Chapter Sixteen Under Caution #2
So he pushed off the back of the sofa, moving quietly.
Old instincts. Boots silent on the floor.
Move like a shadow until ready to be seen.
Then he slipped up behind Freddie and wrapped his arms around him, stroking his thumbs over the snail trail of hair on his stomach.
It was instinct and apology and everything in between.
And when he kissed Freddie’s shoulder, he held him flush to his chest.
Freddie froze for a beat. Tense. Unsure.
Then he exhaled, a quiet sound, and leant back into him.
Nathan closed his eyes.
“I’m so fucking sorry I put you in that position,” he said into Freddie’s ear. “Really fucking sorry.”
Freddie didn’t speak. He let the silence do the heavy lifting.
But Nathan felt it deep in his bones. Freddie would’ve done it, anyway. No questions. No hesitation. He always had.
And Nathan hated himself for it.
“How come you joined the force?” Nathan left his lips on Freddie’s shoulder, warming the skin. “You never spoke of it before.”
“Wasn’t exactly a lifelong dream.” Freddie turned his head to press his cheek to Nathan’s. “After college, I bounced around a bit. Got promoted to manager at TGI Friday’s—yeah, I know, hold your applause —then did a stint at the gym to put that very useful Sports Studies A-Level to work.”
Nathan furrowed his brow. “Didn’t you go to uni?”
“No.” Freddie heaved a breath. “Didn’t go to Ibiza either.” He paused, the humour fading into something quieter. “Guess I was hanging around for something.”
Nathan closed his eyes. Held Freddie tighter.
Freddie continued, “When Piper had Tilly… I sorta found my path. She’d been through hell with a few blokes.
Proper nasty ones. I dunno, something clicked.
Figured if they knew her brother was a copper, maybe they’d think twice.
Maybe I could stop that cycle from happening again.
Keep Tilly safe. Keep this town safe. Felt like the first thing I’d ever done that actually mattered. ”
Nathan held him closer. “It does matter.”
“Maybe. Some days it feels like it. Other days… it’s just whack-a-mole with better boots.
No matter what you do, there’s always another bastard waiting to crawl out of the woodwork.
But it’s a wage. Pays for me to live here.
” He indicated to the window and the vast expanse of Worthbridge below them.
Nathan let out a low hum of agreement, rocking him gently, the motion more instinct than intention. Then he peered over Freddie’s shoulder, out the window. “Nice view.”
He could have meant Freddie. His body now broader, more defined.
Nathan was still the stockier of the two, but Freddie had clearly worked to shed the lanky awkwardness of youth, trading it for solid muscle and quiet strength.
Strength Nathan ached to trace with his tongue.
But it wasn’t Freddie he meant. It was what lay beyond the kitchen window.
Past the cluttered sill crowded with wilting herbs and a sun-bleached fridge magnet clinging stubbornly to the glass.
Beyond the estate’s prim rooftops, where the town spilled downhill in crumbling layers: narrow lanes, leaning fences, and garden sheds patched with scraps of corrugated tin.
And further still, at the edge of it all, the sea.
Grey and glassy. With the pier, weathered bones jutting into the water, standing crooked and stubborn, an ever-static reminder of where it all started.
Nathan didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t need to.
The pier still held the ghost of that night. Salt air and adrenaline. Stolen kisses pressed between fear and wanting.
“I like to torture myself.” Freddie stirred sugar into two chipped mugs of instant coffee.
Nathan smirked behind him, lips ghosting Freddie’s skin. “Shoulda said. I’m trained in many forms of torture.”
Freddie turned in his arms, coffee in one hand, the other bracing against Nathan’s bare chest. “Don’t doubt it. You’ve been torturing me for years.”
Nathan leant forward until their foreheads touched. “Same.”
There was a long breath between them, then Freddie ghosted his fingertips across the ink scrawled on Nathan’s chest. The compass, stark black on golden skin.
“Always north, huh?”
“It’s an infantry thing.” Nathan opened his eyes. “First thing they drill into you. Know your north. Know it blind. So when you’re dumped in the middle of nowhere, you can find your way out. Find your way home.”
Freddie slowed his thumb over the N, grazing the point like a question.
“This letter’s different.”
“Yeah.” Nathan swallowed. “It’s also for Nate. For me to remember who I am. Or… who I was meant to be. So mething to hold on to. In case someone, somewhere, gave a fuck whether I came back.”
Freddie drew in a breath, then looked straight into Nathan’s eyes, unblinking. “I did.” His voice cracked, quiet but full of weight. “Always did. ‘Cept you never came back. Not to me.”
Nathan pulled away enough to meet him properly but kept his arms firm around Freddie’s waist. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Okay, yeah. Fine. You were becoming a dad. Needed stability. A job. That part I understood.” He blinked hard, looking past Nathan for a second as if the words hurt more coming out.
“Eventually.” He turned back. “But you didn’t write.
Didn’t call. You just disappeared. You didn’t just leave for the army, Nate. You left this town. You left me. ”
“That’s not true.”
Freddie scoffed. “Did I miss all those other knocks on my door?”
“You were furious , and I thought…I thought you needed time. Told myself I was giving you space. That if you wanted to see me off, you would have.”
He ran a hand through his hair, shoulders tight, voice cracking open.
“I got on that bus and kept looking back. Half expecting, half praying , I’d see you running after it.
But you didn’t. So I thought… you’d made your choice.
That you’d decided to let me go. And I never blamed you for that.
Not once.” Nathan’s throat burned. “I figured I had to let you move on. Live your life. The life I couldn’t.
Not with the uniform. My old man. You got to live free. I only knew how to survive.”
Freddie closed his eyes.
Then he twisted away. Not in rejection, but to set his coffee mug down on the counter. When he turned back, the air between them had changed. His eyes were dark, burning. And he gripped Nathan by the back of the neck and hauled him in to kiss him.
Nathan stumbled forward with the force of it, mouth crashing onto Freddie’s.
No space, no breath, only fire and teeth and years of hunger pouring into a single brutal moment.
Nathan let Freddie take control this time.
The way he always had, and Nathan had always loved.
Freddie had been the instigator, the one to show Nathan what to do, how to do it, and kissed away his fear.
So he moaned into it, shuddering when Freddie slid his hand under the waistband of his jeans, gripping his hip as if he owned him.
Nathan’s phone rang in his back pocket. A shrill vibration against his skin.
He ignored it. Not that he could answer, as Freddie broke the kiss to drop to his knees and Nathan had to lean forward to brace his hands on the counter for balance.
But Freddie shoved him back, guiding him until he hit the wall with a solid thud, then made quick work of his jeans.
The phone kept ringing.
Nathan let it.
Freddie yanked his jeans down far enough and freed him, then his mouth was on him.
Nathan gasped.
Loud.
Helpless .
Freddie wrapped warm lips around Nathan’s cockhead, swiping his tongue along the underside. Then Freddie took him in deep. Confident. Hungry . And Nathan nearly buckled, shooting one hand out to brace against the wall, threading the other into Freddie’s thick mound of dark hair.
The pressure. The heat. The fucking rhythm .
It was obscene. The slick sound of it. How Freddie used his mouth as if he’d missed this. As if he knew exactly what Nathan needed to fall apart.
And he was falling. Fast .
His phone vibrated again, insistent. A second call. Urgent. Demanding.
Nathan growled and shoved it deeper into his pocket with one hand, never once breaking contact with Freddie’s mouth.
He wasn’t stopping.
Not for anyone.
Not when he had Freddie like this. On his knees, swallowing him down, owning every ragged, broken sound tearing from Nathan’s throat.
“Jesus fuck, Webb,” Nathan panted, thudding his head back against the wall.
Freddie hummed around him, a wicked, purposeful sound, and the vibration lanced fire straight through Nathan’s spine, low, intense and immediate.
Then Freddie pulled off with a slick drag of lips, warm breath filtering over his cock as he gripped the shaft and worked him with slow, twisting strokes.
Then he dipped lower, mouth hot and eager as he devoured his balls, sucking them in with obscene hunger, lapping his tongue over sensitive skin, driving Nathan to fall apart.
It wasn’t just a blowjob.
It was a performance.
A statement .
It was Freddie showing him exactly what he’d learned. What Nathan had missed. What he could never forget again. And fuck, Nathan didn’t know whether he wanted to drag him up and curse him for it or grab him by the hair and fuck his throat .
Then Freddie slipped a hand into the waistband of his joggers, wrapping it around his own cock and fisted himself in rhythm, messy and rough, while his mouth sank back down onto Nathan’s length, fast, greedy, as if he couldn’t get enough. And Nathan was a slave to it.
He groaned, fisting Freddie’s hair. “Fuck, Freddie. Yeah. ”
Freddie grunted in response, fluttering his eyes closed as his movements grew frantic, and Nathan watched, transfixed, as Freddie came first. Silently, face flushed, breath stuttering through his nose, mouth still stretched around Nathan’s cock.