“Four months is no time at all. I thought…” He falters again. “T-the way you mentioned it made me think you lost her a long time ago.”
“No.” It just feels like forever.
“And you used to live here with her? Not just when you were a kid. As an adult as well?”
I shrug, aware I’m as gritty as the banks below us. “Have you seen the price of rent in this city?”
“I’m not criticising. I didn’t move out from my foster parents’ place until I started caring for Alice.” And he isn’t done asking questions. “But you did move out to live with your… With Flynn?” He guesses why. His shoulders sag. “Oh. So you didn’t have to be here. When was that?”
“When did I move to Kensington? The day after the funeral.” And it does seem years since I left a sad wake only to stand outside a happy meet-up I couldn’t make myself enter. I don’t even know why I went there. I shove my phone into my pocket, fingers finding the pen Harry left me. “I couldn’t face?—”
“Being here without your aunt? No wonder, and after losing your Mum too.” He blinks. Blinks again even faster, his eyes shiny.
For me.
Dair hauls me into the kind of hug that tells the real truth about someone I first guessed would be easy pickings. A soft touch. He feels plenty strong to me right now. Sounds it as well.
“Alice has been gone for longer than four months.” His breath is so warm against my ear. “A lot longer, Vincent. Probate took forever. The court case. It all took so much more time than you’ve had, but you’re the one putting on a brave face.” His voice thickens. “Dinnae do that,” he orders in another warm gust.
He doesn’t order me to stop breathing, but it’s increasingly hard to inhale or exhale around what sounds like permission to feel everything that just chased me across the hallway.
Getting a grip shouldn’t be tough. I lift and fucking carry for my living.
It’s never been harder.
His arms around me tighten like he can tell, and I got no choice when his hands sweep up and down my back for the second time since we met. Dair smooths both palms over my coat, soothing, and fuck everything I told myself about not taking.
I clutch him back even tighter. I also lower my head, and his mouth is right there, so I kiss it.
We’re fifteen floors above the riverbanks littered with broken china. This kiss puts me back together. It’s what I wanted each night last week when our video calls ended. And it’s what I’ve woken up wanting since he walked into a restaurant and told me why Charles had sent him.
Right now, Dair gives me a perfect reason to stop reliving my past. Our tongues touch, and he scoots nearer, his feet nudging between mine, and we might as well have been carved to fit together. Then he’s somehow even closer and we’re kissing like we both need it more than breathing.
Some oxygen must find its way to my lungs. Whatever started to smoulder the first night I met him doesn’t just rekindle.
Itcombusts.
9
I kisshim until asphyxiation is a real issue, and I’m not the only one of us who breaks off panting.
Dair gulps for air as I lose my coat, then he yanks my shirt free to get his hands underneath it, all while he resumes contact with his mouth. His lips brush my beard, the hinge of my jaw, and finally fuse to my throat, where he sucks heat to the surface.
I’m hot already, consumed with getting his clothes off, and I don’t know when I yanked off his own jacket or shoved his top up, but I want to map this bare skin—and he lets me. More than that, Dair lets out sounds I translate asmoreso that’s what I give him.
I do it by shoving his top layer of clothing even further up, then off completely, and he lets out a different noise, like he’s annoyed he has to break off that sucking contact to let me do it. He’s happier when he’s stripped to the waist. Dair gets busy with his drawstring and I get busy with losing my own shirt, pausing when I notice that he’s stopped dead.
Dair stares at my bare chest like it’s the first time he’s seen it.
It isn’t. He’s seen me with my shirt off twice already. Touched it too, like he does again now, only now, there’s no salve slickinghis fingers. His mouth does all the soothing I need, with no help from any aloe vera. He kisses me all better, and it’s the closest I’ve felt to healed in this home since…
I close my eyes.
Have to.
They sting as if my old bedroom is smoke-filled, but I don’t need the firefighters on my new bedding to come to life to stage a rescue. Dair does it single-handedly by not stopping that kissing until there can’t be an inch of my pecs missing out on his caring treatment. Or my belly.
I guess where this is headed as soon as he sits on the edge of my bed, his mouth so close to the hard-on firming up in my jeans that I hold my breath. His lips almost land there, so close to where I strain against unforgiving denim that he must see it.
