“So fucking perfect.”
“You have too many clothes on,” Andrew tells him, running his fingers along Nicki’s throat and delighting in the way his Adam’s apple bobs. “I think you should take them off.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes.” Andrew’s fingers curl around Nicki’s throat, his thumb resting over Nicki’s pulse point to count the rapid beats. “Show me what’s mine.”
“Bossy princess,” Nicki smirks.
“You like me bossy.”
“Damn fucking right I do.”
There is the truth of it. Nicki likes Andrew. He likes him put together and dressed up as much as he likes him in his home clothes. He likes him charming his teammates as much as he likes him crashing out in a rage room. He likes all versions of Andrew, none of them more or less real, just different parts of himself—some of which he spent so long hiding, he hardly knew how to let them out before meeting this beautiful man.
Watching Nicki undress himself, there’s none of the carefulness he exhibited while undressing Andrew. He’s notputting on a show either, which somehow makes it better. Just his Nicki, stripped down and open, only for Andrew.
There’s a want in Andrew, one he’s never had the freedom to explore. It’s not sexual exactly but adjacent.
“Nicki.”
“Yeah?” Nicki looks up just as he’s kicking off his silk boxers. His dick is half-hard, as it usually is when Andrew is naked. Somehow, that pleases Andrew. He might not want to do anything about it, but he likes it and that’s ok. What he wants and likes is okay.
“I want to watch you come.”
Nicki’s head cocks to the side. “I thought you didn’t want that tonight.”
“I don’t. Not for me. I just…I want to see you feel good.”
“You don’t have to do that for me, I told you, I’m okay if there’s not always sex.”
“I know you did, and I love you for that, but…but I want this. I want you. I know it’s not in the way other people might, but?—”
“Fuck other people,” Nicki says, stepping close enough his fully hard cock presses into Andrew’s side. He lets himself enjoy it, not for sexual gratification but because Nicki is aroused, and Andrew likes when Nicki feels good. “What do you want?”
“I want to touch your tattoos while you fuck your fist.”
“That’s fucking hot,” Nicki grunts, absolving Andrew of any worries that perhaps Nicki wouldn’t be into it.
“Then I want you to come on me. But only because we’re in the shower. You have to wash it off after.”
“I can do that,” Nicki says, a rumble of pleasure emitted when he claims Andrew’s kiss.
“You want a show?”
“I wantyou,” Andrew whispers into his mouth. “Not a show just…you. I want to be close to you while you make yourself feelgood. I want to feel your muscles constrict, hear you whimper, want to know it’s because of me, even if I’m not doing anything.”
“Fuck.”
“Is that okay?” He asks, despite knowing it is. It’s hard to feel selfish. To ask for what he wants, especially when it’s atypical to the kind of sexual dynamic he’s grown up hearing about from his brothers or the media.
A lifetime of feeling like his own relationship to sex was too different from most people, combined with feeling unsafe fully exploring it, has left its mark on Andrew in the form of a few hangups he needs to work through.
“More than fucking okay.”
Andrew exhales, trusting Nicki to mean what he says, always. With that last bit of permission, he tugs Nicki into the shower, setting the water hot enough the room fills up with steam while they take turns washing each other’s hair. Before they rinse, Andrew takes his soapy hands and skims them over Nicki’s shoulders covering the tattoos in thick, white bubbles. Smiling to himself, he squeezes more shampoo out of Nicki’s hair, doing the same on his chest.
“Not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing exactly?” Nicki asks.
