“Shit,” he mumbles. “Who even are you?”
Finally having reached his mouth, I kiss that, too, water spraying into my face and happier than I’ve been in a long, long time.
“I’m Shiloh,” I answer. Ewan laughs before biting down gently on my lower lip.
“Smart-ass,” he scolds, steering me around with hands on my shoulders until our positions are flipped and my back is to the spray. The heat feels good on my shoulders, but not nearly as good as Ewan’s hands slipping down the wet skin of my chest.
He’s not looking at my eyes, but watching his hands. Given how smooth he is, I’d say he partakes in quite a bit of personal grooming. Certainly more than me, who only gets two haircuts in this bathroom a year and can’t be bothered to shave most days. I’m more likely to get struck by lightning than I am to take up the habit of shaving my chest. Ewan doesn’t seem to have any complaints, though. Not any he’s voiced, nor that I’ve seen by watching his expression as he mimics the way I washed him.
“I can shave,” I offer when his hands slide low enough to tease the delicate skin behind my balls. I think again of a fantasy I’ve always had, wondering about those questing fingers and whether or not I could convince him to give something else a try.
“Don’t joke,” he replies, other hand abandoning the lazy circles it was rubbing into my lower back and traveling down to circle my hole. I smile. “I like the hair.”
“Good. I like the naked-mole-rat thing you have going on.”
I get an offended huff and a hard pinch on the ass for that, but there appears to be no hard feelings as I also get the full washing experience. Once we’re finished, the water turning cold from the amount of time we stood under the heat, we towel off and head back to the bedroom. Almost as though the rumpled, slightly dirty sheets remind him of where he is, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with, Ewan’s mouth tightens. The look he sends in my direction is unsure, a little bit sheepish, and a lot adorable with his dark hair plastered to his head and cheeks flushed from the shower. Behind us, the steam from the bathroom dissipates into the room through the open door, bringing with it the minty smell of my soap.
“Staying?” I ask lightly, not wanting to put pressure on him, but also not wanting him to run for the door. I’m becoming an expert in all things Ewan, slowly figuring out the ways he’s still the same and the ways he’s not. This is one of the changes—the trepidation and anxiety—which means the best thing I can do for him is to keep him here. Going back to his cottage and lying in bed, overthinking everything, won’t help. Staying with me, warm in my bed, with the cool blowing in off the ocean outside, secure in his presence here and in my life—that’s where he belongs.
“Sure. If I can?” he asks, suddenly finding that insecurity I’d wondered about earlier and moving his hands in a way that tellsme he wishes he could cover himself up.
In answer, I walk to my closet and pull out my oldest, softest pair of sweats and a similarly well-used T-shirt. In truth, most of my clothing is old and worn. I rarely buy new things if what I already have is still functional. I’m glad of that right now, feeling oddly sentimental about seeing Ewan in clothing that’s been worn by me hundreds of times. It’s also soft with age, which again makes me happy, especially as Ewan rubs his hands down his stomach once the shirt is in place, as though feeling it for himself. He smiles at me, tugging the sweatpants up and cinching the waist a lot further than I ever have to. I grab my own clothes to wear.
“Sorry. A little big on you,” I apologize. He laughs. When I look over again, he’s once more stroking his palms down himself. Sighing, I finish getting dressed. I’m going to get hard again.
“Is that why you’re so obsessed with feeding me?” he asks, tone light as he tries to straighten the sheets before crawling into bed. He’s on the side I usually sleep on. I’ll have to evolve, though, and learn to sleep on the other side. I’ll never tell him to move.
“To fatten you up so you fit into my pants?” I clarify, snorting as I shut off the lights and plunge the room into darkness. Not needing light to move around, I make it over to the bedside table without stubbing a toe on anything. Clicking on the lamp, I look over and see Ewan trying to get comfortable in my bed, and a sense of unreality washes over me like a vertigo attack. I can’t believe he’s here.
“No,” I continue, sliding in beside him. “I keep trying tofeed you because I haven’t seen you in seven years, and you look like you’ve spent half of those starving. I could see your ribs when we were standing in the shower.”
His face flushes a bright red, visible even in the dim light of the room.
“Maybe I was sucking in my stomach,” he mumbles.
“You weren’t.”
He turns his face away and makes a production of shifting to find a comfortable position. I wait, never one to become uncomfortable with silence and force conversation. If either of the two of us can’t be quiet, it’s Ewan. He’ll talk eventually.
And indeed, it’s only a minute later that he says, “When I get in a really good place with work, self-care stuff sort of falls by the wayside. Same as when I’m in a less-than-good place. I just…forget.”
“Eating isn’t self-care, Ewan. It’s required for you to be alive.”
“Hey, be nice to me,” he complains, sounding so put out that I laugh. Fuck, but I’vemissedthis.
Nothing ever felt easy with Roy. I was always a step behind, out of sync with him and floundering through things that should have come naturally. I would have felt silly and clumsy trying to shower him the way I just did with Ewan. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have let me and laughed if I’d tried. Roy isn’t a bad guy, but he’s prickly and aloof, and ninety percent of him is kept secret. Two years of dating hadn’t yielded more, and I was horribly aware of the fact that my partner was pretty much a stranger. I never felt like I belonged, and because of that, Inever felt like he belonged either. As much as it hurts to think of myself as the kind of person who’d do so, I wonder if he was right in what he’d said—that he was only holding space for Ewan. Maybe he was more perceptive than I’ve ever given him credit for. Maybe I also owe him another apology. I hate to think of how lonely it must have been to feel as though your presence in someone’s life was destined to be temporary.
“I missed you,” I tell Ewan, voicing the only part of my thoughts that is appropriate for this bedroom.
“I missed you, too, even though it might have seemed like I didn’t,” he whispers back.
I don’t have anything else to say, and neither does he, apparently. When I turn my head to look at him, his eyelids are lowered, lashes a dark crescent moon on pale skin. When I click off the light and roll over, trying to figure out the best way to sleep on a new slice of the mattress, he sighs. The minute I settle, Ewan touches my back, fingertips sketching the knobs of my spine.
I fall asleep with my back to him and wake up the same way. As dictated by my bodily alarm, my eyes open well before the sun is set to rise, and certainly well before Ewan. He’s asleep—deeply so, if the rumbly little snuffles of air against my shoulder blades are any indication. I smile into the dark room, staying still. His sleep schedule since he’s been here has been both sporadic and nonexistent. He needs more rest, and he needs more food, and I want to provide them.
Closing my eyes, I decide to try my best at falling back asleep. Except now that I’m awake, I can think of little elsethan the proximity of the man behind me. Close enough for the finer hair on my skin to be standing at attention, straining for him, but far enough away that we’re not touching. I think about how much I’d like to fall back asleep and wake up to him pushed up against the back of me, sliding inside, hand wrapped around my dick as he takes what he wants. I want it so badly my body throbs with the desire, blood flooding southward, my cock achingly hard. I could slide back half a foot and press my ass against Ewan, could wordlessly ask for something that might open the door to a conversation about what I really want.
Before I can make the decision for myself, Ewan moans in a way that’s sleepy and yet somehow sexy enough to have me reaching beneath the covers and cupping myself. I’m pretty sure jacking off in the same bed as him while he sleeps would be embarrassing and inappropriate in equal measure. Sliding a leg out from our warm nest of blankets, I only get so far as thinking about sneaking off to the bathroom when an arm is flopped over my middle and hair tickles my back as Ewan snuggles closer. Fuck.
