Chapter 10
The Pad Thai was getting cold, and Chad didn’t care.
He let his eyes drift while Hank ate. The apartment was the same as always—tidy, quiet, sparse.
Except for First Kiss on the wall across from the couch.
Still the only piece of art in the place, surrounded by all that empty space.
The blues and greens looked good there. Better than good. Like the room had been waiting for it.
“You’re staring at me,” Hank said, not looking up from his noodles.
“Admiring. Different thing.”
“Is it?”
“Staring implies a lack of intent. Admiring implies artistic appreciation.” Chad gestured with a chopstick. “You have good bone structure. Not my fault.”
“I’m eating noodles out of a cardboard box.”
“Beautifully, though.”
Hank gave him a look and went back to his Pad Thai.
Chad set his container aside and shifted closer.
Three weeks. The Botanic Garden, a handful of dinners, the studio once.
And tomorrow—the Kennedy Center. Tchaikovsky.
A private balcony. The closest thing to a real date they’d managed since the rules went into effect, which, twenty days in, were becoming more of a suggestion than a policy.
“I’ve been thinking about tomorrow night,” Chad said.
“The concert.”
“The concert.” He found Hank’s free hand and laced their fingers together. Hank set his chopsticks down.
“I’ve been thinking about it too.” Hank turned toward him. “I’ve been to dozens of concerts there. Always by myself. I used to sit in those seats and wonder what it would be like to—” He stopped. “Well. Tomorrow I won’t be by myself.”
“No.”
Hank squeezed his hand. Then looked at their joined fingers like they were something he was still getting used to seeing.
Chad kissed him. Soft, then less soft. Peanut sauce and Hank. The scratch of his beard. The small sound Hank made when Chad shifted closer, pressing him back into the cushions.
“Food’s going to get cold,” Hank said against his mouth.
“Already cold.”
“Fair.”
Chad climbed into his lap, knees bracketing Hank’s thighs, and felt Hank’s hands settle on his hips—thumbs finding the ridge of his hip bones the way they always did.
“Been thinking about you all day,” Chad said. “Sat through an hour of Renaissance patronage with my brain somewhere else entirely.”
“Where was it?”
“Here.” He rolled his hips. Watched Hank’s breath catch.
“Chad—”
“Tell me what you want.”
The question landed. Arousal still there, but something else moving underneath it. A man at the edge of a diving board.
“I want—” he started. Stopped. His thumbs pressed harder against Chad’s hip bones. “I’ve been thinking about something specific.”
“Okay.”
“About tonight. About what we might—” Going formal. The more nervous Hank got, the more he sounded like he was composing a memo. “I’d like to try something. If you’re—if that’s—”
“Hank. Just say it.”
He closed his eyes. His hands tightened on Chad’s hips. And the word came out like something spring-loaded:
“Doggy-style.”
Chad grinned. Now we’re getting somewhere. He’d been wondering when Hank would want to push past the playbook—really cut loose. The image was already there: hands and knees, Hank behind him, all that carefully contained weight finally—
“I can work with that,” Chad said, leaning in to kiss along Hank’s jaw. “You want me on my hands and knees?”
“No.”
Quiet.
Chad pulled back.
“I meant—the other way.” Hank’s face had gone deep crimson. Not the flush of arousal. The mortified red of a man whose mouth had outrun his explanation. “I want you to—I want to be the one—”
Oh.
“You want to bottom.”
Hank looked like he wanted the couch cushions to consume him. “Yes.”
“Where’d this come from?”
“Remember… someone told me I should stop being so—” A frustrated exhale. “—vanilla. That I should try—”
Someone. His ex-wife. Shelby.
“—and I’ve been thinking about it,” Hank continued, miserably. “What it would feel like. To—” He broke off. “Forget it. This is—”
“Hank.” Chad took his face in both hands. “Look at me.”
Hank looked at him.
“We’ve done doggy-style one way,” Chad said. “I was on the receiving end, and you were great.”
“Yes, but—”
“You’re asking me to top you.”
“Yes.”
“You know what that involves.”
“Uh, I have a general understanding, yes.” Still formal. Still crimson. Still holding Chad’s hips like an anchor.
Easy. Don’t make this weird. Don’t make this bigger than he can carry right now.
“Okay,” Chad said. “Let’s go to bed.”
He climbed off Hank’s lap and held out his hand.
Hank took it.
The bedroom. Curtains half-drawn. The bed was made with hospital corners because, of course, it was. Debussy still going in the other room, faint through the hallway.
Chad pulled his shirt over his head. Hank was working his own buttons—faster than their first time, but his fingers weren’t steady.
“Hey,” Chad said. “Slow down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
Hank looked at his own hands. “I suppose I am.”
Chad crossed to him and took over the buttons. One at a time. Hank’s hands dropped. His breathing was audible.
“You’re sure,” Chad said.
“I’m sure.”
Chad slid the shirt off his shoulders. Ran his hands across Hank’s chest—the dark hair, the warmth, the heartbeat hammering under his palms. He kissed him. Slow. A kiss that said we have time. Hank’s arms came around him and they stood there for a minute, skin on skin from the waist up.
They got the rest off without ceremony. Chad let his clothes hit the floor. Hank folded his trousers over the chair—and caught Chad watching him do it.
“Force of habit,” Hank said.
“It’s cute.”
“It’s neurotic.”
“Also cute.”
Chad reached for the bedside lamp.
“Leave it on,” Hank said.
They fell onto the bed together. Hank huffed a laugh as Chad landed half on top of him, and the tension broke just enough to make the room breathable.
Chad kissed his way down Hank’s body. Took his time.
Throat, collarbone, sternum. Each nipple—the caught breath Hank made, surprised every time, like he kept forgetting.
Lower. He took Hank into his mouth and felt the hand settle on his head—not pushing, just resting there.
He worked him slow, warm-up not the main event, and listened.
After a few minutes, he pulled off and reached for the nightstand. Condom, lube. The CVS bag was long gone—they’d graduated to having the stuff just there. He held up the condom.
“Turn over,” Chad said.
Hank turned over.
Breathe.
Because—yeah. The broad back. The shoulders. The way the lamplight caught the muscle along his spine. The trust of this position from a man who’d spent his whole life controlling everything.
Don’t think about that. Just be here.
Chad ran one hand down his spine. Felt the muscles tense, then deliberately release. “If anything doesn’t feel right, you say so. We stop.”
“Okay.”
“Not negotiable.”
“I understand.” Hank turned his head. One eye, dark and steady. “I’m ready.”
Chad slicked his fingers. Started with one. Slow, careful, letting Hank’s body figure out what this was. He watched Hank’s hands—gripping the sheet, then loosening, then gripping again. Coaching himself through it.
“Okay?”
“Different.” A breath. “Good different.”
“More?”
“More.”
Two fingers. Gentle. Hank shifted his weight, pushing back—instinct taking over, which was what Chad wanted. He found the angle, pressed, and Hank jolted.
“Oh!”
“There it is.”
“Again.”
Chad did it again. Watched Hank come undone in increments—the controlled breathing going ragged, the sounds getting lower, less edited. Three fingers. More lube. Hank was trembling, and not from pain.
“Oh, Chad. I need you.”
“Yeah.”
He rolled the condom on. Slicked himself. One hand on Hank’s hip, the head of his cock resting against Hank’s entrance. Not pushing. Just there.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
He pressed in. Slow. Feeling Hank’s body resist, open, resist again. The heat and tightness of it, and underneath that the fact of who this was and what he was being trusted with.
Don’t rush it.
“Breathe,” Chad said. “Push back against me.”
Hank did. Chad slid deeper. Hank made a sound that was mostly air and partly something else entirely.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” Wrecked. “It’s—a lot.”
“We can stop.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Chad breathed out a laugh and pressed the rest of the way in. Held still. Hank’s body clenched around him in involuntary pulses, and Chad had to close his eyes and think about nothing for a second.
He started to move. Long strokes, slow, giving Hank the full feel of it. Hank’s sounds shifted—from tight and careful to something deeper, more open. His hips started moving to Chad’s rhythm.
“Harder,” Hank said.
Chad gave him harder.
“Yes—”
The headboard tapped the wall. Chad gripped Hank’s hips and drove into him, and the sounds coming out of Hank were nothing the man would have recognized as his own—graceless, honest, loud.
“Chad—can we—”
“What?”
“I want to see you.” Strained but sure. “I want to see your face.”
Chad pulled out carefully. Hank rolled onto his back—flushed, chest heaving, cock hard and leaking against his furry belly—and looked up at Chad with nothing guarded in his expression at all.
“Like this,” Hank said. He lifted his legs, then hesitated. “Can I put my legs on your shoulders—I’m not exactly light.”
“Hank. I haul kegs for a living. Get your legs up.”
Hank put his legs on Chad’s shoulders, still looking uncertain about the engineering of it, and Chad pushed back into him in one slow stroke and watched the uncertainty vanish.
“Oh.”
“Better?”
“The angle—that’s—oh.”
Chad found a rhythm. Slower now, deeper. Face to face with nowhere for either of them to hide. Hank’s eyes were bright—not crying, just full. His hand came up to Chad’s face. Chad turned his head and kissed his palm.
Don’t say it. Too soon. You’ll spook him and you’ll spook yourself and—
He didn’t say it. Just moved. Hank’s legs tightened on his shoulders. Hank’s hands found his back, pulling him closer.
“Close,” Hank managed. “I’m—”
“Me too.” Chad reached between them and wrapped his hand around Hank—hard, wet, neglected—and stroked in time.
Hank came first. Back arching, legs clenching, a sound Chad was going to hear late nights for the rest of his life. The tightening of Hank’s body pulled Chad over right behind him, and he buried deep and let go.
Slow return. Breathing. The Debussy had stopped. The apartment was quiet except for them.
Chad eased out. Dealt with the condom. Dropped onto his back next to Hank and stared at the ceiling.
Hank hadn’t moved. One arm across his eyes. Chest rising and falling.
“Alive?” Chad asked.
“Unclear.” A pause. “I can’t feel my legs.”
“Good sign.”
Silence for a while. The good kind.
“I didn’t know—” Hank said eventually. Still looking at the ceiling. “—that it could feel like that.”
Mac never looked like that after. Jonathan either.
The thought came and went. Not the old panic. Just the quiet fact that whatever his picker had done wrong before, it hadn’t done it here.
“Thank you,” Hank said.
“Don’t thank me for sex.”
“I’m not thanking you for—” He turned his head. Those brown eyes, still glassy. “The care. You were—careful with me.”
“You asked for doggy-style and I delivered. That’s just good service.”
Hank laughed deeply, jovial, shaking the bed. Chad watched it happen and thought, Keep this. Whatever this is.
They lay there. The quiet settled.
Chad reached for his phone on the nightstand. Didn’t think about it.
Hank was on his back, one arm behind his head, the other resting on his stomach.
The sheet had been kicked to the foot of the bed at some point.
The lamplight caught everything—the chest hair, the softening lines of his body, the silver in his beard.
Not posed. Not aware of being looked at.
Just a man in his own bed with his guard all the way down.
Chad lifted the phone. Framed it. Tapped the shutter.
Hank’s eyes opened. “Did you just—”
“Yes.”
“Chad—”
“It’s a good picture.” He tilted the screen away before Hank could see what he’d been looking at. The arm behind the head. The golden lamplight. The unguarded face of a man who didn’t know he was being seen.
“Please don’t share that.” Quick. Reflex cutting through the post-sex haze.
“It’s for me only.”
Hank studied him. Whatever he saw was enough. “Okay.”
Chad looked at the image one more time. A warmth settled low in his ribs, his to hold.
He set the phone face down on the nightstand. Fitted himself against Hank’s side. Head on his chest. Hank’s arm came around him.
Tomorrow, the Kennedy Center. Tchaikovsky. A balcony in the dark. Another stretch of the only rule they had.
Hank’s breathing deepened.
Chad closed his eyes and didn’t think about the photograph or what it meant that he wanted to keep it.
He just kept it.