Chapter 21
Dean never thought he’d enjoy cuddling. He didn’t have much chance or reason to test it out when physical touch was to be avoided at all costs and extended physical touch sounded like torture.
The first time he was with a woman, he was terrified and quick, barely old enough to buy a beer for the pretty girl who sat down next to him and asked for one. She was forward and flirty, giving him full-blown smiles like they’d known each other for years. It was disarming.
He should have known that something was up when his lack of game didn’t turn her off, or when she didn’t shy away from his awkward, reflexive flinch when she reached for his dick. He was blinded by a sudden desire to conform to what society expected of him, to stop being such a fucking antisocial recluse and follow in his big brother’s footsteps when it came to women. The whiskey he drank helped dull his usual aversion, and her touch, all soft and encouraging, only spurred him on …but that disappeared the moment he’d finished.
He came into a condom. In a shitty motel room she led him back to, only a few thrusts after they’d begun and with half his clothes still on. She gave him a good-natured pat on the arm and a bored smile and shoved him off her before he could catch his breath.
He’d assumed he did something wrong, or that she regretted it, until the proud congratulations from Boone the next day confirmed everything he needed to know about that encounter. Everything he’d been too afraid to consider as truth until the proof was impossible to ignore.
He was nothing more than a job for her, and his brother arranged the whole thing.
No, he certainly didn’t cuddle with her.
Dean avoided letting anyone close for years afterward. He was content to ignore Boone’s ribbing about needing to get laid and simply jerk off to relieve the urge instead of seeking anyone out. It was a safer, acceptable way to live his life until he’d gotten drunk enough one night to give it another shot. Enough beer went a long way toward not giving a shit. Horniness helped him initiate this time, holding down the end of a different bar and buying a drink for a cute blonde with bright red lipstick. They both knew what was happening. No promises of something more were exchanged but no money was either when she followed him back to his truck.
Ten minutes later, she granted him a sweet kiss that he was too wasted to appreciate before leaving him alone in the cab, feeling hollow and having to call his damn brother to pick him up and drive him home. It was one of the few times he let his liquor get the best of him and he never heard the end of that.
That encounter was less scarring than the first, but no less empty, and he sure as hell didn’t cuddle with her either.
There has been no one else since.
Mostly, he didn’t care enough to try after those failed attempts. It was so much easier to keep everyone at arm’s length when getting too close meant exposing himself in all the ways he’s been most afraid of. So Dean accepted that what other people seemed to accomplish so easily wasn’t in the cards for him and he would remain alone for the rest of his sorry life.
And then he met Ava, and all he wants is to be close to her in every way she will have him.
A soft glow of morning light dances across a strip of bare skin where the sheet slipped off her shoulder. The warmth of her back presses into his chest, fine hairs dusting his face where he nuzzles at her neck. He is cuddling with her, and in a way, it is as intimate as everything else they’ve done in this bed, and for the first time in his life, he has no desire to pull away and find that coveted space he’s always needed.
“Morning.” She sounds sleep-drunk and lazy, hugging his arm between her breasts.
“Mornin’. Sleep good?” He muffles the question into her hair, noticing her mouth tip into a delighted half grin.
“Better than good.”
Exhaustion from being together granted them reprieves from their usual nightmares, but he won’t be surprised if they come back. For now, the worry lines on her face have softened, confirming that she slept as well as he did.
“Hungry? I can make us some food.” He’s not quite sure where they should go from here. He wants her again but is wary of asking too much, too fast. He’d be happy to stay in this bed until they’re both forced to leave for work, but he promised breakfast last night and so that’s an easy thing to fall back on.
Her gentle hand reaches back to stroke featherlight across his scalp, pulling a shiver from him. “I’m hungry, but not for food yet.”
She punctuates her sentence with a push of her hips, pressing back into the length of him already slotted between her ass cheeks. He is hard and ready because aside from the fact that he wants her…it’s also morning and biology is working in his favor.
The fact that she wants him again too is a gift he won’t waste.
He traverses the creamy soft skin of her breast, letting it spill heavily into his waiting hand. She fits so perfectly like this, a comforting weight against his hold, the stiff peak of her nipple rolling between the pads of his fingers. He is reluctant to let her go, peppering open-mouthed kisses at the juncture of her neck and shoulder while kneading at his bounty.
She is eager this morning, rubbing herself back against him, her body trying to catch the tip and pull him in.
It’s tempting to lift her leg and push into her in one quick thrust, bottom out, and welcome the slick hug of her walls around him, but she struggled to take him at first the night before and so he forces himself to go slow. He remembers the spark of pain creasing her features when he entered her, how tense she had been when only the head slipped inside before he stopped.
He travels lower, past the flat of her stomach and curves down to where she wets his fingers. Her body’s reaction has his cock twitching in anticipation, and then he feels the remnants of his own release from the night before dried on her skin, and his pulse throbs in the veins of his shaft. It’s the hottest thing he’s ever felt.
He’s never been the possessive type, but right now a primal part of himself swells with pride at having marked her, claimed her. He growls into her shoulder, remembering how she looked with her legs splayed open and his cum seeping out of her, how she hadn’t shied away from letting him gaze at her with naked wonder.
‘You can always add more later,’she had teased, and he plans on doing exactly that.
She pleads his name in a half whisper and he smiles, finding the swollen bundle of nerves where her heartbeat throbs on his fingertips. She is so responsive that it’s simple to know where to touch, how fast to move, and how hard to press. He follows her gasps and twitches, how she arches into his hand and squeezes the bedsheet in front of her. He is nothing if not observant.
He wants to feel her coming on his cock but isn’t willing to push into her until she is relaxed from an orgasm, so he keeps himself pressed between the curve of her ass cheeks, thrusting ineffectively on instinct alone. When she comes on his hand, it’s with a pained whine, her face pressing into the pillow, body twisting and shuddering. He has never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of her in the throes of pleasure or felt more satisfaction than he does now, knowing he’s the reason for it.
He gives her a moment to come back to herself, rubbing her hip in a gentle but firm stroke, peppering kisses to her heated skin.
“Ready for me?” he asks, his voice like sandpaper in his throat.
“Mhmm,” she hums, lifting her leg to hitch it over his hip and open herself to him.
He nestles his cock at her entrance, frowning at the slight resistance as he moves forward, but then she welcomes him, opening around the blunt tip as it pushes in, her breath hitching when he’s an inch or two within her.
“Still a little sore from last night.” Her tone is easy and accepting, with no hint of fear coating its edges this time. “Don’t stop.”
He has no trouble being patient. The urge to take her hard and quick is only a primal thing deep in his bones, but the desire to know she’s with him, that she enjoys the feel of his cock inside her, overrides anything else. So he nudges in little by little like he did the night before, letting her body admit him in as it feels ready to, until her ass presses to his hips and he is fully sheathed from base to tip. It is a marvel, he thinks, that they fit as well as they do.
The exhale she breathes out sounds like relief and he wonders if it’s anything like the sense of completion he feels himself. How being with her is like coming home in a way he’s never known.
“You feel so good,” she says, her body lax and her inner muscles hugging him just right.
It is tempting to stay like this as long as he can manage, motionless with only the feel of her clenching and unclenching around him, but instinct tells him to move and he obeys, setting up a slow rhythm of dragging thrusts. He is wary of sparking bad memories he knows she still keeps, but there’s uncertainty in himself too that questions every move he makes, so he is careful, perhaps to a fault. Experience is a thing he’s gotten so little of over the years and she is stuck on his learning curve.
“It’s okay.” She turns her head at an awkward angle, granting him a kiss, and then reaches back to clutch his hip, pulling him to her on every inward thrust.
It’s permission to let go, and he takes the obvious hint, sharpening his movements, pulling almost all of the way out before shoving himself back in. She turns away from him and presses her face to the pillow again, but her hand doesn’t leave his hip, fingernails digging at his skin, her leg bending and opening as if to draw him in further.
He thinks he hears her say ‘yes’ or ‘oh god’ but he can’t be sure because he’s close to being lost. He would reach down and try to help her there a second time, but white hot heat spirals in his lower belly, tightening his balls and swelling his cock and then he can’t get deep enough. His hips stutter, his rhythm erratic, firm hands pulling her to him as he coats her walls with his release.
All his thoughts narrow down to a single, fine point; hold himself as deep as he can go while he spills into her. His thrusts turn into desperate bumps of his hips against her ass, leaving no space between them as he spurts and trembles.
“I could get used to this.” She strokes his hip with a tender touch once his body has quieted and calmed.
She is still flushed, squirming every few seconds as if to relieve the pressure of her desire and it’s only then he realizes that she might have been close to coming again before he did. He eases out of her with a groan, urges her onto her back and takes up space between her legs. He is undeterred by the sight or taste of his own cum when he begins to work his tongue over her.
She must have been right on the edge because she clutches at his head only a moment later, pushing herself into his mouth. He reaches up, splaying a hand over her lower belly to feel the trembles of her orgasm flutter through her, massaging her clit with his mouth until she mutters that it’s too much. Then he sits back, gazing at the pink of her skin, slick with their combined fluids.
He’s never been so happy to have put off breakfast in his entire life.
* * *
They don’t shower together.
There’s some unspoken agreement between them that decides they aren’t ready for that yet. Being naked in a bright shower stall is quite different from being naked in the darkness of her room or even the dusty morning sunlight. It’s a thing they need to work up to, but that’s fine by her. She’s heard stories of people falling and hitting their head on the tile during shower sex anyway, so they might only be missing head injuries and emergency room visits.
There is another reason though, an undercurrent in that unspoken agreement that says if they did end up in the shower together, once they got past the mutual hesitancy….Dean would be late for work. She would be too.
They’d probably never leave the house today, respective employers be damned.
It’s safer all things considered for them to take turns, so that’s what they do. When he comes into the kitchen, fresh and clean with damp hair and a wicked grin, Ava wants to kiss it right off him. Maybe he can tell because he comes up to where she’s seated at the island and leans in to press his lips to hers, minty fresh, and sweet.
He doesn’t waste much time getting to work on that french toast, apparently serious about the breakfast he promised. No one has ever done this for her and she can’t help but prop her chin up on one hand and watch him work, an affectionate smile gracing her face every time he glances her way.
She is so hopelessly smitten that she’s not even trying to fight it anymore. It washes over her like a warm wave while this man she’s grown so attached to makes her food after the best sex of her life.
The best sex of her life…
She had sex, and she is still in one piece.
She didn’t feel like one more piece of her soul was stolen once it was over. She enjoyed it and that has never happened, not once, before she met Dean.
Never told someone she loved them and meant it before she met him, either.
When they move to the table, ready to dig into a mountain of decadent french toast, he sits first and wraps an arm around her waist, giving her a light tug until she’s seated in his lap. It’s a bold move, and she is so proud that he’s comfortable enough to initiate it. These little moments between them are still milestones.
“You ready to have your mind blown?” He gestures to the plates.
“For the third…fourth time?”
He fights a bashful smile as if on cue, telling her to stop in a way that sounds like never stop.
She digs into her breakfast like a food critic, wrapping her lips around the fork and tasting the most divine mixture of cinnamon and whipped cream, strawberries, and a hint of syrup. She might have moaned just a little in some obscene way, but it was the right reaction because delight blooms on his face at her positive feedback.
They spend the rest of the morning eating good food and stealing kisses in between bites, making plans for him to come over tomorrow and take another look at her car even though she’s not sure she cares much about fixing the oil leak anymore and only wants an excuse to see him again, knowing she doesn’t need one.
She wants to tell him he can come back tonight after work, thinks he’s five seconds away from suggesting that himself or asking if she’d like to come to his place instead, but neither of them follows through on it. Much as she hates the idea of spending the night alone, the logical side of her knows it’s better to have some time apart. They can’t wrap their lives around each other this early on.
So she sends him off with a kiss and smile, her belly full and her heart twice its size.
Ava wears that same smile all day, straight through her morning shift, well into lunch, and it remains even after she’s gotten back home. She’s not used to feeling this happy and some part of her starts to wonder if the other shoe will drop, or if she’s setting herself up to fail by allowing these feelings to grow untamed.
She shakes that thought away. Panda will be her only companion tonight, but he’s a welcome option, curled onto her lap in a little ball, full of warm purrs.
And then her phone rings, jolting her from the first episode of a show about time travelers. Lori’s worried voice and clipped tone on the other end confirm that the conversation Ava’s been putting off for days is about to happen whether she wants it to or not.