There’s no denying he’s delighted. And not just because I’ve brought him presents. “You’ve been waiting here for me?”
“Course I have.” I glance at the building someone else will own tomorrow. “Because I watched you pack up everything in your kitchen and bathroom this afternoon, didn’t I?”
Technically, he did that packing yesterday. I’ve lost track of time, apart from a constant nagging that ours will soon be over. My voice pitches lower with how much I wish that wasn’t the case.
“Couldn’t have you coming back here to nothing on your last night here, could I?” That’s an excuse. We both have to hear it.I hope he also hears how much I want him to disagree with my next suggestion. “I can just leave these with you.”
His refusal includes the wordcannae, and if Marilyn was here, she’d echo him,I’m sure. Tease me worse than any Heppel Ex, and I wouldn’t stop her. She’s the reason I’m armed with these goodbye gifts asDair wrestles his front door open one-handed. His other hand threads with mine, not letting me go until we’re both inside a hallway where we’ve already shared a few shiny-eyed moments.
Tonight, it’s lined with packing boxes where we share another.
He unscrews the lid of a wide-mouth Thermos me and Marilyn debated over in a crowded supermarket. Dair looks up from the steaming meal it contains, his eyes bright for happier reasons than I’ve seen lately. “You made stovies for me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. To say thanks.”
“You’re thanking me? Why?”
I’ve struggled for words so often. Finding them for him is easy. “For showing me how you see me.” I saw it on his lock screen. On his face too, like right now, and my voice pitches even lower. “Can’t promise the food will taste good. I didn’t have the leftover roast Marilyn said it needed. Had to improvise. Dunno if it will be anything like the real deal.”
I don’t have to wait long to find out. He digs in, loading the fork I packed for him like he once packed teaspoons for me when my kitchen drawers were empty. Dair takes a first mouthful, stopping mid-chew, and my heart stutters like Kev’s van does on icy mornings. “I-is it okay?”
The groan he lets out spellsyes, and so what if I wouldn’t recognise that word even if I saw it. My heart purrs like Kitty. Purrs even harder when he feeds me a mouthful, and yeah, I will have to thank Marilyn again—it’s tasty. And it’s as warming as the bath he lets me run for him once he finishes his supper.
In the bathroom where I first kissed him, I pass over my second goodbye gift. “Marilyn said this helped her to drop off faster when her brain was buzzing.”
Dair reads a label that I already got my phone to read out twice. “Bath salts with essential oils?”
I’m back to stuttering. “Y-yeah. The magnesium is meant to help with sleep. The lavender oil too.” I don’t mean to scratch my chest or to blurt, “You aren’t allergic, are you?” Dair tracks that scratching movement, his lips pressed tight together, and I hope to fuck he isn’t holding in a laugh at me being this gone on him that I spent the evening crying over onions and checking labels for hive activators.
He shakes his head like he heard my inner worry. Then he nods and lets me take care of him like I want to.
I start by slipping off his fleece jacket and the layers he wears underneath it until he’s bare-chested. His hair glints, and not only on his head. Embers glow in the trail bisecting his belly, heading southward. One of my knuckles heads south too, following that path, and Dair shudders. He also grabs my hand when I pull back.
“Keep going,” he tells me, and I could undress him some more. It would be easy, no need to even loosen a belt or pop a fly button. A single tug on a drawstring and his trousers would puddle at his ankles, but I can’t stop touching that thin line of dark-red hair. This time, I follow a path north like he will soon, and maybe there’s something to be said for map tattoos like Adey’s. At least I’d know exactly where to find him on that island if work ever took me that far from London.
For now, I touch him and discover I’m greedy for more than ice cream—one knuckle isn’t enough skin-to-skin contact for me. Nor for him. He grabs my free hand, and just like that, both of my palms are flat against his chest.
I like how the planes of his pecs feel. Like even more how the pink points of his nips tighten at my touch. What I like best is the sound he lets out. It’s a repeat of the groan I last heard in his kitchen, and so what if I left school without a certificate to my name. I study Dair so fucking hard, fully focused on his reactions, and I got no problem reading this body language. Each brush of my thumbs provokes another of those hungry noises, and pinching increases his volume.
I sit on the side of the bath, pull him between my spread legs, and add my mouth to this farewell party.
His next shudder comes with his nails digging into my shoulders. Dair tells me without words that he likes it sharp and spicy, and I wish to fuck we’d met so much sooner.
I’d pay him this kind of attention forever. All I’ve got is tonight, so I give him what he wants until his knees buckle.
Only for a moment.
Dair regroups to tug me upright. His hands find my belt buckle like he thinks what made me stalk his doorstep was a last chance to get my dick inside him. The scent of lavender is a clue this means more than any of the one-and-dones I used to walk away from before they could get to know me.
I didn’t want any of those hookups to discover which part of me was shattered. Tonight, I’m with someone special who already knows, and who sees more than my broken pieces. He looks at me like I’m something special as well.
If there’s a cure for me liking that so much, I don’t want it. I’m hardwired to want his brand of caring. And I’ve been trained by Kev to give it.
I must have been. I test the temperature of the bathwater, sounding as gritty as he always sounds about me. “Yeah, that’s perfect.” That’s how Dair feels to me. “Get in before it gets cold.”
He doesn’t. He kisses me instead and takes his time about it. His mouth opens, slick like I hope the water will feel. Soft too until he kisses harder.
Steam rises. So does the lavender scent. It thickens the air and breathing gets tough.
