Nineteen
ZAK
I wake up alone in bed and shiver. Owen is here somewhere. I know he is. There’s no way he’d leave without saying something. Right?
I’m reminded that I’ve woken up alone before when he had to go to practice. But that was different. Everything is different now.
My heart jumps when the bed moves. Relief floods me. Owen climbs over me, hovering as he smiles down. I don’t know that he’s looking at me in any particular way, but my entire body heats up. Warms and flushes, both in excitement and just… the reminder that he wants me.
“I have to go to practice,” he says with a sigh. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t you dare run.”
At the moment, it hadn’t occurred to me. That’s not to say it wouldn’t later, so his request isn’t unfounded. With a small smile, I shake my head. “I won’t.” I can promise him this much for today.
“There’s breakfast on the counter. No pressure to eat it. You’re welcome to anything in the kitchen. Actually, you’re welcome to anything everywhere. Explore. Make yourself at home. There’s nowhere you can’t go.”
“There isn’t?”
“Nope. No secrets, sweetheart. There’s no drawer you’re barred from. You can poke around in the closets, open all the drawers, peek under all the beds. Anywhere. This home is yours too.”
The words will never feel right. I’m so very positive about that. But I nod. “Okay.”
His mouth covers mine and I melt into his kiss like I do every time. I can’t help it. As silly as it sounds, I swear, more than anything else, when his lips are on mine, I can feel everything about him flood me. As if he’s opened a dam through our kisses.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Promise.”
I nod and watch him go. Remaining perfectly still, I listen to him move through the apartment, my ears straining to hear. His footsteps fade. I hear a faint rustle I assume is him putting on his jacket. Then there’s the gentle click of the door.
The silence around me is whole. I’ve never been anywhere that’s this quiet.
Gravity’s apartment is pushed back from the street with a parking lot separating the two, but it isn’t so far away that we can’t still hear the traffic.
Then there are the neighbors. Not constant noise, but always a reminder that there are others surrounding us with thumps on the walls and scrapes on the floor above.
There’s none of that here. We’re so high off the ground that the noise of the traffic doesn’t penetrate the abundance of glass. I haven’t even heard a neighbor move about. Not through the walls or the ceiling. Not even someone moving about beyond the front door.
I’m not sure I’m the biggest fan of complete silence. That means all the voices in my head are very, very loud. And clear.
Taking a deep breath, I climb out of bed and then straighten the blankets.
I’m not sure if Owen makes the bed every day, but I can’t recall it ever being a mess when he’s taken me here.
So unless he has a housekeeper that basically blends into walls, evidence suggests that he at least straightens the blankets.
I move through the shower and brush my teeth. With a plush towel wrapped around me, I head into his large closet with the mirror on the back of the door. I blush madly, remembering what our reflection in that mirror looked like as we had sex.
His closet is enormous and practically empty.
In the middle of the left wall is a set of drawers.
On one side, there’s a section that has hoodies and other long sleeve shirts.
Below that are slacks. Another section has ties and dress jackets.
There are a couple garment bags that I peek in, finding different suits. The kind you wear to fancy things.
A set of shelves on the opposite side of the drawers holds dress shoes and sneakers.
Some hats and other accessories. Though it feels slightly invading, I peek into the drawers.
I find exactly what one might expect—underwear neatly rolled and separated, socks in the same fashion, tee-shirts, bed pants, gym shorts and pants. All the usual drawer stuff.
The rest of the closet is completely empty. Begging to be filled. Besides my bags and box of clothes—both old and newly bought yesterday—there’s nothing else except a single chest. The kind that has a lock on the front. It’s big enough to hold a small body.
Chewing the inside of my lip, I crouch in front of it and remind myself that Owen said I could look anywhere. There isn’t a lock on it, which means he doesn’t really want me not to look, right? But then, he lived alone. Why would he bother locking it?
My curiosity gets the better of me and I push the lid up slowly, unsure of what I’m going to find. Not body parts, surely. I mean, he’s far too perfect, so there must be something wrong with him, right? Besides his obvious bad taste in men.
I peek in and find… dicks. It’s so startling that I jerk backwards, and the lid slams shut as I land on my ass. Is he a serial killer who cuts off cocks as his trophy?! Holy hell, what is this?
Then reason comes back, and I blush madly.
No. They’re not real dicks. Inching closer again, I push the lid open and come face to face with a toy chest. My god, my face has never been so hot.
There aren’t just a wide array of cocks—and I do mean a whole fucking lot of options in all different shapes, sizes, and colors—but there are other things as well.
I spy cuffs and a collar. I see thin strips of leather bound together.
Then there are things I can’t even begin to name or imagine what they are. So. Many. Things.
Shutting the lid, I try to calm my heart. Jesus. It’s not just my face that’s hot, but my entire body. Also, my cock is definitely intrigued by what we just saw. I look down at it as if I’d never seen the damn thing before. “You don’t even know what half that stuff is,” I hiss at my excited dick.
With a deep breath and a racing heart, I shuffle away and rifle through my clothes to get dressed.
Although I look longingly at Owen’s hoodies.
Would he care if I wore one? Taking a chance, I pull one from a hanger.
I don’t exactly know what I’m looking at on the front.
The back has his name on it. Well, his last name.
And the number seven. The hoodie itself is charcoal gray and there’s a black circle and a purple…
hornet? Or… something? I don’t know. I suspect it has something to do with sports.
I make a mental note to try to learn some hockey things. It’s important to Owen, so I should make it important to me too.
Though I’m hungry, I decide to go through all the new clothes and remove tags so I can get them washed. I pull out Owen’s laundry basket. There are a few things in it, so I figure I’ll just wash them too.
He bought me everything yesterday. Everything! From socks of all kinds—fluffy, short, long, colorful, etc.—to underwear, to pants and shirts and shoes. I tried very hard not to look at the money he was spending. If I showed even the slightest bit of interest in something, Owen put it in the cart.
This is the biggest amount of clothes I’ve ever owned. Ever. In my entire life. It’s also the first time since my mother was alive that I’ll be wearing something that’s brand new and I haven’t modified. I can do that, right? Do I have it in me to wear something off the rack?
Yes. I tell myself that firmly. Definitely I can and will do that. Owen bought me all these things. They mean something. It’s not just articles of clothing, but they’re gifts. From my…
My heart races again. Am I allowed to say ‘boyfriend’? Is that the correct term? What if I’m something else? What if that’s not what he wants?
Shaking the doubts away, I focus on de-tagging all the clothes and dumping them in the hamper.
When it’s full, I drag it out and down the hall.
On the way, I pass a door that’s been closed every time I’ve been here.
Glancing around to make sure I’m alone, which is dumb since I have permission to look, I push the door open.
There’s not a lot to see. A single bed, sparsely made. A chest of drawers and a floor lamp. Even the closet’s empty, which I can see because the door is wide open. Huh.
I close the door again and continue into the living room.
Beyond is the kitchen/dining combo and to the right of that is the front door with the laundry room off to the side.
It doesn’t take me long to figure out the washing machine.
They’re all relatively the same, and I’ve done laundry before at Gravity’s apartment.
While I intend to go back to the bedroom and put away clothes, the food on the counter stops me.
Pulling the aluminum foil off it, I find eggs, bacon, and toast. There’s also a small plastic food storage container on the counter that I open to find mixed fruit chunks.
They’re fresh. And a glass of chocolate milk.
I’m honestly touched that he prepared this for me and a little sad that I let it get cold.
It’s not entirely cold so I eat it as is instead of using the microwave.
They’ve always made me uncomfortable. The food is good.
I’m not sure that there’s anything remarkable about it, but it tastes delicious.
After I finish, I clean up the kitchen, making sure it’s spotless. If I’m going to be here for free, I’m going to learn to clean like it’s my calling in life. That’s the least I can do.
Then I head back to the closet, determined to get all the clothing put away before Owen gets home.
I split articles of clothing by parts of the body and then begin hanging them in color order.
I don’t have much for the drawers yet, but I sort everything based on type.
Underwear. Socks. Bed shirts, day shirts, and undershirts.
I’m not sure I needed all those shirts. Maybe Owen wanted to fill drawers.
He also bought me gym clothes, which I found slightly amusing. I’ve never been the type of person to go to the gym. Although, I’ve also never had that opportunity. Maybe now that it could be an option, I may find I like it? Something tells me that’s unlikely, but I won’t write it off.
The entire time I’m in the closet, my gaze keeps snagging on the toy chest. My cheeks heat. My cock is in a constant state of semi hard, imagining all those toys. What they do. Where you put them. I may not know what they all are, but it seems my imagination had no problem coming up with ideas.
When I think of using them with Owen, I have to force myself to look away. Nope. I’m not brave enough to ask for something yet. I’m just not. Not even knowing how much we both enjoyed the sex we’ve already had—an abundance of it. But that was always Owen suggesting and me wholeheartedly agreeing.
This is different. He wants me to initiate it. I don’t think I’m that brave or confident yet.
By the time I’m finished putting my clothes away and filling up a second laundry basket with new clothes sans sales tags, I can swap the load.
But now I’m done. I consider looking for more cleaning products and cleaning but… actually, his space looks really clean already. If he’s only ever home for half a month, he probably doesn’t have much to clean.
Now I’m not sure what to do, though. My new phone catches my eye, so I snag it off its charger and curl up on the couch with a blanket. He has a lot of blankets and I absolutely love that. As someone who is self-diagnosed allergic to cold weather, blankets are an essential part of life.
I’ve never had a phone before. My mom and I rarely sat still long enough for me to care about electronics. Then my second parents didn’t bother with that kind of thing for me. And once I was older, I refused a phone from anyone who wanted to give me one.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t at least a bit familiar with them.
I’ve played with all my friends’ phones over the years.
While there are a ton of apps already on this thing—Owen says that the majority are pre-downloaded but since I’ve never had a new phone, I didn’t know that, having always assumed my friends just downloaded a bunch of random shit immediately—I check out the ones that Owen put on there.
He made me a neat little folder titled ‘For My Zak’.
A wide, goofy smile spreads across my face when I see it.
Inside are three apps. Wallet, Shuttled, and Lob.
Shuttled is the rideshare app. Lob is the delivery service.
After poking through all three to get myself familiar with them, I realize Lob delivers everything.
Food, yes, but also groceries, random shit from stores like a ream of paper and slippers, even fresh produce from the food market.
Just as I close out of Lob, the door opens and Owen steps inside. Our eyes meet immediately, and my breath leaves my body. Why is he so divine? Gods shouldn’t walk the earth.
He smiles. Dropping his bag, he peels off his jacket and kicks off his shoes. Then he’s crossing the room in long strides to drop onto the couch with me, wrapping me tightly in his arms, his mouth immediately finding mine.
We kiss for so damn long. I don’t even care when I can’t breathe. It means nothing. The world spins and shifts, but we’re now the center of it.
But he finally pulls his mouth from mine as we gasp for air. “Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he murmurs.
The feeling of being wanted, of being missed, is so new and surreal, I get too choked up with emotion to respond.
“Did you eat?”
I nod. “Thank you for making me breakfast. It was really, really tasty.”
Owen smiles, pressing light kisses all over my face.
“I hear the washer going. Does that mean you enjoyed going through your clothes?”
I nod. “The closet is all sorted again.” Then my face heats up when I remember what I found in there. I bite my tongue to try and curb my body’s reaction with a bit of pain, though it does nothing to cool my skin.
Which only heats further when Owen brings my gaze to his. Concerned at first as he studies me. But then a slow smile grows across his face. “Ah,” he says quietly, his voice low and sexy. “You found my toys, did you?”
I’m sure there’s some part of science that says a body can’t heat up past a certain point, but I’m here to say that those scientists are wrong. I’m positive without a doubt that my skin is burning. Somehow, I manage to bring myself to nod.
“When I said you’re welcome to everything, I mean that. Including the toys.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper and close my eyes, trying to push down the feeling of horror and excitement. Down, down, down.
“No, sweetheart. God has nothing to do with this.”
But he’s so wrong. He is my god. I’ve worshiped him since we met.