Page 54 of Constantly Cotton
“No,” Jason said softly. “I want to sit on the couch and watch a movie so you can lie on me and neck with me and we can touch each other’s skin.”
Cotton’s tanned face went blotchily pink, and Jason smiled, closing his eyes.
“I made you blush,” he murmured. “I will treasure that for my entire life.”
“You and Burton trusted me with Ernie,” Cotton replied, standing and offering Jason a hand up.
“You didn’t let us down,” Jason said mildly.
“Yeah, but you trusted me. And it was important to both of you. I mean, if you didn’t tell those guys, you really do keep it quiet. That’s… that’s amazing. Being part of your inner circle. That’s the most trust I’ve gotten in my entire life.”
Jason came to his feet, and they were standing, chest to chest, in the fading light through the wraparound window.
“Why did you do that?”
Jason knew the answer, and while it was manipulative on Burton’s part, it was also very kind. “Because if we’re going to do what I think we’re going to do—if I’m going to have a lover, even for a very short time—it’s got to be someone I have absolute faith in.”
Cotton rubbed Jason’s lower lip with his thumb. “That’s scary,” he admitted. “But I’d die to live up to it.”
“That’s what’s scary,” Jason said, licking the edge of the thumb and watching Cotton’s eyes light up as he understood the game was on. “I hope I never let you down.” He wanted to quantify that, to say again that this couldn’t last. That he would recover, they would find the credible threat, and Cotton would go back to Sacramento and back to figuring out his life.
He wanted to make caveats, tell Cotton that they would only take this step if he knew Cotton would be okay when that happened, insist on some sort of “wellness test” to make sure that this step in the relationship wouldn’t devastate him.
But Jason wasn’t Cotton’s father, or his big brother, or even, in this moment, his patient. Jason wanted to be his lover, and if he wanted that to be valid, the one absolute between them had to be trust.
Jason trusted that he wasn’t a sugar daddy, that their touch wasn’t transactional, that what they were about to domattered.
And he had to trust that Cotton had enough agency to make this decision himself.
But something in his eyes must have given him away.
“Hey,” Cotton murmured. “I’ll be okay.”
Jason closed his eyes, shivering at the first brush of Cotton’s lips against his own. Cotton’s tongue teased at the seam of his mouth, and he had no choice. He parted his lips and let Cotton in.
Sublimation
COTTON HADbeen swimming in Caples Lake for the past four days, and it was always a shock as the water, still chilled by the runoff from the very peaks of the Sierras, swept over his skin. There was a frozen moment in time when the things his body wanted—the cool of the water versus the reality he was living in, the uncomfortable sizzling heat and dust of the walk—collided in his flesh and his breath froze in his lungs while his nerve endings tried to decide if he had died or had been reborn.
Yeah.
Kissing Jason in this heartbeat, the promise of sex heavy between them, was like that.
Everything about this moment threatened glory, but Cotton had lived misery in his own skin for so very long. Every kiss of the last few days had been like dipping his toes into that strange, blessed water of rebirth, and even while they’d been glorious, he’d known that shedding the skin of the frightened confused kid he’d spent so much of his time being would be painful.
But nothing could prevent him from taking Jason’s stubbled cheeks between his palms and plunging in.
Jason responded firmly but not forcefully. This wasn’t a rough-play video or something with a little kink. This was two people who wanted to be together, and Cotton realized he was shaking with how much he wanted Jason’s hands on his bare skin.
Getting his privates wiped down that morning had been clinical. Giving Jason sponge baths before he could shower had been clinical.Every sexual acthe’d performed since leaving home had been clinical, even when he thought he was just putting out to keep a guy.
This was about beingpersonal.
The kiss went on, and Cotton was being steered backward, to the bedroom, and given how quickly the two of them had vacated that morning, he thought he knew how important what they were planning tonight really was.
But as Jason’s hands searched his skin, cruising his back, his waist, his backside, his thighs, he felt something grow from his stomach, from his groin, under his muscles, under his dermis. His breath came in short pants, and his movements had become jerky, uncoordinated. With a thump, Jason pushed him down on the bed and kissed his forehead.
“Hang out there for a sec,” Jason murmured.
