Page 90 of Hard Count
“Say the rest.”
Piper closed his eyes briefly. “I want this, and I’m not going to have it after tonight.”
Noah nodded.
“Okay.”
He pulled his hoodie off over his head. Piper reached for him.
It went slow. Noah wouldn’t let it go fast.
Every time Piper tried to speed up, tried to make it the kind of sex that left no time for memories, Noah slowed him back down. A hand on his chest. A kiss at the corner of his jaw. A pause, deliberate, where Noah just looked at him. Piper recognized what he was doing and went with it.
Noah had come here to be in the room with him present, not to watch him dissociate while his body stayed.
Piper, against his own plan, stayed.
He stayed with the weight of Noah on top of him, and the song bleeding into the room.
Noah whispered in his ear.
“Piper.”
“What.” Piper smiled as Noah pressed his lips against Piper’s ears.
“I don’t want this to be over,” Noah whispered.
“I don’t either,” Piper whispered back into Noah’s ear.
Noah sat up. The blanket fell off his shoulder. Piper’s hands still on his face.
“I can’t FUCK,” Piper said into his palms.
Noah went quiet.
Piper had not known his hands were shaking. He laid them flat on his stomach to stop it. He looked away from Noah.
“My body is not…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Okay.”
“It’s not.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not dissociating.”
Piper closed his eyes. “This is embarrassing.”
“Take your time. I know this is new.”
“I hate this.”
“Just breathe, Piper.”
Noah waited. He sat on the edge of the bed with his knees up and one hand on Piper’s bicep and watched Piper’s stomach rise and fall, and he let Piper have a minute.
What Piper had wanted was for Noah to make it stop being embarrassing, and give him permission to disappear. Noah was not going to. He was going to help Piper breathe through it.
