Page 41 of Bear’s House

He came without resistance — no quip, no redirect, no slight theatrical resistance that would let him pretend. He just came, and I drew him into my side and felt his forehead drop against my chest like something in him had finally given up the effort of holding itself separate. My arm went around him. My hand moved up and down the line of his spine, and I felt him exhale all the way down to his ribs.

We didn’t speak. I don’t know how long we sat like that.

Then I put two fingers under his chin and tipped his face up to mine.

He looked at me — those blue eyes, clear — and I kissed him. Just slowly, my mouth moving over his. He kissed me back the same way.

I laid him back.

He let me. JJ, who was normally all forward momentum, always racing toward the next thing before the current thing had finished, lay still under my hands. I pulled his tee over his head. He lifted his arms to help me, and I looked at him, the blond hair fanned out, his chest rising and falling, and he didn’t look away and he didn’t make a joke, which from JJ meant everything. I put my hand flat at the center of his chest and felt his heartbeat.

“Hi,” he said, very soft.

“Hi,” I said.

I took my time with the sweatpants. My hands moved over his hips, his thighs, slowly, and he watched my face the whole time. He didn’t rush me. He lay there and let me look at him and touch him and I felt him shiver once when my thumb pressed the inside of his hip.

My hand found his jaw. Then his wrist. Then the notch of his hip, the flat of his stomach, the inside of his thigh. He made a low, unguarded sound when my hand closed around him, and his back arched off the bed. I brushed my thumb along his jaw and held his eyes.

“You want me, baby?” He nodded first, then seemed to remember I needed more than that. “Yes, Daddy. I want you.”

“Easy,” I said.

He breathed. His eyes closed.

I undressed and came over him, and I remembered the fact of how small he was against me, his slim frame under my hands, the contrast of his pale skin against my darker skin, the way he looked when I settled my weight over him and his expression went to pure want. He wasn’t performing it.

I took my time preparing him, slow and careful, never taking my eyes off his face for long. By the time I pushed inside him, he was ready for me. He gripped my forearms with both hands, fingers wrapping around the muscle.

I kept my pace slow, long strokes, taking my time about it, and I felt the grip on my forearms tighten and ease in rhythm.

“Daddy,” he said.

He turned his face into my neck. His breath went unsteady against my skin. His whole body moved with mine in that slow rhythm, his legs wrapped around my hips, and I felt him trembling slightly through the whole of it. So hot. Slow, romantic. Just us and the whole time in the world.

I kept my hand at his jaw. I kept him close.

When he came, it was quiet. A soft exhale, his fingers digging hard into my forearms for one moment, his whole frame tensing under me. Then he went loose. I followed soon after and stayed close when I did.

Afterward I didn’t move away. I shifted my weight but kept him against me, one arm around him, and JJ lay with his cheek on my chest and his fingers loosely circled around my wrist. My thumb moved in a slow circle against his shoulder. His eyes were closed. His breathing had settled back into that deep, even rhythm, his chest rising and falling against my side, and the blond hair was still unbrushed and I didn’t touch it, just let it be.

“You’re my good boy,” I said. “You’ve always been my good boy. You’re going to keep being my good boy. And I’m not going anywhere, JJ. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” I felt him breathe against my chest. “You hear me? I love you. I love your brattiness. I love how funny you are, how kind and loving you are. I love your pranks and how silly you are. I love everything about you.”

He nodded against my skin.

“You have nothing to be afraid of. Nothing. I chose you. I keep choosing you. Every single day.” My thumb kept its slow circle on his shoulder. “And I’m going to keep choosing you, even when you’re being a brat, even when you’re being loud, even when you’re making everything harder than it has to be. Because that’s who you are, and that’s who I want.”

He made a sound: a laugh and a sob. “Okay,” he whispered.

“Okay,” I said.

We lay there. The light had shifted further, gone gold and long across the floor, and somewhere downstairs Bola’s bell jingled once as he jumped off the sofa and padded toward the kitchen, probably to check whether the cereal bowl had migrated downstairs on its own.

“You know,” he said, and his voice was still quiet but there was something in it now. “If you’re really not going anywhere, we should probably talk about what happens when I’m ninety and you’re a hundred and four and we’re both in diapers.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“I’ll still be changing yours,” I said. “At a hundred and four. That’s the deal. You'll always be my baby. Your little age will always be five.”