Balfour
I saw the look on Kendrick’s face shatter as soon as I uttered the word no, and my heart nearly broke. I needed to remember to say all the words in my head, and not just give one word answers.
“I mean, no, I’m not going to penetrate you,” I quickly rushed to assure him, wincing when his eyes turned stormy. Fuck, I was botching this to hell and back. Words would forever be my downfall. My actions spoke far better for me than my words ever could.
Tightening my hold on him, I brushed my lips against his temple, leaving a soft kiss in my wake. Which seemed to halt hisinsistent squirming, no doubt to be let down and far away from me. “You’re too sore, little one. And don’t tell me you aren’t. There is no way that you could possibly not be. I put some salve on your hole while you were still passed out and you whimpered just from me touching you there.”
His big brown eyes blinked at me, once, twice. “You did?”
“I did. I was afraid you were going to be sore, and the salve will help. One of the elves makes it and they stock it at the general store. I had them send some over when I placed an order.”
“You did?” he repeated slowly, looking shocked. I really wished people would stop looking at me like that when I did nice things. Just because I was grumpy most of the time, didn’t mean I wasn’t nice, for fucks sake.
Especially when it came to someone I…cared about. And I did care for Kendrick. More than I should. And pretending to be his boyfriend had told me one thing about myself. If and when I ever decided to be someone’s real boyfriend, I’d be a damn good one.
Or maybe it was Kendrick that made it easy to be a good one?
All I did know for sure was touching him, being inside him, making love to him, even though he had been out of his mind with heat, had been one of the most amazing times in my long life. It wasn’t something I was going to forget anytime soon.
And with him looking at me the way he was looking at me, the way he felt cradled in my arms, bare skin touching bare skin, the way his raw scent clung to his skin, there was no way in hell I wasn’t getting into that shower with him.
It had taken everything inside me, when he had clearly asked me to fuck him again, to turn him down. My cock practically weeped at my need to tell him no, wanting nothing more but to be buried balls deep in his tight heat and wetness.
But I would not cause him any pain, and I knew he was hurting. His hole had been puffy and red when I had gently smeared the salve on him. The painful whimper he had moaned when I’d breached him with my finger to coat the salve inside him had nearly ripped my heart out of my chest.
The last thing I wanted to do was cause him pain. But with as many times as I had taken him, there was no avoiding some soreness. My cock was proportionate with the rest of me, and Kendrick had been tight. So deliciously tight. His hole had wrapped around my cock like a warm glove. Remembering it now had my cock thickening between my thighs.
Realizing I had gotten lost in my thoughts and hadn’t answered his last question, I nodded. “Just some supplies we needed. And Keegan said you were going to be so bummed missing your families’ Christmas day traditions, even though they are still going to have presents and stuff with you. I wanted to make sure when your heat was over you would still have that.” Feeling my face flush with heat that had nothing to do with the steam from the shower, or the feel of Kendrick’s naked body in my arms, I stammered, “I didn’t want you to miss out because of your heat. I thought we could share them. It’s silly. We don’t have to. It was a dumb idea.”
Kendrick’s brows knitted together in a frown, his forehead forming a perfect little vee of confusion. “What things?”
Gah! Why did I always sound like I was babbling nonsense when I spoke more than one or two sentences at a time?
“Um…hot cocoa and cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Stockings before presents.” I tried to shrug it off, feeling embarrassed by my idea of wanting to make sure he still had something he loved. Of wanting to share those things with him.
Kendrick’s top teeth scraped his bottom lip, and he looked like he was concentrating really hard. Then he whispered, “You made sure we had cocoa and cinnamon rolls, so you could fixthem for me when I was done with my heat, and thinking rationally again?”
Instead of speaking, and risking using too many words, or not enough words, I nodded my head briskly. Then, not looking at him, quietly added, “And a stocking.”
“And a stocking,” he repeated slowly. Looking back at him, I nodded again.
His lips pursed into a mischievous little grin. “Is it like an empty stocking, or did you have Santa fill it?”
Rolling my eyes, I flipped the shower curtain back with one hand. If we didn’t get this shower moving, we’d end up using all the hot water. “I had him fill it with coal, because smart asses don’t deserve fun presents.”
Stepping into the tub with my precious cargo still in my arms, I slowly put him on his own feet, holding his arms until I was sure he was steady. Kendrick ducked his head under the spray, sighing happily as the hot water sluiced over his pale, freckled limbs.
“This feels amazing.” He swiped the dark red, wet hair back from his forehead, blinking the water from his eyes. Squeezing shampoo in my hands, I slowly worked it into his scalp. He stared at me wide-eyed for a couple of seconds, before his eyes fluttered closed in bliss. “I take that back. This is amazing.”
Chuckling, I worked the shampoo into a nice lather, massaging his scalp for a few minutes, before tilting his head back to rinse him off.
“Mmmm,” he mumbled, blinking up at me, “you have magic hands.”
Snorting, I shuffled him out of my way, so I could take my turn under the water. When I opened my eyes, he was holding the shampoo bottle out to me.
“I’d offer to do the same for you, but since you’re so freaking tall, it just won’t work.”
“Neither will shower sex,” I told him, working the shampoo into my scalp and long hair. “Unless I held you up against the wall the entire time, and there’s a lot of slippery hazards in here. It’s just…it doesn’t work.”
