The water slicks his hair back from his face, his cheeks hollow as he takes my cock to the back of his throat, eyes fixed on mine beneath his lashes. I’m trapped in the sight of him, stripped down to nothing but this.
I’ve never seen him this unguarded.
The tension that’s been locked in place since the game starts to unravel. It’s not a frantic rush toward an end—it’s a slow, deliberate melt. My hips move on their own, a shallow, helpless rock that meets him halfway. My fingers tighten in his hair, not to guide or take over, but to anchor myself to him. To this moment.
“Caleb,” I breathe, his name a ragged sound in the steam. “Baby, you’re… God.” The words fail because there aren’t any. Not for this. Not for the sight of him on his knees, giving me this gift of himself, so freely, so completely. “Just like that, pretty boy. Fuck, you take this cock so fucking well. I wish you could see how fucking perfect you look right now.”
He picks up the pace, more confident now, encouraged by the sounds slipping out of me. A whimper tears out of me when he gags. My spine bows, my body arches, answering without asking me first. Water hits the floor in uneven bursts, his mouth working on me, wet and relentless, echoing in the steam. It’s messy and real and fucking perfect.
That’s when I feel it start low in my spine, a tightening, a gathering storm. “Caleb… I’m gonna come, baby… fuck…” I try to pull back but his hands hold me tight, a silent plea that says, “Don’t you dare.”He wants all of it, wants to be the one to take the edge off, to be the one I fall apart for.
And so I let go.
My orgasm crashes through me, a blinding wave that steals my breath. “Fuuuuck,” tears from my throat, echoing off the tiled walls. My cum pulses into his mouth, and he takes it, takes all of it, his throat working as he swallows, his eyes never leaving mine.
For a long moment, the only sound is the hiss of the shower and the frantic gasp of my own lungs. I’m boneless, slumped against the wall, every muscle gone slack. Caleb slowly pulls back, his lips swollen and slick. He looks up at me, and there’s no hesitation now. Just quiet satisfaction. I reach down, hook my hands under his arms, and haul him to his feet. He stumbles slightly, and I catch him, pulling him flush against me. His skin is hot and slick, his cock hard against my thigh. My mouth attacks his, the kiss deep and messy, tasting myself on his tongue, a claiming as much as a thank you.
“My turn,” I murmur against his mouth, spinning us so his back is against the tiles. “Your knees aren’t the only ones that can hit the floor,hermoso.”
Once the water’sturned off and the steam’s cooling on the glass, we stumble out of the bathroom wrapped in towels, laughter filling the silence. My legs are a little shaky still, his smile borders on smug and soft at the same time.
“You okay?” I ask, just to be sure, brushing a damp curl off his forehead as we pause in the hallway.
He nods, eyes warm and a little sleepy. “Yeah. You?”
“Pretty sure my soul left my body… twice,” I say dryly. “So… yeah. I’m good.”
Caleb laughs, that quiet, real one I don’t hear often enough. It does more for me than anything that happened in the shower.
In the bedroom, he steals one of my oldest shirts—some faded band tee—and pulls on a pair of soft boxer briefs. I yank on clean boxers and drop onto the bed, patting the space next to me.
There’s no hesitation, he just climbs in, immediately curling into my side like he belongs there. His head finds that spot on my chest where he says my heartbeat sounds the clearest. I wrap an arm around him, hand splaying between his shoulder blades. His fingers trace the intricate patterns of tattoos over my ribs, his breathing already starting to slow.
“Thank you,” he murmurs into my skin.
“For what, baby?”
“For all of it,” he says. “For tonight. For… staying.”
I press a kiss into his hair. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I tell him, and I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything.
He thinks I’m sacrificing parts of myself to keep him whole.
Maybe I am.
But lying here with him wrapped around me, breathing finally even, heartbeat steady against my side, it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice.
It feels like the only place I’m supposed to be.
TWENTY
MIGUEL
It’s ten in the morning and I’ve already crawled through one attic, rewired half a kitchen, and cussed out a junction box in my head… twice.
Santa Cruz’s fog burned off early today and now the sky’s stupidly blue, the kind that makes me want to sit on the cliffs with a joint andmi amorinstead of being elbows-deep in someone’s shitty 80s wiring.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket while I’m labeling a breaker.
