Page 115 of Kneel with the King
I make a sound of displeasure, knowing for sure that I won’t be doing any more sleep, but I relax nonetheless.
Several minutes go by, and my pulsing heartbeat slows as my body sinks deeper into the mattress. It’s an odd sensation, but the more I sit with the idea of it being a comfort thing, the easier it gets to calm down. It’s a nice feeling, being completely connected to him in this way. His body is warm against my back, and the soft feathering of his breath against my neck makes me feel cherished.
Another hour goes by.
We don’t move much—we don’t need to. There’s a calm we both fought like hell to earn. It’s in the clean sheets, in the collar looped lazily over the bedpost, in the notebook on my nightstand with three bullet points from yesterday’s couples therapist we still see. The noise from outside gets a bit louder as people wake up. Dogs bark, people shout, and the sound of tires on the snowy road below makes King shift a bit, pulling out of me slowly. I let out a low whine, not liking the fact that I can’t stay full of him for longer.
“You did so well,” he says, getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom. A minute later, he’s back with a warm washcloth, and he cleans us both before hopping back into bed with me, spooning me from behind. “Even if you didn’t fall back to sleep.”
“Did you?” I ask, ignoring the way both of our cocks are still rock hard.
“I slept like a baby all night. Never been more cozy.”
I laugh. “I bet.”
We lay there for several more minutes in silence, neither of us wanting to leave the warm bubble of warmth. It’s a cold day again—I can tell by the way the windows have frosted over on the outside.
Eventually, my cock softens. King falls back to sleep. And I can’t help but smile—becausethis—the slow, lazy Sunday morning—is all I ever wanted, without even realizing it.
But the quiet starts to buzz louder, and as always, my mind reverts to work.
Turning over onto my back, I stare at the ceiling and try not to think about my email inbox. Walter will most likely text later about golfing in Westchester. I’ve come to really enjoy golfing, and I don’t know what that says about me. In any case, I ignore the idea of beingthatguy who will be fifty in two years. I’ll tell Walter maybe next time. I try not to work Sundays anymore. I try not to work most Saturdays either.
The office learned—or rather, I learned. To be present in the moment. To take time off. To enjoy life again, after… decades of nonstop work.
Still, my body starts to get antsy with the notion of a full inbox tomorrow. I wonder if I can answer a few of them this morning while King sleeps, seeing as I’m taking this Thursday and Friday off. Might as well get caught up?—
“Stop planning your week,” King says into my hair, like he caught me.
“I’m not,” I lie.
He drags his nose along the nape of my neck, a quiet reprimand, and I… let go.
Being here, with King, in our new three-bedroom penthouse in the Village, is all new to me. I constantly oscillate between regressing back into a workaholic and picking wallpaper for our powder room. And since we’re adopting a dog next week, both of us have been getting the apartment ready for our little canine friend.
I take a deep breath. And then another. The apartment smells like coffee we haven’t made yet and the cinnamon of his body wash that sank into my skin in the shower we took last night. I haven’t told him, but I keep an extra bottle of it at Maddox’s place for when I visit Ezra.
“You’re going to be late,” King says, teasing.
“For what?”
“Your very important appointment with the couch. And pancakes. Maybe a nap between pancakes.” He presses a kiss behind my ear. “I blocked your calendar.”
I huff out a laugh. “You don’t have access to my calendar.”
“Who do you think taught you to use it?”
He’s not wrong. We share a home and a firm now, though “share” looks different than I once imagined. The acquisition happened. The sky didn’t fall. We wrote a charter, carved outseparate lanes, and gave each other veto power over all decisions having to do with the firm. I still get to win sometimes. He still gets to be in charge sometimes. It’s almost like we grew up.
Almost.
The seconds drag into minutes, and my mind is fully awake. I’m trying really hard to relax, but it’s a learning curve. Instead, the sound of my phone vibrating tugs me back into the present. I already know who it is—because aside from King, there’s only one person I text this much.
“Thinking?” he asks.
“You caught me.”
“About what?”
