The pizza oven fell. Twice. I could’ve helped, but I didn’t. I ate apple tart and plotted ways to convince Billy to leave it for the night and come back tomorrow. But in the end, I didn’t need to. Mia’s impatience was my good fortune, and with Luke otherwise occupied, I finally had Billy to myself.
I hustled him to the van and drove us home.
Billy fidgeted in his seat and picked dried cement from his fingers, but his restlessness was no longer something I feared. Instead, I watched him work on the rooftops, growing stronger each day, and revelled in his boundless energy.
Energy I had plans for tonight.
And he knew, of course. Billy knew most things without me having to say them. But I’d made him a promise that, good or bad, I’d voice my feelings out loud more. Guessing was a stressful way of life for him, and I loved Billy at peace too much to waste it on repressed angst.
We made it home.
Billy slid out of his seat and disappeared into the house to feed Grey. I followed, locking the door behind me, and trooped straight upstairs. I heard Billy come up and get in the shower. Habit took me to the bedroom window to wait for him. Over the last few months, Billy had built decking at the bottom of the garden—it had given him something to do when I’d done nothing but sleep for days and days and days. He’d carved holes for solar-powered lights, and now every evening the local cats seemed to treat the deck as a hangout, while Grey howled at them from the kitchen windowsill.
It wasn’t the most relaxing nightly ritual, but I liked it.
“Watching cat TV again?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Billy was a heartbeat behind me, wrapped in a towel, and dripping water all over the floor like he always did. Drawn to him in ways I couldn’t describe, I turned and pulled him to me with little conscious thought. “They’re not out yet. Must all be having their dinner still.”
“Or lurking round mouse town up the road.”
I hummed and caught a bead of water as it ran down Billy’s chest. “You should let Grey out to play. I think he’d be all right.”
“I think he’d be a fucking hooligan.”
“Like you?”
“I’m retired, but okay—Jesus, stop doing that.” He shivered under my touch but didn’t pull away.
And I didn’t stop, because I knew he loved it.
I knew a lot about how to play his body, but we hadn’t fucked since before the accident at the cottage. Despite spending hours and hours in bed, figuring out what made each other gasp and squirm, the right moment had never arrived. My near-death experience had done odd things to my head, and my subconscious had demanded to be whole before I’d put myself inside Billy again.
Tonight, watching him with Luke, a final fragment of myself had slid into place. Everything was right in my world, and I wanted everything it could give.
I wanted Billy.
He leant into my touch, and I spread my hand over his damp skin. His heart pounded against my palm, and kicked up a gear as I let my fingertips brush his nipple.
His towel fell to the floor, revealing every inch of his beautiful body, all long lean muscles, defined by months of good eating and hard graft. That was the payoff of the weeks he’d spent coaxing me to eat through constant nausea. He ate too. And the philosophy of practice what you preach had spread to other things. Regular physiotherapy had eased the chronic pain in his shoulder. As my fingers danced over his scars, he didn’t flinch.
Instead, he reached for my belt buckle.
I let him undress me, but once we were both naked, I caught his roaming hands and pinned them over his head.
Billy’s upper lip curled, and a low growl escaped him. “Like that, is it?”
“Maybe. That okay with you?”
“Find out for yourself.”
Challenge accepted, I nudged him closer to the bed and pushed him down. I crawled over him, keeping his hands in place, and ground against him the way he liked, drawing out the first shudders of pleasure. He wrapped his legs around me and arched his back, chasing friction, and I gave it to him, setting his hands free the moment I knew for sure he was going to dig his fingernails into my back.
I loved that, almost as much as I loved him. Months of foreplay had taught me what made him tick, but more than that, I’d learned as much about myself. The itch to lose myself in empty encounters and faceless fucks just wasn’t there anymore, and I had a new fascination with how my body responded to the touch of one person, over and over again.
Billy kissed me, and I bent his leg to his chest, letting my dick slide down to press against him.
He moaned. “Don’t tease me, you fucker. Just do it.”
“Yeah? You want me to fuck you?”
“You know I do.”
In answer, I pulled away and dragged him up the bed so I could kiss him and reach for the lube at the same time. No condoms. I’d got tested on one of my many hospital adventures, and Billy...well. Turned out he’d never had unprotected sex in his entire life. So much for the terminal rebel.
I lubed up and positioned myself where I could ease slowly inside him without breaking our kiss. His body fit perfectly to mine, and there wasn’t an inch of space as I curled around him, my thighs locked against his, his dick caught between us.
Billy let out a long, shuddery groan. “Fuck, I forgot how good that was.”
I hadn’t forgotten, but I was unprepared for the sensation of him clamping down on my naked dick. I hadn’t got bareback with anyone in years, and it wasn’t that I’d forgotten how good it was, it was more I’d never known.
Locked together, I moved inside him, fucking him slowly at first, then harder as the
