27. Connor

I'd expected to leave therapy feeling self-indulgent and demanding, but it turned out, no. Either Dr. Hawking had fooled me completely, or therapy was... good? Necessary, even.

For the first time since Jessie had disappeared, I didn't feel like a complete asshole for hoping for something just for myself—something that didn't have anything to do with being a father or a businessperson or impressing my family.

I wanted . . .

Well, I liked the way Mattias's hand felt in mine. I liked when he came out and seemed as tentatively hopeful as I felt. I'd convinced myself, sitting out there in the waiting room while he talked to Dr. Hawking, that he'd come out realizing that I was too much for him to take on.

Instead, he'd walked right up to me and suggested ice cream.

Obviously, that was precisely what I needed. We wound up splitting a pint of strawberry cheesecake with two spoons, passing it back and forth between us while we sat up in my room.

The bed faced the television, and we put in the first DVD of that show I'd brought.

It was... not a perfect adaptation. The books were better, but wasn't that always the case? Still, the casting was good and the visuals—it wasn't easy to make a dragon look real on screen, and these blew me out of the park.

The second episode was slower, and with a sigh, Mattias pressed against my arm, leaning in. I shimmied it out from under him and wrapped it around his shoulders. With my arm bent, my elbow resting on the pillow behind him, I combed my fingers through his soft brown curls. His hair had the best texture, cute and coppery and softer than anything I'd ever felt.

He sighed and relaxed against me, and a thrill rushed through me to have him so close. For so long, I'd held myself apart from him, from everyone.

Now, I didn't have to. It wasn't like I wanted my kid back any less, just because I wanted a life for myself too. I?—

"What?" Mattias whispered, looking up at me. The glow of the television, the only light in the room, bounced off his warm brown eyes.

Next thing I knew, I'd set the empty pint cup on the bedside table and leaned in. My lips were on Mattias's, and his short, pleased noise got trapped in our kiss.

I kissed him, slow and easy. Whatever was happening on the screen didn't matter half as much as the way he felt beside me, against me. With a quiet moan, he twisted onto his side, closer and closer still. The tip of my tongue traced the crease of his mouth, and he opened for me with a whimper that went straight to my cock.

My brain felt like it was on fire, alert and aware, almost electric—but only for the man in my arms. Everything else slipped away as he reached for me.

Then I felt his hand slip beneath my shirt, his fingers skimming over flesh that'd once been taut and firm.

But—but then I'd lost my kid, and gym time hadn't seemed all that important in the aftermath. And, well, ice cream did. Sometimes, it was all I could do to shove a frozen pizza in the oven.

All at once, it hit me again that Mattias wasn't getting the best version of me—the Connor Darling who'd come out of college wanting to take on the world and create the life of his dreams and?—

I froze, my breath catching, my eyes shut because I couldn't look at him.

Mattias noticed immediately. He pulled his hand back, the tips of his fingers tracing delicately over my eyebrow and down my cheek. "Hey," he whispered, "do you want to stop?"

I swallowed hard, shaking my head.

"Is there something wrong?" Mattias asked. When I forced myself to open my eyes, he was biting his lip. "I don't want to do anything you don't like, and there's—that's no rush."

Before Mattias could pull away, I caught his elbow and held him there. "It's not that," I said, voice quiet and face on fire. This was—shallow. Hard to admit. Also, embarrassing, like it was a character failing that I'd stopped going to Zumba classes or something.

"I just"—I ducked my head and glanced up at him—"I'm nervous. I've... kind of let myself go, since the last time I did this. Which—honestly, it's not the kind of thing I think about that often, so I didn't anticipate getting so?—"

"Nervous?"

With a tiny, awkward laugh, I nodded.

Mattias reached up to touch my cheek and leaned in for the softest kiss. "It's not going to just fix it, for me to say you don't need to be, is it?"

I shrugged. "Probably not, though I appreciate the sentiment."

"Yeah"—Mattias hummed—"it would probably be a waste of time to tell you that I've thought about this for years, imagined how your lips would feel on mine. Or how the reality is even better than my wildest dreams." Another kiss, and this one, I whimpered into, sliding my arms around his waist as he slipped into my lap. He rolled his hips, and my dick didn't give a damn about my nerves or anything but the feel of his body on mine, pressing me into the bed with every movement. "Or that I adore the way you look. Your strong hands and soft skin. Your little belly that lets me imagine you like the food I make you."

"I love the food you make me," I rasped, stretching up for another kiss as Mattias held himself just out of reach.

"And your heart—so fucking good, Connor. Kind of man I know I can rely on. Trust with anything. Trust with this." He rocked his hips to punctuate his point, and I groaned, sliding my hands down to grip his ass and grind against him.

Finally, he kissed me, and nothing mattered but more and more of him, the sweet strawberry tang of his lips and the way his body felt in my arms and—yes, fuck, yes.

"Stop worrying about being perfect when you're already so fucking wonderful," Mattias mumbled against my lips. His hands delved beneath my shirt again, and this time, when his fingers skimmed across my stomach, I gasped and shivered and—and no, no amount of insecurity I felt was worth losing this feeling.

If I could just keep him, hold him tight, everything would be all right.