“A little.”
His mouth curved, tired and small. “How long?”
“Long enough.”
His gaze moved over my face. The sleep left him in pieces. Awareness came in behind it, where he was, what had happened, what it meant.
He didn’t pull away.
I brushed his hair back from his forehead. “How’s your head?”
“Quiet.” He swallowed. “For now.”
“Good.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
The air altered, slow and unmistakable. Not panic. Not escape. Want, waking up warm under the blankets.
I leaned in and kissed him.
He opened for me with a sound that went straight through my spine. Morning made it different. No hotel urgency. No phone distance. No parked car panic. He was in my bed, under my hands, and I had hours before the world could ask anything of us.
I rolled him onto his back and kissed him until his breathing turned uneven. Then I moved lower, mouth along his jaw, his throat, the hollow beneath it. He gripped my shoulders when I drew one nipple between my lips.
“Dec,” he breathed.
I didn’t answer. I used my tongue, then my teeth, light enough to make him arch. His cock filled against his briefs, thick and obvious beneath the fabric. I palmed him there, slow pressure, watching his abdomen tighten.
“You’re sensitive in the morning,” I said.
“Apparently.”
I dragged his briefs down. His cock sprang free, flushed and hard against his stomach. I wrapped my hand around him and stroked once from base to tip.
His head tipped back. “Fuck.”
I took my time because I wanted the memory burned into him. My mouth on his chest. My hand on his cock. My fingers rolling his balls gently while he tried not to thrust. He was beautiful like this, not polished, not performing, just wrecked open by pleasure and trust.
I kissed down his stomach.
He lifted his head. “You don’t have to.”
I looked up at him. “I know.”
Then I took him into my mouth.
His whole body jerked.
I held his hips down with one forearm and worked him deeper, learning him by taste and sound. The salt of skin. The smooth heat of the head against my tongue. The way his thighs trembled when I sucked harder on the upstroke. His hands hovered, uncertain, so I reached up and put one in my hair.
“Hold on,” I said.
He did.
I took him again, slower now, letting him feel every inch. His breathing turned ragged. When I cupped his balls and drew one gently into my mouth, he cursed so sharply Tiny lifted his head from the floor.
“Sorry,” Jace gasped, then lost the apology when I licked back up his shaft.
