Page 44 of Vigilante Twink and the Cop

Ropes of his cum are spurting between us, falling hot and wet on my stomach.

He shudders and gasps. I release his cock.

His hand is working my cock weakly. Uncoordinated. Distracted by his orgasm.

His eyes open, find mine. He looks dreamy, pupils wide and dark. Blissed out and a little awed.

“Lennox,” he breathes softly, saying my name as if I’m some kind of deity.

His hand tightens suddenly as he remembers what he was doing. And just like that my balls tighten and lift, and I follow him over the edge.

The orgasm rumbles through me like a low and heavy storm. Powerful and impressive. Carrying a gravity of its own.

My muscles tremble as I add my cum to Micah’s, painting our stomachs with our mixed release. I want to mix it more, smear it over him and rub it into his skin and then take a long time thoroughly licking it off of him.

My lungs exhale. Inhale shakily. My orgasm rolls away, fades, leaving only the aftereffects.

Micah lets go of my cock. He wriggles up the bed until he is level with me.

I plant a kiss on his sweaty forehead. He chuckles softly. A warm and happy sound, and I’m so damn pleased I’ve given that to him.

My eyes flutter shut. My chest is still heaving. I should get up. If I’m not going to lick him clean, I should at least get a towel and clean us both up. But our arms are around each other, and the bed is soft, and this is so very nice. This is the most at peace I’ve been for a very long time.

A warm, wet towel dabs at my abdomen. I startle, but not enough to open my eyes.

“Shh,” says Micah. “I’m just cleaning you up, then you can go back to sleep.”

I can’t believe I drifted off and didn’t stir when he got up. When have I ever been so relaxed in another person’s presence? I can’t remember. I don’t think I ever have.

“I’ll go back to sleep when you’re back beside me,” I mumble, and it’s a shock to hear how sleepy my voice sounds. I suppose that was a good workout, and I guess work has been a lot and it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

Micah laughs. The towel disappears. Then he is in my arms again. Warm and real. I sigh contentedly, pull him closer, and kiss his forehead again. He wriggles with delight. I grin, hold him tight, and drift off to sleep.

Chapter twenty-one

Lennox

The first thing I’m aware of is that it’s dark.

Not the hostile dark of three in the morning when a case is pulling at me and sleep has given up pretending it’s going to happen. This is a different kind of dark, thick and warm and deliberate, the curtains doing their job for once, and I lie in it for a moment before I’m fully awake, registering sensations in order. Warm. Comfortable. Not my bed, which has a spring that’s been threatening to become an issue for three years and is working up to making good on that threat. And the smell of coffee, actual coffee, not the machine at the station but something that smells like it was made by someone who cares whether it’s good.

I open my eyes.

Micah is standing at the side of the bed with two mugs, still in his pajamas, hair doing that catastrophic morning thing that shouldn’t work and does. He’s watching me wake up with an expression I’d find embarrassing if I had the energy to be embarrassed by anything at this particular moment, which I don’t.

“Good morning,” he says. “It’s seven. You’ve been asleep since eight last night.” He tilts his head slightly, the way he does when he’s working up to something. “You looked like you really needed it, so I left you to it. But I wasn’t sure if you had work today.”

I process this slowly. Eleven hours. I have slept for eleven consecutive hours in another person’s bed without once surfacing. I don’t do that. I haven’t done that since I was a different person entirely, some earlier version of myself who hadn’t yet learned that the world requires constant vigilance even when the lights are off. The fact of it sits in my chest alongside the coffee smell and the dark and Micah’s face, and I don’t quite know what to do with it.

“What day is it,” I ask.

“Thursday.”

Thursday.

“It’s my day off,” I say.

Something happens to his face. The watching expression gives way to something warmer and considerably less composed, and he looks down at the mugs in his hands like he’s suddenly not sure what to do with them, and then back up at me, and there it is, the thing I see sometimes when the charm drops and something younger and less certain takes its place. The bashfulness of it. The specific vulnerability of a person asking for something they’re not sure they’re allowed to want.