“Adonis,” he whispered. Adonis threw himself at Bash. Bash caught him, folding him in a tight embrace. “Fuck,” Bash whispered. “I was worried.”
Adonis realized he was shaking. The shock, the pain, the fear of finding Cort like that on the ice crashed over him, and he started to sob.
Bash held him while he cried.
“It’s okay,” Bash murmured, gently stroking Adonis’s back.
“I was so scared,” Adonis managed to say at last. Bash closed the apartment door behind him.
“Sounds like you did exactly the right thing,” he said. “I talked to Robbie on the way here. He said that if you hadn’t been there, Cort probably wouldn’t have made it. But, because you found him, he’s going to be okay.”
“Thank god,” Adonis whispered. He wiped his eyes. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Bash gripped Adonis’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner. I—I had to figure some things out. I could’ve communicated that better.”
“What changed?” Adonis said.
Bash laughed, a quick, rueful sound. “Nothing really changed. We can thank Lotte, though. When you called, you were, uh, on speaker in the car. She was driving. When she heard what I had to say, she drove like a maniac to the family company, marched me in, and demanded to talk to our mother and to the whole board. When they said they were busy, she threatened to turn the entire might of the Dutch royal family against the company—absurd, but honestly, Lotte could do it—and they agreed to meet. Lotte shouted at everyone for a solid fifteen minutes, explaining that it would be a horrible idea to have me run the company because I simply didn’t want to, and it was incredibly sexist and annoying that they kept overlookingher, when she was perfectly capable of running the company someday, and actuallywantsto. Mother and the board were stunned, but Lotte made a strong case. It was enough to shut them up, and when they were shut up, Lotte shouted at me for a good five minutes, saying that it was about fucking time that I stopped being scared to do what I want to do, and that I needed to stop feeling guilty about not following in our father’s footsteps. She had some choice things to say about our father’s footsteps that the board—and Mother—certainly didn’t want to hear. But they needed to hear it. And I did, too. And then she kept shouting about how I was in love, and love was the only thing that mattered, and that I had better get my ass back to Boston before I ruined the best thing that had ever happened to me.”
Adonis gaped at Bash. In that whole avalanche of a speech, one word echoed louder than the rest.
Love.
Lotte had said Bash was in love.
“Bash,” Adonis whispered. “Do you love me?”
Bash’s cheeks turned red. “Adonis,” he said, taking a step closer. He cupped Adonis’s cheek in his hand. “There are many things I don’t know about what happens next, and there are many more things I don’t understand about whathashappened. I don’t know why my father had to die. I don’t know why Cort was fucking shot. I don’t know why I injured my shoulder last season, or why I was born into the family I was born into, or why anything happens. I don’t know if I’ll play for the NHL or if I’ll have to do something else with my life. Hell, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring at all. Maybe this is my last day on Earth. Maybe I have sixty years left in me. But I know one thing, and it’s that, yes, I love you. In fact, I am in love with you. I am so deeply in love with you that if getting to love you meant giving up the NHL, I would do it. If it meant never touching a hockey stick again, I’d build a bonfire and throw every stick into it. My love for you is like gravity. It is afact. It is unchanging. It is the most powerful thing that I know. I have wasted too much time not letting myself love you, and I will not waste any more time. You said you wanted something more than what we had. I want that, too. And I think we already have it. I don’t know what we are building, but I want to keep building it. I want, with you, whatever future we can have. And I will do anything, give up anything, build anything, I must, so that you never, ever, ever, have to spend one more moment doubting how deeply, eternally, and irrevocably I love you.”
Adonis blinked. “Bash, I—” But words weren’t enough, so he stepped forward, wrapped his arms around Bash’s neck, and kissed him.
——
Adonis took the lead, pulling Bash to the bedroom, where they took their time undressing each other.
Bash's hands were gentle yet firm, touching Adonis’s body as if he were a sacred relic. His kisses were warm and tender on Adonis’s mouth, his neck, his chest. Bash guided Adonis to the bed, where he spread Adonis’s legs and took his cock in his mouth.
Adonis let himself sink into the pleasure of being worshipped by Bash, as Bash’s mouth, tongue, and lips explored every inch of his body, savoring him. He was ready to be filled, to be stretched by the thick hardness of Bash’s cock.
Bash, however, seemed to be in no hurry to rush things. He was slow, luxurious, tender in a way that belied his usual roughness with sex. It was tantalizing, perfect. His tongue tickled every tender spot of Adonis’s body. He explored Adonis’s hole, teasing him until Adonis was ready to weep for an orgasm.
Only when Adonis was sweating, his cock dripping with precum, did Bash slick his cock with lube and push inside of Adonis. Adonis gasped at the sudden pressure, the sense of his walls being stretched, pushed wide open. He gripped the sheets and the pillows as, with each heavy thrust, Bash went deeper and deeper into Adonis.
“I love you,” Adonis whispered into a messy kiss. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Bash’s breath on him was hot as he whispered the words back to Adonis. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
When Adonis came, it was like the orgasm was a wave, a tsunami, and it would’ve washed him away if it weren’t for Bash’s strong arms bracketing him.
Bash came moments later, pumping Adonis full of his cum, breeding him, marking him, claiming him.
Bash kissed the sweat on Adonis’s brow, the tears that leaked from his eyes, and the cum on his chest. “I love you,” he murmured with each kiss. “I love you. I love you.”
They showered together, spending almost as much time kissing under the hot water as they did cleaning themselves, and then returned to Adonis’s bed, where they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Chapter 31
Bash
