Page 18 of Hold Me Down

As he blinked his eyes open now—with great reluctance because he wasn't convinced he really wanted to be awake already—he saw Dave next to him, hugging a pillow to his chest and frowning in his sleep.

For all that they'd woken up together thousands of times at this point, Travis hadn't often had a chance to lie there and look at the man next to him. Most days, he rolled out of bed theminute he woke up, especially if he woke up tense, and the rest of the time, Dave tended to be awake before him.

Watching him now, Travis noted the changes he could see, the inevitable signs of years passing. They'd first met and become fast friends when they were still teenagers, knuckling their way through boot camp, exhausted every day and yet running on the kind of energy the men on this side of thirty simply didn't possess any longer. They'd been keeping themselves in great shape, obviously, but the years had left their marks. There were subtle lines on Dave's forehead and in the corners of his eyes now, and a small, easy to miss patch of hair where the red gave way to silver at the roots. There was also a barely visible scar high and to the left on his forehead, where Dave had been grazed by falling debris from an explosion during their tour in Afghanistan. A few other mementos were scattered all over his body, reminders of walking a dangerous path for the last eighteen years of his life. Although they weren't visible now, Travis knew about all of them, because he knew that man like the back of his own hand. He'd been there for every iteration of Dave as an adult, and vice versa, both of them changing but always changing together.

While they hadn't gone through an injury like this before, one that laid one of them down enough to put him out of work for a few months, they'd gone through so much other stuff—a reenlisting debacle and an identity crisis after leaving the military, family shit of different shapes and sizes, or staring down the barrel of rising house prices only to finally get a mortgage on a run-down place together, to name a few. There had also been that cancer scare a few years back which turned out to be a false alarm but left enough of an impression that Dave regularly pushed Travis to do a check-up, just in case.

A broken leg wasn't going to keep them down for long, even if it was going to be a while before Travis stopped feeling so guilty for it all.

"What the fuck are you thinking so hard about?" Dave grumbled, pressing his head into his pillow, muffling his voice even more. "I swear you woke me up with your internal monologuing."

Travis poked him in the elbow and bit back a smile at the hiss that followed.

"Maybe you're hearing voices—or dreaming about me."

"Both scenarios sound similarly dreadful." Dave opened one eye to glare at him, then hissed once more and pulled his arm away when Travis poked him again. "Why are you like this?"

"I'm endlessly charming, and you know it."

"Who is the delusional one now?"

As Travis laughed, he could tell Dave was fighting a grin—a fight he ultimately lost, rolling onto his back and sighing at the ceiling.

"You suck."

"That's just too easy."

"That's what—"

Travis shut him up with a kiss, a quick press of lips that turned into a slow, lazy making out when Dave put his arms around Travis's neck and pulled him closer. They rarely kissed for kissing's sake, too eager for other things, but each time they did, Travis remembered how much he liked it. It felt… indulgent. Like, sure, theycouldmove on to sex, but they also didn't have to. They could simply do this for a while.

At least until Dave tugged at Travis's hair, because,oh yeah, they were definitely moving towards sex now.

As they broke the kiss to get some air, Travis lowered his head and started a familiar line down Dave's neck, with a stop along the collarbone, and then down again—over Dave's chestand stomach. He paused above Dave's groin and looked up to see his flush and to listen to his gasp as Travis rubbed his thumb along the dip of Dave's thigh, slipping it below the waistline of Dave's boxers.

"If you're waiting for an invitation, you're hereby invited—"

Travis groaned. "Shut up, I swear."

"You were making a decent case for it, but then you stopped."

"I'll show you decent," Travis muttered, pulling Dave's boxers down.

He knew he was playing right into Dave's hand, but he didn't mind. Not like this, when they both wanted the same thing.

While Travis had always thought that sucking the same guy's cock stopped being exciting after a while, Dave seemed to be the exception. They'd been sleeping with each other on and off for many years, and yet it could still make Travis hungry, almost desperate.

And listening to Dave making all those delicious noises might be the best part of it all.

Or maybe it was the way Dave fought to stay still instead of pushing into the heat of Travis's mouth, like he usually did at that point.

Or maybe the familiar weight on Travis's tongue and the knowledge how to make it particularly good for this particular man were the best, after all—Travis loved the power behind it, and his cock pressing hard against the sheets was a clear proof of that.

He closed his eyes and focused on bringing Dave to climax as soon as possible, sucking hard and fast, with his fingers slipping behind Dave's balls and brushing against his rim.

"Yeah, fuck," Dave whispered, and Travis looked up only to see Dave's exposed neck, his head thrown back in pleasure. "I'm close."

Travis redoubled his efforts and, sure enough, Dave came barely a few seconds later, flooding Travis's mouth faster than Travis could swallow. He didn't mind, though—he didn't mind at all. He caught as much as he could, and whatever spilled over, he chased with his tongue or caught with the thumb he later sucked clean as he sat back, staring at the breathtaking view a disheveled Dave made, spread on the sheets like that, sated and relaxed.

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