No one born or bred here would show the kind of softness Dair does now, all while sounding the opposite of gentle. For once, he’s rough—almost East End gruff. His gaze makes him a liar. It’s oh so tender.
“I never would have guessed what you were dealing with.”
Instead of pressing his mouth against my trapped cock, he stands, and I could groan at that missed chance. Might go ahead and get vocal about it. I would if not for him landing another kiss on my chest.
My heart stutters directly underneath where he made that contact, then stutters again at what sounds like praise from someone who has walked a similar path as me, for even longer.
“You’ll have to teach me how you do it.”
“How I do what?” I don’t mean to whisper. Apart from a cat prone to violence and a shit ton of spiky pot plants, there’s nothing and nobody here to eavesdrop on us.
Dair doesn’t reply right away. That’s just as well—I’m distracted by his head lowering to watch the path his knuckles take next. They brush their way down my body, first bumpingover a solid core built by delivering furniture to new addresses. Those knuckles ruffle through a dark line of hair, but all I see are his eyes. They look up to ask me the same silent question he’s voiced once already.
Can I?
Last time, Flynn interrupted, his phone call ricocheting around a bathroom in a much posher London borough. Nothing’s gonna interrupt us now.
Apart from me.
I’m the twat who repeats a question instead of getting my dick out for him to suck.
“How do I do what, mate?”
He’s still hoarser than usual, his gaze dropping. “Be strong enough not to need help.” He glances up again, his knuckles so fucking warm pressed against my lower belly, and my cock likes that so much. We both have to see a damp spot darkening the pale denim of my jeans. What I don’t like half so much is him seeing me as some kind of warrior.
The real truth is different.
Here in the bedroom where I found shelter, I get honest.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
At least one of us has their shit together—Dair presses the heel of his palm against my hard-on like I did against his in his bathroom, and fuck me, that feels so good I can’t string two words together. Not about how I couldn’t have packed all those totes away without Kev sniffing nonstop right beside me, nor about how that was the one and only day Kitty ever came to me for a cuddle.
“I ran away from dealing with it. Took the very first offer so I didn’t have to be here.”
But I have to admit that every single one of those bad times led to this moment of Dair sitting in front of me again on theedge of my bed, and on brand-new bedding designed to tempt me home.
I don’t even see any hose reels or hefty axes.
All I can see is him working on my belt buckle. On my fly. On pulling down the zipper and parting it to find what my underwear still covers.
He leans in to kiss that damp patch, the tip of his tongue adding extra wetness. He looks up once, askingcan Iagain, his pupils huge and black and deep enough to drown in, and after nodding, I have to close my own eyes to stop myself from falling.
I open them the second he mouths the head of my dick through a layer of cotton, and I’ll tell him anything he wants to know about me just as long as he peels it down so nothing is left between us.
I’m so gruff. “Yeah.” Anything else I could tell him would only sound shattered. Splintered. Broken beyond restoration. I don’t have the brainpower for additional communication. Dair sucks my vocab from me, and not just through my boxers—he shoves them down, my cock right there, thick and wanting, and Dair shifts to free his own dick.
I glimpse it in the ring of his fist, the head as rosy as I remember from what I had thought would be my usual one-off. This repeat is brand new. I can’t stop staring until it’s gone, out of sight, blocked from view by Dair taking hold of my shaft with his free hand to give me exactly what I need to quit thinking.
I thought I was on fire already.
His mouth is even hotter.
And so wet, like he’s been as hungry for this as me. The rise and fall of his shoulder tells me that no more talking is needed. We’re on the same page. Fuck it, our life paths have intersected too often to ignore. From our roots to where we’ve ended up together, we’re more similar than different. He even pays the head of my dick the same kind of attention I did his the day afterI first met him. That feels like a lifetime ago but déjà vu hits hard when he rubs the pad of his thumb over my slit, then licks it.
I did that our first time together.
Tasted him from my thumb first and then from his slit.
