38. Varian

am i not sleeping again?

Too manic to come down from this daydream

I RidE out the high until find our lows

Don't worry

my midas touch turns gold into nightmares.

don't see it yet?

give me a minute to flip

With the post, Arik shared a photo taken with a lot of exposure in the dark while he was moving. I didn't recognize it, which made me feel some sort of way.

What was he doing while I slept?

"What are you thinking about?" Arik asked.

I thought he'd finally fallen asleep, so it startled me. "Too much."

My head was overly full, and I knew I wasn't being rational. I feel like I spend half my life talking myself off a cliff.

"Let me lighten the load." Despite the darkness, I felt his eyes on me.

"I'm struggling tonight. It sucks we can't be ourselves, and we have to hide so much. I don't think it's good for either of us." My breath caught as he slid a hand around my chest. It raised goosebumps on my skin. Would I ever get over the way he touched me? Like I was stealing something I wasn't deserving of.

"I hate it too."

"I just want to be chosen. To belong to someone and—" I didn't want to make Arik feel bad over something out of his control, so I stopped myself.

"And?"

"I want to be the most important thing to someone. That we come before the rest."

"You are the most important thing to me." He picked up his head, bringing his face into the low light of the iPad playing a movie in the background. "You come before everything, even my band."

"I know." Deep down, I did.

"Do you want to ignore our manager's advice? I will."

"It's not fair for me to do that to you. We're established. I'm a fucking nepo baby. I can't just be gotten rid of. You aren't there. I know you will be, but I could fuck up your life, and we haven't even been together that long."

"I will if that will reassure you. I will burn it all down." Conviction echoed in his voice. There was no hesitation.

I cupped his face.

He dipped, finding my lips. It wasn't his normal horny, urgent kind of kiss. It carried a message my ears wouldn't hear, and my brain rejected, but my body knew. It said: I love you for always.

I clung to him, craving the message.

"It's not you. I don't know how to even trust anything after—" I didn't have to explain it. He knew.

"Your brain isn't used to it. Good things feel unsafe because you've been let down by the people you should be able to trust implicitly. So your brain is looking for anything to pick this apart."

I sighed, hating that I was this fucked up. "How do you know all this?"

"Five years of therapy will do that."

"I never lasted that long with anyone. I couldn't trust them."

His fingers played through my hair. "Growing up the way you did in the spotlight, I don't blame you. Your fucking baby pictures were published in People. You've been taught your whole life that details about you and your parents are worth money. So trusting someone with those secrets feels impossible."

I rolled toward him, pressing my face into his chest. "Why does it make sense when you fucking tell me?"

"I've been there too. My brain tells me all sorts of lies. It's easier for someone outside to point them out to you. It happens to me too." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, holding me tight, and it was exactly what I needed. "I'm not going anywhere, no matter what your brain tells you."

"I hate that I have doubt. You don't deserve that."

"I can handle it. I'd much rather you be honest with me."

"It's not that easy." Since we were already being honest, I might as well keep the trend going. What was the point in hiding it?

"Why not?"

"What about when this gets hard?" I fucking hated feeling this raw. I'd promised myself in the years after the accident, I'd never give anyone that power again, and here I was. I'd given it to him and didn't even realize it'd happened.

"We'll talk. It's us. I believe in that." He had so much faith. I loved him more for it.

"How are you so fucking sure?" I needed to hear it.

"You are one of the few people I trust. And the only person who feels good touching me."

"But is that because you were lonely?"

"I was touch-starved the first night you slept here, but I would rather be in bed with you than doing anything else with a woman. Or anyone else, for that matter. That's when I knew. I don't do things halfway, Varian. I'm all fucking in."

"Yes, you'd rather be with me because I'm safe or are you attracted to me."I needed to hear it.

"Safe is important. Especially with what we do for a living, but I am attracted to you." Arik nudged his nose into my forehead, so I looked up. "Do you think I have my hands on you so much because I'm not attracted to you?"

"You are insatiable."

"I'm not like that with anyone else."

I was quiet, processing it all. "Have you ever thought something shouldn't be this hard? It should be easy."

"I don't think that. Everything in my life has been hard. Being with you has been the easiest thing. Love feels easy with you when it always felt hard with everyone else. So to me, if the thing that is hard is managing everyone else's expectations, that's better than feeling like love is hard or I'm unloveable." He half-shrugged.

I surged forward to roll on top of him and hug him with both arms and legs.

He laughed, wrapping his arms around me. "Do you feel better?"

"Some." I kissed his chest and then went for broke. "I know we've done a lot, and if you're not into it, that's okay. You don't ever have to be if it's, like, a line…" I was rambling. Spit it out. "Will you fuck me?"

"Haven't we been fucking?" A smile came through his voice in a slight tease.

"You know what I mean." I felt way too exposed to joke around. "It's never… We've done a lot, but it's never gone that way." Why did I sound so stupid asking for this?

"It's not that I don't want to if that's how you feel."

"Then what is it?"

"We're trying to be quiet, and fucking in a bunk isn't going to work. It's not like it's an easy undertaking, either. We need lube and condoms and space. I don't really want to have to be thinking about everyone else the first time I'm inside you."

My chest constricted, and I focused on breathing.

"Does that make sense?" he asked, making me realize I hadn't replied.

"So you're okay with the idea of being inside me?" He hadn't directly answered my question, and if I didn't ask, it's all I'd think about.

"I want nothing more in the world." He rolled me under him, and we both had to brace and catch ourselves so we didn't fall out of the bunk. We laughed and adjusted to the middle of the narrow space. "Look at me."

I did. "Yes?"

"I want all those firsts together. I want to make you come while I'm buried inside you." His voice dropped to a raspy need.

"I need that, Arik."

"Let's book a hotel or an Airbnb or something the next place we overnight." Lust swirled in his eyes.

My dick was so hard. I wished we could go now. "Is that an option?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Let's do it then." He pressed one thigh between my legs, opening me up while he rocked his hard-on into my hip. "Do you feel better?"

"Yes, I just have to convince my anxiety it's not more. If that makes sense."

"It does." He brushed his lips over my collarbones. So soft, in stark contrast to the movement of his hips. I never expected him to be this gentle with me when we met. "I have an idea of something we can do in here."

"Tell me." My head fell back, and I closed my eyes, sinking into the moment since the demons in my brain were fed with enough love for the night.

"I'm going to flip around and suck your dick while you suck mine. You can't be loud when you come if you're choking on my cock."

My breathing snagged. "Take your fucking clothes off."