24. Alex

CHAPTER 24

ALEX

The next morning, Dylan found me in the kitchen just before seven a.m., his eyes half-closed with sleep and his hair sticking up in every direction possible. He rubbed at his left eye with his right hand, swaying on his feet in the doorway.

“Good morning,” I said, setting down my pen.

“No eggs today?”

I gave him what I hoped read as am unamused smile. “You ran through a dozen eggs in six days.”

“I only ruined six of them,” he said. “What do you mean?”

“I have to eat, Dylan.” I picked up my coffee and took a sip, eyeing him over the rim of the mug. “Just because you have a good cry and go to sleep afterward doesn’t mean I starve.”

He swallowed. “Oh.”

“Sit down.” I climbed off my bar stool and pointed at it. He shuffled toward me and awkwardly got himself onto the seat. He smelled like my soap, my laundry detergent. I breathed him in before putting space between us to get him a cup of his own coffee.

I meant everything I’d told him yesterday. I wanted him. Truly, I wanted him as much as I’d wanted Beamer, if not more, but it wasn’t right. Dylan was still too angry, too volatile, to be safe for me. He was drowning in the middle of the ocean, even though there was a life raft in his line of sight. I couldn’t give my heart to someone with less than zero sense of self-preservation, no matter how much I wanted him.

I slid the coffee in his direction, propping my hip against the far counter so I could watch him. It had become one of my favorite hobbies, most of all watching him when he didn’t know I was. Because Dylan spent a lot of time watching me, especially when he didn’t think I noticed. I was curious to know what he saw when he looked at me, the things he thought about.

I rinsed my mug out, washing a sliver of my sanity down the drain with it. My back still to Dylan, I asked him, “Why do you want me?”

He made a rough sound in the back of his throat, and I braced myself against the counter, unsure of what was the best answer and what would be the worst.

“I don’t know,” he said simply.

“Try.”

“You’re attractive,” he said, and I threw an unimpressed glance at him over my shoulder. “You’re good in bed.”

I turned and folded my arms over my chest, ready to call the whole conversation off.

“Plenty of people meet that criteria, Dylan. Hell, you meet it.”

His cheeks burned and he tucked his chin toward his chest in embarrassment.

“You haven’t left me,” he said next, quietly.

“I threw you out.”

“I deserved that.”

I snorted.

“I’ve done nothing but argue and fight with you since the hospital,” he went on.

“Since before then,” I interrupted.

He rolled his eyes, but there wasn’t any malice in it. “And you’ve just…taken it.”

“You won’t fight forever.”

Dylan clenched his jaw, swallowing hard and screwing his eyes closed. “It feels like it sometimes.”

“It’s exhausting,” I said, not a question.

He nodded, a tear sliding out from the corner of his eye.

Apparently we didn’t need quiet time and eggs and spankings to get him where he needed to be the most. I knew Dylan hated the emotion that came from our morning routine, but he’d been running from his problems for years and the only way to solve them was to really sit with them. I had no idea what he thought about while I left him in the corner with his nose against those eggs, but by the time I wrestled him into the playroom every day, he was beyond ready to let go of it. The only surprise to me was that he still had so much anger inside of him to work through.

“Do you think you brought it all on yourself?” I asked.

He swiped at his cheeks, not fast enough to keep them dry. “I don’t know.”

“Yesterday you told me you wanted to start over. Don’t do that by lying to me.”

He glared at me, but it was tired. “Of course I brought it on myself. If I would just do what I was told…isn’t that what you want from me too?”

“I want you to want to do it,” I told him. “Your father wants to control you.”

“Isn’t that what this is?”

“Are you green, Dylan? Or is there another word you want to tell me right now?” I asked.

“I’m green,” he said, hooking his finger around the handle of the mug and spinning it in a half-circle.

“Then that’s not what this is.”

I didn’t think that needed saying again, but every day with Dylan was a new one. He was working through some big feelings in my playroom, and I hoped he got to a resting point soon. Partly because he needed the break, partly because I was a horny and selfish asshole and I wanted to get him underneath me again.

“I know,” he sighed. “I’m sorry for saying that.”

It may not have registered at all with him, but the easy apology, the unprompted correction, it was the biggest step in the right direction he’d made since getting discharged from the hospital. He deserved a reward.

“Go to the bedroom and strip,” I said abruptly, pushing off the counter before I thought better of the reward I was about to offer him.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Dylan cursed under his breath and scrambled off the stool, nearly crashing his forehead into the corner of the marble before righting himself and practically running to the bedroom. I chuckled, not sure exactly what he expected to happen next, but endlessly amused by his enthusiasm.

When I got to the bedroom, after rinsing his half-finished coffee and putting away my crossword, Dylan stood awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom, naked and shifting his weight like a flamingo on one leg. His shoulder was still in a sling, though he’d just been cleared to take some time out of it around his physical therapy, but beyond that he was bare. His cock jutted out toward the window, quickly getting thick and hard, precum shining on the tip.

“This is a reward,” I told him, pushing the waistband of my sleep pants down below my cock and balls, “not a concession.”

“Reward?”

“In the kitchen, you edited your own behavior when you did something wrong. You apologized without being prompted. That shows me that you’re learning, that you’re listening.”

“You’re nothing like my dad,” he rasped.

“I know that.” I closed the space between us, walking Dylan backward until his shoulders hit the corner where he normally spent his mornings with the egg. He moaned when our bare chests pressed together and the sound was so divine I wanted to drink it every day for the rest of my life. “I’m nothing like anyone.”

“You’re amazing,” he whispered, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.

“That might be an overstatement, but I’ll take it.”

“So patient?—”

“Dylan, put your good hand flat against the wall.”

He slammed his palm against the wall, the position arching his back and pushing our bodies that much closer together.

I licked my palm and reached down, taking both of our cocks into my loose fist and tightening my hold until his knees gave out.

“Patient,” he said again, eyes closed and jaw slack.

“Tell me more about the kind of man you think I am.” I kissed his temple, resting my forehead against the wall to lock us both in place. I gave a slow stroke up both our lengths, breath shuddering out of my lungs on the exhale.

“Generous, tolerant.” He grunted. “I already told you that you’re a good fuck.”

“I’m more than good.”

He hummed, turning his head to the side and knocking it against mine.

“I don’t know how to explain the—” His breath hitched when I twisted my fingers around the leaking tip of his cock. “—explain the things you make me feel.”

“Try.”

“You make me want to be better,” he blurted, the words trailing off into a moan.

I kept stroking both of us off, grip unforgiving to stop me from flying out of my bedroom and into another stratosphere. I hadn’t forgotten how good it felt to have his body against mine, and it was far from the first time I’d seen him naked, but my brain had somehow shrouded what pleasure with Dylan felt like. Much like how he found himself at a loss for words, I was often the same when it came time to describe what he meant to me, the things he made me feel.

Another version of me would have talked to my friends about this. It would have been a night at The Black Door with a handful of drinks between us, easy flowing conversation and understanding, but ever since…ever since Kale had met Christian, since Beamer’s husband showed up…I hadn’t had it. I realized, with my balls heavy between my legs and Dylan’s breathy little moans growing louder in my ears, that I missed my friends, but I also understood there was no going back.

Dylan couldn’t go back.

I couldn’t go back.

There was only forward, onward…hopefully upward.

Acting the way I had before, being the man I used to be, there was no way of telling if that would serve me and save me on that road or if it would set me back and cause me to stumble. With our wetness swirling around my fingers, I realized I had to look at the facts.

Dylan had said more than once today I was the patient one, but he was just as patient, just as generous. He offered me just as much grace. Whether he understood that our time together was just as much for me to work my own shit out as it was for him, I wasn’t sure, but did that really matter? He’d given me more than I asked for, maybe more than I deserved.

“Say that again,” I told him.

“You make me want to be better,” he repeated quickly.

“You make me want to be better.”

Dylan whimpered. “Not sure how you can be.”

“I could be braver,” I whispered against the shell of his ear. “I could trust more.”

“Alex.”

Dylan’s jaw quivered and he tipped his head back, mouth open and searching. It wasn’t even a thought to angle my face toward his, to slant our mouths together and kiss him. Our tongues tangled and he slammed his hand against the wall, three times in rapid succession, body pushing toward mine for more connection, more skin.

“Settle down,” I breathed into this mouth, my hand still sliding torturously slow up and down the length of our erections. With my other hand, I brushed his tangled hair back from his face and pressed his head against the wall.

“I’m going to die if you don’t let me?—”

“I won’t allow it,” I said, deepening the kiss to stop him from saying something else absurd.

My entire body trembled, my tongue tracing around the backs of Dylan’s teeth, tasting every inch of him I could reach. I wanted this man. I wanted him more than I had common sense anymore, and maybe this new road meant I didn’t have to deny myself those things. There had to be a reason the feelings were there. Had to be a point to Dylan’s constant reappearances in my life, the connection, the orbit.

Picking up the pace, I began to stroke us both off in earnest.

I didn’t want to stop.

I wasn’t going to.

“Alex,” he groaned my name back into my mouth, going still beneath me.

“Yes, pet?”

He let loose a long and nonsensical stream of obscenities as spurts of cum shot out of his cock and painted my hand. He spilled onto both of our stomachs, the wet heat of him enough to draw my own orgasm out. Tightening my hand, I grabbed his face and kissed him until I couldn’t breathe, my own cum shooting hot and long against his stomach, his chest.

I kept my hand around us, our mouths together, until it was easier to breathe until I could stand again, until I could see. The earth had shifted beneath my feet and when I finally let Dylan go, he slid down onto his ass with a grunt, right hand still pressed flat against the wall.

And everything for me…had changed.