Chapter 16 #2
“I—” The single word came out a heady gasp as I started to lose myself. “Tiago. I’m…”
“Yeah,” he moaned back. I could feel it. He was going to come too—untouched, dick throbbing against the sheets, the only friction from the way I was fucking his ass and rocking his body against the bed.
And that thought alone was what sent me over the edge. I hammered into him—several desperate, rhythmless thrusts, and then I was coming. My vision whited out as I let it overwhelm me, and I laid my chest on his back as I rolled my hips, forcing him to take me deeper.
And it was somewhere in that fog I heard him come too. He shuddered and shook with it, the sheets muffling his cries as he humped his hips against the bed. And just before I took my final gasping breath of ecstasy, he went still beneath me.
Collapsing on his sweat-slick skin, I pressed my nose into the back of his neck as his knees finally gave out, and we tumbled sideways. My softening cock was still inside him, and I could feel him squeezing around me, like he was trying to keep me there.
“Aravind,” he murmured, sounding absolutely shattered.
My cock softened more, and as I reached down to grip the condom and pull out, he let out a distressed cry. Unthinking, I replaced my dick with three fingers and felt him clench, then relax around me.
The tension in his shoulders bled away as I pumped them gently inside.
“Better?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
Biting the back of his shoulder, I twisted just enough to toss the condom on top of my discarded pants, and then I curled back around him as I gently fingered his ass. “Don’t you fucking dare be sorry.”
He shivered with a muffled laugh. “I don’t, uh…I haven’t…” He took a breath before he tried again. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Bottomed?” I felt suddenly horrified. Was this really his first time? Had I robbed him of something that should have been more tender? That should have been longer? That should have been more for him?
“I’ve bottomed,” he said, and relief punched me in the sternum. “But never like that. Never…never the way I wanted.”
“And that was what you wanted?”
His body went tense again, but before I could try and kiss him relaxed, he pulled away from me.
My fingers left his ass with a small squelch, and then he was turning, wrapping his leg around me, pulling me against his chest. His face buried in my hair, and I heard him take a deep breath of my scent.
It had to be all sex and sweat, but he did it again, so he must have liked it.
“That was the most amazing thing I have ever felt,” he finally said. He trailed a hand down my spine, then pulled away. He was only a few inches away, but suddenly, his eyes widened, and I realized he could see me.
Like, actually see me.
He swallowed heavily as he touched the edge of my jaw with the tips of his fingers.
“Tiago,” I whispered.
He shook his head carefully, not moving his eyes. “Just…let me look.”
“Okay.” This moment felt big. And heavy. And maybe too important to be wasted on someone like me. But he asked, and I wasn’t about to tell him no.
After a moment of what looked like an internal war, he blinked. And then he blinked again.
“Is it gone?”
He smiled. “No. It’s just not as good as a second ago. It was the perfect lighting.”
I hadn’t even noticed a difference, but then again, why would I? Taking his hand off my face, I pressed his palm to my lips and kissed it, then did the same to all of his fingers.
“I didn’t expect you,” he said after a long while.
“What do you mean?”
With a shrug, he passed his hand down his face and covered a yawn.
“I don’t know. Obviously, I thought you were gorgeous.
And mean. Which probably shouldn’t have done it for me.
And I think I wasn’t even sure how I felt for a while other than I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
And when I got hurt and you were there in the hospital… ”
I braced myself.
“I didn’t expect to be relieved, but I was. In that moment, it felt like you were the only person who’d be willing to tell me the truth.”
I wanted to burrow in his arms, beneath his skin, go live in his chest so I could protect him from feeling shitty. Which was a weird-as-fuck mental image, but I was going to own that. Even if I wasn’t going to say it out loud.
“I’m sure you would have been fine if your friends had been with you,” I told him.
He laughed and laid his cheek against the top of my head. “Maybe. I don’t know. I kept hoping you’d come back, but I was too afraid to admit what that meant. I think…I don’t know. Maybe I just wasn’t in a good place to accept rejection.”
“There has been no rejection,” I reminded him. I pulled back and frowned. “Only enthusiastic consent and horniness.”
He burst into laughter, then took me by the chin and kissed me. Hard. “Yes. There has been a lot of that. Which is what I meant when I said I didn’t expect you. I didn’t expect this.”
“No regrets?” I asked, lying back against him.
He curled his arms around me. “No regrets.”
I wasn’t sure he’d stick to that the moment my aunties and dad arrived, but for now, I allowed it to be his uncontested truth.
“So.” I slid water across the counter to Tiago as I waited for the rice cooker to finish. There were fifteen minutes left, and the other decent thing I could make—a baked fish—was resting in the pan on the oven.
Tiago raised his brows. Though his eyes were fixed on a spot behind me, I knew I had his attention. “So…”
“Your family.” He groaned. “What did your brother have to say?”
We hadn’t talked about his phone calls with his nephew’s dad, though there had been several of them, and they were all long. I was also doing my level best to avoid thinking about Leon’s bullshit attempt to reach out to me.
If I fell down that rabbit hole, I’d never come out, and I was not going to let Leon ruin this one good thing I had in my life.
Tiago sighed as he sat back and ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “He was apologetic for using his son to drop that shit in my lap. He tried to cop an attitude with me for not doing a better job at lifting Oliver’s spirits.”
“Well, that’s fucking garbage,” I blurted.
Tiago snorted. “Yeah. Something is seriously wrong with them. They act like my life should be some poor blind man’s version of Oliver Twist, where I’m begging for scraps, but also that I should be a walking blind-man pride parade or something, ready to conquer all the mountains.
They’re going to destroy that kid if they’re not careful. ”
“They didn’t destroy you,” I pointed out. I leaned my forearm on the counter, then reached out to play with Tiago’s fingers. I couldn’t seem to stop touching him, and I kept waiting for him to pull away, but he never did.
He was everything Leon hadn’t been. And I hated that I’d met Leon first instead of someone like Tiago who’d be willing to take me as I was.
Why couldn’t I keep this forever?
“They didn’t destroy me because I’d already written them off for being shitty. But Oliver was the golden grandchild, and I’m not sure how well he’s going to do when all of that changes.”
Biting my lip, I studied his fingers. His hands were rough like all hockey players. Bitten nails and calluses, thick knuckles, scars from getting slashed with skate blades after fucking around playing shinny.
I loved their little imperfections.
“Do you think,” I asked carefully, “that their opinions might change if Oliver’s the golden child?”
Tiago let out a breathy hum. “Maybe. For his sake, I hope so. There’s nothing worse than parents who decide to make their kid’s disability their whole personality, but…”
“Ew, what? What parents do that?”
“Next time we hang out with Micah and Jonah, ask them about their mom,” Tiago said with a wry grin. “Or hell, you can go look her up on YouTube. Some of her old videos still exist.”
My stomach recoiled in horror. “I don’t know if I want to.”
He laughed again. “Yeah. You probably don’t. But it’s kind of a thing able-bodied parents do. I never had that experience, obviously. They literally thought my RP was some sort of god-given punishment for the affair.”
“Good lord,” I muttered. “That’s some old-school karmic caste shit.” He frowned in confusion, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain that to him, so I just waved it off. “He knows he’s got a cool, rich uncle though. If it starts getting weird, he can text you.”
Tiago’s mouth softened. “He already has. And I know he’s going to have a thousand questions, and he’s going to hope that he’s different than me—that he’ll be the exception. That will be the worst part.”
I had no idea what to say to that. I’d never had to face anything like this before. But as hurt as Tiago was—and it was obvious in the expressions he made every time he talked about his family—he was also very much his own person.
And so brave.
“Sorry. This is weird, right?” Tiago asked, pulling away from my grasp. “This is a little too heavy for a fake boyfriend.”
That stung. It wasn’t his fault. I was the one who’d created and set the boundary about who and what we were. I had no business feeling any type of way about it.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Tiago looked surprised. “Oh, I…yeah. Yes. We are.”
“Are you sure you believe that?” I teased.
He scowled. “Fuck off. We’re friends.”
I hid my laugh as I leaned back on the counter. “Then you can bitch about your family all you want.”
He looked better. Or, if not better, at least a little more settled, and that would have to be enough for now.