“Sorry,” he said, a little shyly as he unlocked it. “It’s kind of a mess in here. It’s been a rough few days.”
I shrugged. “Been there, done that.”
We both shuffled through the living room into his bedroom. The living room had been a mess, sure, but the bedroom was still in a decent state, other than his welcomingly mussed unmade bed. We shed our clothes efficiently, until we were stripped down to our boxers in the chill of the room. I crawled into his bed first, and then opened my arms invitingly.
Dawson gave me a small chuckle, and then slunk into the bed as well, letting me pull him close to my body. He sighed deeply as he settled into the bed, his warm breath ghosting over the hollow of his throat, where his face was tucked. I carded my fingers soothingly through his hair, then dropped a kiss on his head.
There was no urgency in it. It just felt—real. Solid. Like this was exactly where we were meant to be.
“Thanks,” Dawson murmured against my skin.
“For what?” I asked.
“For not giving up on me,” he said.
There was that feeling again—that twist in my heart, that deep sense in my bones that there was something real, and rare, connecting us.
“Never will,” I whispered. I hitched him closer and circled my fingers gently against his skin until his breaths evened out in sleep.
18
Dawson
The next morning, I blinked into wakefulness as the morning sun lit up the bedroom in gold. Nix’s arms were still wrapped tightly around me.
I couldn’t believe he was here. Here, in my bed, still wrapped around me and snuffling softly in his sleep. After everything I’d done—and everything he’d been through.
Standing in the back of that chilly church basement, I’d been pinned to the spot by his story. I’d known that he’d struggled with addiction, but I hadn’t known how much it’d taken from him. Not just his family, or his youth, but Sienna, too. He’d walked through hell and somehow come out the other side whole. Whole, and willing to devote so much energy and time to helping others.
In the morning sunlight he looked even younger. I could hardly believe how much he’d gone through, and he was still so young.
How did I get so lucky to fall into this with him? How did I get so lucky that he was still willing to give me another chance? I traced my forefinger down the bridge of his nose, lingering on the barely noticeable divots where his glasses usually sat.
At the touch, Nix’s eyes flickered open sleepily. I drew my finger down over his philtrum, then tripped over his lower lip, and watched as his lips curved into a small smile.
“Morning,” he said, in a wonderfully low, rumbling voice. Heat stirred in my gut at the sound, and the closeness. God, he made me crazy. His eyes were so warm watching me, and so gentle, it sparked another swirl of regret. I’d been such an asshole.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I know I said it last night, but—”
“Hey,” Nix interjected. He looked a little more awake now, and suddenly he rolled us, so I was flat on my back and he was pinning me to the mattress, gazing down at me with a smile on his face. Then he brandished a finger teasingly in my face. “I told you I accepted the apology. Still do.”
I flushed a little. “Doesn’t feel like enough, I guess.”
“I get that,” Nix said. “But you’re taking steps to change. That’s all I want. I know you’re sorry. You don’t have to keep apologizing.”
A weight lifted off my chest, and I nodded. “But what if I want to?” I teased.
“I’ll keep accepting,” Nix said with a grin. “But I might eventually get annoyed.”
“Small price to pay,” I said, matching his smile.
Then I tugged him down flat, so we were chest-to-chest, and kissed him slowly, morning breath be damned. Nix sighed into it and carded both hands through my hair as he fit his lips gently over mine. It was slow, but deep, and I tried to convey all the gratitude I felt, all the awe, all the admiration. I wrapped my arms tightly around him, pressing my fingers into the muscle of his back, and Nix groaned with appreciation. Our legs slotted together, and I hummed into the kiss as my morning erection pressed into his hip.
Nix sighed at the touch, and he was hard against me as well. But then he broke the kiss and pulled away just enough to gaze down at me thoughtfully. “I don’t—it’s not that I don’t want to, I just don’t—” He pressed his lips together. “I don’t think this is a good idea right now.”
Before, I may have felt rejected, like he didn’t want me the same way I wanted him. But I had a new clarity now, and I knew where he was coming from. He knew what I was going through. And I understood why he thought sex and—and maybe something more, wasn’t what I needed. Not when I was already thrown so off-kilter by my recent realizations about myself.
“Thanks for looking out for me,” I murmured, and pressed a soft kiss to the tender skin of his neck. “I know I have a long way to go… and I have a lot to prove to you. This is what I need now, though. Just you, if you want me. It’s not a fix—I’m not trying to pretend I didn’t fuck up, or that things are going to snap back to normal. I just want—just a reminder that you’re on my side. That this is all real.”
Nix shivered slightly under my touch. “It’s real,” he confirmed. “I’m here.”
All I wanted now was to be close to him—as close as I could get. I ran my hands up and down his back slowly, savoring the smoothness of his skin and the slight give of the muscle.
“Dawson,” he breathed into the kiss with something sweet and almost disbelieving in his voice. “God, I missed you.”
I was still in my boxers, and Nix was in sweatpants, but even through the layers of fabric, the contact of our bodies aligned was nearly overwhelming. It just felt so good, so right, to have him pressed against me like this, connected from our lips to his toes brushing against my calf.
“You have me,” I murmured into the kiss, and Nix shivered, his hands flitting over my body like he wanted to get even closer. I skated my hands down his back and cupped the swell of his ass through his sweatpants, squeezing and kneading encouragingly.
“God,” Nix groaned. He broke the kiss just to tuck his face into the crook of my neck, and his breath skated over my skin before he followed it with his tongue. Desire raced through me as our legs slotted together, and I hooked one leg around Nix’s, entangling us, keeping him close.
Then I began to rock my hips up against him, a lazy roll like ocean waves, using my grip on his ass to match his rhythm to mine. It was slow, and dirty, the pressure delicious enough to make my eyes flutter closed as my mouth dropped open. It’d make sense to shove our pants down, get our hands on each other, skin-to-skin, but there was something intoxicating about the slow build of this rhythm that I didn’t want to stop. My cock throbbed with each roll of my hips, spitting precum into my boxers.
“You feel so good,” I groaned into Nix’s ear.
“Yeah?” he asked, and his lips curved into a smile against my skin. “You like it?”
“God, yeah,” I admitted.