Chapter 5 #3
Chad sat fully. Not moving. Just breathing. Then he began to roll his hips—not bouncing, not performing, just a slow, undulating grind that scattered Hank’s vision into points of light.
Hank’s hands settled on Chad’s hips. Not controlling. Connecting. He let Chad lead.
Chad’s palm pressed flat against Hank’s chest. Hank covered it with his own. Their eyes met.
“I want to be on top,” Hank said. The need to be closer was suddenly ungovernable.
Chad leaned back and Hank followed, one arm bracing Chad’s lower back, the other planted on the mattress, rolling them without breaking apart—he was coordinated, it turned out, when it counted—and then he was covering Chad’s body with his own, pressing him into the mattress, their faces inches apart.
Chad wrapped his legs around Hank’s waist and pulled him deeper. Hank released his weight and Chad accepted it—all of it, every pound—with a soft exhale and arms tightening around his back.
Hank nuzzled into Chad’s neck. Sweat and soap and skin.
“Oh God, Hank,” Chad breathed. “I’m going to come.”
“Not yet,” Hank whispered against his ear, startled by the authority in his own voice. “Not until I say.”
He felt Chad’s cock twitch between their stomachs.
A beat.
“I’m just teasing,” Hank added. “I don’t actually—I have no idea if I have the authority to—”
“You do.” Chad’s voice was raw. “Trust me.”
Hank pressed his forehead to Chad’s. “I like you,” he said. The words landed small and enormous in the space between their mouths. “I think I could do this all night.”
“Me too. Especially when you talk in my ear like that.”
“Good.” His hips found a rhythm—slow, deep, deliberate. “Because there’s something I need to tell you.”
The words left him before he could stop them.
Chad stilled. Waiting.
“I know I’m the virgin here,” Hank whispered. “But this feels like—it feels new for both of us. You feel—I’ve never—”
“I know,” Chad said.
“And when you hold me like that, I don’t ever want to—”
“Then don’t. Stay.”
Hank mumbled something wordless against Chad’s neck. The climax was building at the base of his spine, in his belly, behind his eyes.
“I can’t hold on,” he said. “I’m—”
“Then let go.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“I have to tell you something first.” The words came out ragged. His body was already past the point of return, and his brain—his stupid, meticulous, press-release-writing brain—was flooded with the thing he’d been trying not to feel all night.
I love you. I think I’m in love with you. It’s too soon and I don’t care.
The words were right there. Pressing against his teeth.
“It’s okay,” Chad said beneath him, hands on Hank’s face, steady. “Whatever it is. You can say it.”
Hank came. His whole body seized, sound leaving him in a way that was neither dignified nor controlled, and he felt Chad clench around him, heard Chad cry out, felt the hot spill between their bodies as Chad came too.
They shook together. Hank buried deep, Chad holding on, both of them trembling through the aftershocks until the room slowly reassembled around them.
Hank’s brain came back in pieces. Chad’s heartbeat against his chest. Their breathing, ragged, gradually slowing. Music from the other room—still playing, all this time, to an empty den. Then language, returning sluggishly, like a government office reopening after a shutdown.
He was still inside Chad. Still holding him. His face was pressed to Chad’s neck, and he could feel the pulse there, quick and settling.
The thing he wanted to say was still in his mouth. But it had passed through the earthquake and come out wrong. Or come out right. He wasn’t sure. He would never be entirely sure.
He shifted. Lips brushing Chad’s ear. And what his scrambled, post-orgasmic, short-circuiting brain actually delivered was:
“I’m a senator.”
Silence.
Not the comfortable kind.
Hank felt Chad’s body go rigid beneath him. Not pleasure.
He pulled back far enough to see Chad’s face. Wide eyes. Mouth open. Expression cycling through confusion, disbelief, and something that might have been the beginning of panic.
“What?” Chad breathed.
Hank’s heart, which had been slowing, kicked back into a gallop. He withdrew carefully—the loss immediate and physical—and sat back on his heels. Naked, exposed, still wearing a condom, still shaking.
You just told him. Not “I love you.” Not “you’re incredible.” Your job title. Seconds after the most—
He stopped the thought. Started over.
“I’m a United States senator,” Hank said.
His voice was rough and unsteady. “From Georgia. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all night.
That’s my job. That’s why I’m closeted. That’s why everything about this terrifies me.
” He swallowed. “And I’m sorry I told you like this.
I wanted to say something else entirely, and this is what came out, because apparently my brain and my mouth have completely different—”
He stopped. He was spiraling. He could hear himself spiraling.
“Chad?” He reached out and cupped Chad’s face with trembling hands. “Please. Say something.”
But Chad didn’t speak. He lay there in the tangled sheets, flushed and undone, and looked at Hank like he was seeing him clearly for the first time. Or like everything he’d seen before had just rearranged itself.
The Chopin played on in the other room.
Neither of them heard it.