Page 21 of Second Song

I get the subtext. He knows what he’s doing, so I hold out a hand, and Rowan pours more lube for me. He also lifts a knee, one foot flat on the bed as I slip in a finger, only getting knuckle-deep before he shudders. That works for me—I get to see how that shudder comes with a cock twitch, telling me he likes the stretch and wants more.

I’ll give it to him as soon as he relaxes. Until then, I hold still as he sinks another hot, tight fraction that, despite what he just suggested, takes forever. I can’t help encouraging him when a frown flickers. “That’s it.”

“Y-yeah?”

He doesn’t need to ask if I’m okay with this slow progress. Anyone watching could tell that. Not that I’d share this moment, or the sight of him like this, with anyone else. He’s mine, even if only for a few hours, until I need to get gone to my next job. For now, I’m just as into enjoying this prolonged contact, this delayed gratification, as he seems. “I’m in zero hurry.” Fuck it, I’d go even slower if I didn’t have to leave first thing tomorrow for another short-term contract.

I still can’t rush getting him off, not when every gasp he lets out cuts through my internal static. And each clench? I’d come in seconds if it was my dick inside him instead of a single finger. He sinks some more in a gut-wrenching preview of what I won’t ever get to witness. Even his groan is pornographic.

I don’t push for more or faster. Not when he’s so flushed and already breathing heavy. I can’t make myself speed up where this excruciatingly slow show is headed. He’s killing me, even though I’m the only one of us trained in combat.

He’s got my heart in his hand, or at least he braces a hand against my chest, so he must feel it thunder when he doesn’t only push back, taking a little more inside him. He also wraps a hand around both of our cocks, and I take a turn following his lead. Our combined strokes are jerky—the opposite of smooth and practised. It’s still so good. So is the way he lifts himself a little only to sink back with another full-body shudder.

His furrowed brow asks a question, and I’ve been with enough people to know is this good when I see it.

I don’t know why he’s asking. I’ve never been harder from so little. It does prompt me to tell him, “I could do this all night. You feel fucking amazing.” Forget thundering. My heart seizes when he beams. It’s a sudden flash of lightning, and we’re kissing again until I’m as deep as I’m going to get inside him. I also must graze his prostate just right because he chokes like he wasn’t expecting it or this sudden splashy payoff.

He clenches again, coming, his spunk stark white against the black hair on my belly.

Rowan gapes at it like I’m spattered with something surprising, not the result of the hair trigger that explains why he takes sex this slowly.

His pupils are shot, offline until I rub inside him again where it matters, and yeah, he’s super sensitive—another groan and spurt follows, and he melts, collapsing, and I’ve never felt more of a stud for doing almost nothing even if I do end up getting myself off while he’s uncoordinated.

He’s still staring while I kneel over him. Still wide-eyed, only now he isn’t wary. He’s absolutely fucking gorgeous when he’s this wrecked and happy. I don’t expect him to cup my balls, or to sound this dreamy.

“Even these are massive.”

I’m not saying I’ve never laughed during sex. I just don’t remember the last time it happened. But this evening, with Row?

Like him, it comes easy.

9

ROWAN

He stays until morning.

I don’t expect to like that, not after the last time I woke in a hotel room unaware of what would surface. I don’t need to worry today. I’m as sure as I can be that Liam’s phone stayed in the pocket of his shorts, which are halfway across the room when its ringing wakes us. He has to get out of bed to retrieve it.

“Shit.” He scrubs at thick, dark stubble. “Matt’s about to head home.” His kiss is quick and rough. His touch to my face is gentler, like his promise. “I’d buy you breakfast, only he’s?—”

“Your best friend.”

“I was going to say that he’s a massive twat who will sulk forever if I don’t have a last surf with him, but yeah, let’s go with your version. He is my best friend.” Liam’s back is to the morning sunlight, but I’m not sure that accounts for him looking this shadowed. “One of them, anyway.”

He’s naked, his cock right there, and I have to roll onto my belly to hide what imagining us going further than we did last night does to me.

Liam’s fixated on something different.

The sheets have slipped enough that he spots my ink. He gets on his knees behind me, pulling the sheet down further to trace wings and sooty ashes, and I wait for laughter or questions. All I get is more of that stubbly roughness when he presses a kiss somewhere I usually keep covered. Then he’s gone, and the bed shifts, and he’s busy tugging on last night’s clothes. The mattress shifts again when he sits beside me. “Smash it in September, yeah?”

I wish.

I also want to give him my number, but if the teacher I met yesterday had a card for Liam’s expression right now, I don’t know how it would be labelled. Not when he cradles his phone for a long moment, a tooth digging into his lip, before his jaw clenches and he moves as if to stand. “Right.” He glances at the door. “I should?—”

I catch his hand before he can get up. “Where will you be?”

“In September?” He threads our fingers together, which is grounding, and it’s intense how much I prefer that to waking up to an empty room and a hazy headache. “York, probably. Combine work with seeing my parents and checking in with my specialist.” He touches the side of his head, his ear to be specific. “Blast damage. Tinnitus. Comes and goes for some people. Mostly comes at me, to be honest.” He says that last tiredly.

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