below his ear. He shivered against me, pressing closer, and when I pulled back he was looking at me with something that made my chest tight.

“Holden.” His voice had gone low, rough at the edges. “Take me back to bed.”

I didn't answer with words. Just slid one arm under his knees, the other around his back, and stood.

Jamie made a sound, surprised, breathless, and his arms went around my neck. Carrying him down the hall felt easy, natural, like something I could do every day for the rest of my life.

“Show-off,” he murmured against my throat, but he was smiling.

Marceline lifted her head as we passed, watching with mild interest. Bubblegum didn't stir.

The bedroom door was still open from this morning. I carried him through, kicked it shut behind us, and laid him down on the unmade sheets. He pulled me down after him and the afternoon light had already gone gold.

By the time we surfaced again, it had faded to gray, and I still hadn't left.

I was starting to think I didn't want to.