Nate sucked his earlobe into his mouth and thumbed the head of his cock, and that was enough. Aubrey came without a sound, half holding his breath, half convinced this was an incredible dream. His orgasm went on and on as Nate rocked between his thighs, teasing out every last drop with his hand, until finally he broke too, his mouth a wet brand on the side of Aubrey’s neck as he came, spurting over the insides of his thighs, his balls, his hole. Aubrey’s cock jerked again in sympathy, producing another pathetic dribble that felt like it was wrung out of him.
Holy fuck.
Holyfuck.
“Mmm,” Nate said, mouthing Aubrey’s skin in what even Aubrey’s addled brain could tell was lazy satisfaction.
All Aubrey could come up with washnnngh, which seemed stupid and obvious and dangerous. He didn’t say anything.
“That was nice,” Nate murmured, rubbing his beard on Aubrey’s neck again like he was a cat and Aubrey was his scratching post.
Nice.Nice. He’d just taken everything Aubrey thought he knew about sex and turned it upside-down, and he thought it wasnice? He’d taken a sex act Aubrey had considered foreplay until twenty minutes ago and turned it into possibly the hottest sex of hislife.
Nice?
Aubrey was gathering himself to voice this protest when Nate snuffled happily and then… relaxed.
Aubrey’s protest died on his lips the same as his pleas, this time out of shock rather than self-defense. Had he really—really?
He turned to glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, Nate had fallen asleep.
I cannot believe this. Fuck my life.
But at least this gave Aubrey the chance to fall apart in private. On shaky, reluctant legs, he stood from the bed and wobbled toward the en suite.
On second thought, if he was going to have a full-on breakdown, he wanted to do it far enough away that Nate wouldn’t hear him if he managed to get his mouth to say actual things out loud, like “What the fuck” and “No, seriously, what thefuck.”
This was, he reflected as he walked very awkwardly to the guest bathroom on the other side of the apartment, the sort of situation that people paid their therapists for. But so far, words had not even returned, so Aubrey was—Aubrey was so fucked.
First sex, then romance, and now domesticity. And it turned out domestic sex, at least with Nate, was so blisteringly hot, it broke Aubrey’s entire brain into component parts that couldn’t even speak to each other. He stared at the knobs in the shower for thirty seconds before remembering he should get in. He stared at the little guest shampoo and soap lined up neatly on the shower shelf.
He stared at the water pooling in the drain as a gob of come unstuck from the back of his thigh and landed next to his foot.
That, at least, jolted him out of his stupor. He cupped his hands and scrubbed his face, washing away the salt of sweat. He needed to get clean. Somehow they’d managed to sleep until—Aubrey didn’t actually know, but his internal clock was telling him it was closer to lunch than breakfast time. His flight left from O’Hare at two and he hadn’t packed.
The trouble was, he kept slipping back into thoughts of Nate. Nate’s charm, good humor, and smile, and the way he always seemed to think of Aubrey even if he wasn’t directly talking to him. The stupid notebook was full of examples by now.
His whole life, Aubrey had waited for someone to put him first. He knew that was part of what had kept him from dating anyone seriously—no one had ever done it, and he equally feared finding out no one ever would and having it and then losing it again.
Nate didn’t put him first. Aubrey wasn’t going to romanticize their whatever it wasthatmuch. Nate made him feel like hedidn’t actually need that. He just needed someone to be considerate.
It was far more dangerous.
I need to make an appointment with my therapist, Aubrey thought grimly as he reached for the shampoo.
He made it through his shower on autopilot, washing his hair, working come out of undignified places. In a few hours, he’d be on a plane and he wouldn’t have to think about Nate again for a whole week. He’d have ample opportunity to find someone in Hawaii with an ass that could compete with Nate’s. It probably existed. If not, maybe Jackson could hook him up later. Either way, he’d be fine. He just needed some perspective.
Clean now, Aubrey shut off the water, realizing belatedly that he’d forgotten to grab a towel. He ran both hands through his hair, shaking out as much water as he could, then squeezing out a little more. There was a linen closet in the hallway. He wouldn’t have to drip for too far.
Aubrey used the bathroom hand towel to dry himself as much as he could, not wanting to damage the nice floors. He carried it with him into the hallway to drop in the laundry once he was done with it. Nobody needed to dry their hands on it now.
Nate had a nice collection of home linens, which amused Aubrey because he didn’t have any other decorating sense to speak of. Look at that deep blue. Aubrey could tell just from looking at it that it would be soft and fluffy. He reached out to grab it and had just closed his hand around an actual absorbent cloud when there was a soft click, and then—
“Surprise, Nate! We changed our flight—”
Instinctively, Aubrey turned around and met wide eyes with a woman in her sixties who, from her sharp nose and high cheekbones, was immediately recognizable as Nate’s mother.
The towel dropped from Aubrey’s suddenly nerveless fingers.
