“I know.” If I could bottle the warmth I felt knowing Ryan was officially mine, no one would ever go cold again. “I’m one lucky fucker.”
“There’s no luck to it,” he said, his head falling back against me as I worked another finger into him. “You made us happen. Don’t ever forget that, Dominic. We’re here because of you.”
I ducked my head to kiss him. “It’s only right, given we were apart because of me too.”
“No.” Ryan reached over his shoulder to grab my chin. “We’re not doing that. Our past is what it is. We’ve discussed it. We’ve accepted it. And now we’re going to move on from it. Together. This is our first time without a single roadblock in our path. Let’s not put any there. Okay?”
“Okay.” I ducked my chin to kiss his palm. “If that’ll make you happy.”
“It’ll make us both happy. That’s what I want.”
“Just having you here makes me happy.”
Ry’s eyes heated. “Maybe you should add another finger. That’ll definitely help the happiness scale.”
“So impatient.” I grinned, doing exactly what he asked. “Did I not satisfy you last night, Shadow?”
“I’m making up for lost time.” He moaned as I scissored my fingers, his hole loosening with ease. “Going to need a lot of sex.”
“Then I’m just the man for you,” I quipped. God, my cheeks were hurting with how much I was grinning. I couldn’t help it. I’d thought the happiness I’d found withRyan at eighteen was the greatest I’d ever experience. But this? Knowing we could live in the open? That I could touch and kiss him whenever I wanted? That we had no secrets, nothing lurking in the shadows, waiting to destroy us?
That eclipsed anything I’d experienced before.
Ryan was taking three of my fingers now, his voice needy as I massaged his prostate over and over again. “Fuck, Dom. Stop teasing and get inside me already.”
That was all I needed to hear. I gently drew my fingers out of him, then I rolled over to grab a condom from the bedside table. It only took a few seconds to get it on and lubed up, but those were precious seconds I could’ve spent inside him.
Back on my side, I nudged Ryan’s leg higher. With my hand on his hip, I guided myself home. “What do you think about us getting tested and ditching the condoms?”
“Going bare? I think you need to not mention it again while you’re inside me, because if I come before you get started, I’m gonna be pissed.”
I laughed and kissed his shoulder, then I just let myself enjoy him. I rolled my hips gently, grinding against his prostate. Slowly stroked his chest. Teased his nipples until Ryan was shivering against me. Worshipped his cock with my hand while my mouth gave his shoulders and neck the veneration they deserved.
There was nothing urgent about my actions. Nor Ryan’s, despite his insistence that I take him. Now that I was inside him, he was content to take it slow.
“That’s it,” Ryan moaned, his eyes fluttering shut as I angled myself deeper. “God, I’ve missed you. Missed this.”
“Ditto,” I murmured, the warmth growing as I held the man I loved closer. “More than you’ll ever know.”
Ry twisted to catch my mouth with his. We came like that, Ry first, his tight, clamping heat taking me with him.
I didn’t stop kissing him as we came down from the high. With the late morning sun catching the sweat on our skin, I knew I was right where I was meant to be. This love was the greatest gift I’d ever been blessed with.
I’d once believed that I needed to leave to find happiness. That my home had to be elsewhere, because the one I’d grown up in had brought me nothing but misery.
I’d been so wrong. I hadn’t needed to leave to be happy or find my home. It had been right in front of me all along.
Shadow was my happiness. He was my home.
And I was never letting him go again.
32
Ryan
My pencil stopped on the paper as I scowled at Dominic. “You’re moving again.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He shot me an incredulous look from where he was splayed across his bed. The one we’d shared every night for the past three weeks. The most blissful weeks of my life. My bed was out of the question with Xander staying in my flat. Even with a few walls between us, he still had a long list of ribald comments about things he’d overheard whenever we met up. “Seriously, you must be joking. Is it April first and I somehow missed it?”
