Page 91 of Without You

“Holy fuck,” Deacon says. I lift my head up to look at him. He’s alternating between drawing on his stomach with our come and licking the taste off his fingers.

I shake my head with a chuckle and cautiously climb off him. “Towels in your bathroom?” I ask.

“Yeah. You’ll see them as soon as you walk in. Can’t miss them.”

My legs lose their Jell-O-like feeling with every step. Inside his en suite, I wash my hands and run two face cloths under the warm water. I clean myself first, leaving the towel behind, and then head back to Deacon with the other.

He’s exactly like I left him, still fascinated with our mess. “Do you think you’ve stared at it enough?” I tease.

“Come here,” he says.

When I sit beside him, he holds up two fingers to my mouth. I raise an eyebrow at him. “Is this a requirement?”

“You saying you don’t want to taste us?”

“Us, huh?” Grabbing his wrist, I bring his hand to my mouth and indecently suck on his fingers. “Good?”

He sits up on his elbows and kisses me. “Perfect.”

When his body sinks back to the bed, I take my time cleaning him, enjoying that I can.

It’s not just the orgasms, it’s all the little things. The before and afters and everything else in between.

Rising off the bed, I quickly discard the towel and come back to find the blankets pulled back, and Deacon, still naked, waiting for me to join him.

I slip in and he brings the covers up and over our bodies. He curls his front to my back, his lips on my shoulder, his arm resting on my waist. We’re skin to skin, and it’s exceptionally comfortable.

“Does any of this bother you?” I question.

“Does any of what bother me?”

“The two dicks? The nakedness?”

I feel him smile on my skin. He slides his hand from my waist to my chest, purposefully placing it right above my heart. “It’s about what’s in here,” he explains, tapping his fingers on my pec. “That’s what called to me, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

21

Deacon

“So he’s staying with you?” Wade asks while we work on a car together. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and the first time we’ve been able to exchange more than a few words since I returned after the long weekend.

While he was utilizing the consecutive days off to visit two families, I was too busy with Julian. Being in Seattle with him was like being caught in a fresh gust of wind. It woke you up, it made you aware, it forced you to pay attention.

And I could clearly see everything I had been missing out on. All those missing pieces were no longer missing, because I’d found them in Julian.

I almost don’t recognize myself. The smiling. The laughing. The all-around happiness. It’s foreign, and that’s probably the worst part about all this, because it shouldn’t have been. Before Rhett’s death, even growing up, I should remember feeling this way.

But I don’t. Almost like I never have.

The version of living I was doing was clearly living alone and being miserable. Having Julian in my space, in my bed—nowthatwas living. I was so fucking alive, I felt it everywhere.

“For a little over a week, yeah,” I answer.

“And after the week?”

I cautiously raise my head up from under the hood of the car, looking at Wade with confusion.

“And after the week, he’s going back home?” Irritation mars his features. “So, what exactly are you doing here?”

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