It was late. The bedside clock said after eleven. Sullivan hadn’t expected Tobias to last as long as he had; a handful of rounds of edging, he’d thought, but because he didn’t know Tobias’s limits well, he’d intended to take it easy. He’d meant to leave plenty of time for aftercare before he dropped Tobias off at the motel.
Instead, he’d wandered off the map and was stuck with a sub who was still altered. Tobias was fucking adorable in this headspace, following him around like a baby duck, head tipping to rest against Sullivan’s arm as Sullivan stood there thinking, and Sullivan might be a bit of a bastard when it came to tormenting his subs with pleasure, but he sure as fuck wasn’t going to leave an altered sub alone in some dingy motel to deal with the likely endorphin drop on his own. And considering how hard they’d gone and how new to this Tobias was, drop was pretty fucking likely.
Sullivan sighed and got them tucked up together under the covers, naked and sleepy, Tobias’s face hot against his arm, before looking over the nearest stack of books by the bed. “All right, what’ve we got? The Things They Carried? Hard no on that, I think. Want to learn how to build industrial fans?”
Tobias didn’t say anything, but a slight wrinkle of his nose told the tale there.
“Yeah, me neither. How about The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe? Yeah?”
Tobias nodded and for the next hour, Sullivan read aloud about fauns and Turkish Delight, and rubbed his palm against the nape of Tobias’s neck until he drifted off.
Sullivan looked up at his ceiling, and if there’d ever been a white flat surface capable of judging a human being, he’d found it.
“I think I might be fucked,” he told it, and turned out the light. He fell asleep with Tobias’s soft breaths in his ear and the reliable thud of his heartbeat under his palm.
Chapter Fourteen
Tobias woke up with that itch beneath his skin again.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel good. He felt great, actually. His body was loose and warm and he’d gotten his first deep, complete sleep in what might have been months. Since before the letter came, certainly. The room was downright cold while he was cozy under the covers with—with someone else’s arm wrapped around his belly.
The night before came back to him. He’d slept with Sullivan again. Jesus, he’d done more than that. He’d let Sullivan turn him into a wordless animal. Sullivan had torn him into little pieces, wrung him out, and then put him back together so completely that the only thing Tobias could say about the whole experience was thank you and again.
That was the problem, actually. That little again. That itch beneath his skin was all about the again.
His ass was sort of sore, though. He shifted gingerly and, yeah, that was going to be distracting.
Sullivan hummed sleepily behind him, a long line of bone and muscle against his back, and Tobias went still. He was wonderfully comfortable and he didn’t want to face the morning-after yet. He’d never before woken up with someone he wasn’t in a relationship with, and he’d assumed that casual meant there wouldn’t be any sleeping over. He had no idea about the protocol for this sort of thing.
Sullivan hummed again and shifted closer, his arm curving up so that his hand rubbed against the light chest hair over Tobias’s sternum. His lips came to rest against the nape of Tobias’s neck, and this was—this was definitely not casual, because this was cuddling.
He really liked it. He liked Sullivan against him, the lazy, happy sound Sullivan made as he nosed at Tobias’s neck, and the—oh.
Sullivan’s morning wood was pressing against Tobias’s backside.
Not cuddling. Sex.
Which—okay. It was fine. And as Sullivan’s hand trailed lower on his torso to play with the hair right above Tobias’s dick, he could acknowledge that his own morning wood wasn’t opposed to the idea. He certainly wasn’t going to complain.
He pressed backward and had the pleasure of hearing Sullivan’s breath catch.
“Hey. You good?” Sullivan murmured, the rumble of his voice broken with sleep, and Tobias melted at the sound of it, so intimate and rough.
“Hi. I mean, yeah.” Tobias took a deep breath and started to turn over, but Sullivan’s hand closed on his hip.
“Stay like that.” As soon as Tobias complied, Sullivan’s touch gentled. He stroked Tobias’s side and belly for a while. “How’s your puzzler?”
“My what?”
“Your head. Freaking out? Anxiety? Pleased as punch?”
“Green,” Tobias whispered.
“Anything you’d take back if you could? Anything that didn’t work for you?”
Tobias shook his head, perhaps with too much emphasis, because Sullivan laughed. “All right. Up for another round?”
Tobias hesitated. On the one hand, yes, he was up for anything and everything, and the more Sullivan touched him, the more his libido was waking up and insisting that going along with any of Sullivan’s ideas was an excellent plan for the day. On the other hand, the more he shifted around, the clearer his soreness became, and the idea of something going inside him right now was intimidating.
“Say it.” Sullivan didn’t sound mad, only curious. “I always want you to tell me things like this.”
“I want to do it again, but I’m kind of sore.”
“Your ass? Or other places too?”
His back ached a tiny bit from holding that position over the chair arm for so long, but that was more the kind of
