Chapter 4 #3
Felt like I’d been sliced open, chest cracked wide apart. The taste of primary colors on my tongue, bold swirls of yellow and blue.
Then Stellan kissed my temple, his hold around me growing sweet and easy.
I dragged myself back to the light, my breath scraping along the inside of my throat like it was the tail end of a hard-fought game.
Dizzy. Like something fundamental had shifted inside me, had blown wide open, no way to go back.
A man’s hand on me, a man’s mouth. Stellan.
I’d shoved this down for years, and now that I’d stopped fighting, there was no way back.
His hand fell away. He relaxed under me as if… okay, what? As if we’d leave it there? I gathered my thoughts with both hands and blinked down at him. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you a minute?” Like it was obvious, like I couldn’t handle this, handle him, and yeah, no, what the fuck.
“Generous,” I said, and adjusted my grip on him. Awkward, the angle uncomfortable, but I’d be damned if I let him walk away like it’d meant nothing.
“Matt,” he started, then fell abruptly silent when I twisted my wrist the way I liked. A sharp intake of air, eyes fixed on me as if the room had pinholed to just us and this moment.
Yes. There you are.
“Game’s still on,” I told him. “Keep up.”
His eyes squeezed shut with a laugh that sounded like it had been dragged out of him, rough and frayed. I kept my hand moving, kissed him hard because I could, and he kissed me back like it was air, like he was done with restraint. Good, yes.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and it tugged low and satisfied behind my ribs. “Matt.”
“That’s it. C’mon, Stellan.”
A few quick strokes and my teeth on his throat. Then he came hot and slick, with a soft, broken groan that zipped down the bumps of my spine. His fingers dug into my shoulder like it kept him from cracking into pieces.
I’d have bruises tomorrow. There might be comments, a joke or two, the kind that nobody thought twice about. Finally got some, huh? Who is she, then? And my mind would serve up this exact moment: Stellan sprawled loose under me, stripped of charm and armor, just messy, human, real.
I don’t like you. I tried to hold on to the words, slick like my hand on him, threatening to slip through my grasp. I don’t like you.
For a while, we didn’t move much beyond what it took to keep breathing.
The music had dropped to a slower, darker grind, a smooth bass line filling the room, twining with a thin slice of sunlight cutting through the clouds.
My nose was pressed into his hair, one of his hands splayed heavy between my shoulder blades.
I still don’t like you.
Eventually, I raised my head to look at him—spots of color on his cheeks, curls in a tangle, mouth kiss-flushed. He met my gaze.
“So.” His voice was lower than usual. “Met expectations?”
I snorted. “Don’t go fishing for compliments.”
“Sounds like a yes.”
“I have low standards.”
“That’s a lie.” He looked light, pleased, as if this had been more than just another hookup in a long, forgettable line of them. Maybe. Or maybe I was flattering myself.
I shifted off him, gave him space to breathe. “I’ll get you some tissues. Or you can clean up in the guest bathroom, if you want.”
“Thanks.” He sat up as well, and he should have looked ridiculous, jeans hanging open, blinking a little as if reality moved just a hint too fast. Instead, it hit hard and beautiful, warm like the first full day of spring.
Or maybe I needed to get my fucking shit together.
“Down the hall on the left,” I told him.
He nodded, smiled, looked slightly unsteady as he got up. I watched him disappear, the aftermath still humming in my blood.
What now?
Wash hands. Straighten clothes. Then assess.
I did—used the kitchen sink to wash my fingers since I didn’t want him wandering around the place unsupervised, the back of my neck still hot with the taste of his mouth and the broken sound he’d made before he’d spilled over my fingers. Expectations exceeded by a fucking mile.
Water.
I poured two glasses and emptied one with quick, hard gulps, offered the other to Stellan when he returned—jeans zipped up, still shirtless.
He took it with a quiet “Thanks” and a brush of our hands that might be deliberate or maybe not.
I watched his throat when he drank half of it in one go, too aware of the carefully measured space between us.
Like we’d somehow backed into being strangers again.
Except we weren’t. Not after I’d had my mouth on his, my hand on his cock. Not when he knew things about me he hadn’t earned, when he himself had let a truth or two slip through.
Foster kid, probably. Clothes as armor, charm like a shield. A shitty job he’d taken young, maybe, because it paid the bills.
“You okay?” he asked into the quiet thrum of my thoughts.
“I’m good,” I said, sure and steady.
Was I? Yeah. It’d been… fuck. Good. Really fucking good. Great, even. Better than anything before, and maybe that was him or maybe I’d finally stopped lying to myself. Maybe both.
His mouth twitched—not a smile, but something adjacent. “I should go.”
No.
Yes. Definitely yes.
I leaned against the kitchen island and studied him a second too long. Game on Saturday, travel on Monday, and a heaviness in my bones that said I wasn’t done with him. Hell, it wasn’t even just his body. It was him.
“You off Sunday?” I asked.
His eyes sharpened, a muted blue-green in this space where I still felt like a guest sometimes, my bedroom and the reading corner the only two places I’d truly made my own. “No,” he said. “But it’s a shorter day. I could be over at six.”
“Six works.” I drew a breath that filled my lungs. “Same rules.”
This time, his smile landed true.
Sunday.