Vulnerable.
“Would you—uh—this is kind of fucked up, but would you stay with me tonight? In my bed? We don’t have to do anything... if I could even get it up again.” His gaze wavered as he broke off with a wry laugh.
Dante squeezed his hand tighter and tried to imagine a reality where he could be in a bed with Sid and not want the whole world. He couldn’t, but he nodded all the same. “I’ll stay.”
13
Sid already knew he wouldn’t get hard again, so he didn’t bother to look down or give weight to the warm burn of arousal in his belly. Instead, he lost himself to Dante’s arms around him and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until he fell asleep.
He had no idea how much time had passed when he opened his eyes to darkness. It was a sad irony that despite energy-sapping fatigue being the bane of his life, Sid rarely slept well. Fits and starts. Tossing and turning. Spasms. Freaky sensations and weird dreams. Anna said he shouted. Laughed. Sometimes he even cried, though he had no memory of it. He had no idea what he’d been doing in the precious few hours he’d slept beside Dante.
In the murky light of whatever the hell time it was, he found his focus and fixed it on the chiselled profile stretched out in the bed with him. Dante was awake, staring at the ceiling, one hand on his stomach while the other idly rubbed Sid’s aching hip as if he didn’t know he was doing it, but his fucking soul knew his light touch was as soothing as the Gabapentin Sid kept for emergencies.
Sid’s eyelids fluttered, heavy, as he soaked up the butterfly sensation Dante gifted him. Dante’s empty gaze registered, but he couldn’t stay awake, and the next time he opened his eyes, it was morning, and he was alone.
Pain and stiffness were a permanent fixture in Sid’s morning routine. He sat up like a rusty robot, sweeping the room with blurred vision for any sign last night hadn’t been a dream. “Dante?”
It came out as a hoarse groan, barely audible but apparently loud enough for Dante to appear in the bedroom doorway, shirtless, his jeans hanging low on his narrow hips.God, he’s gorgeous. Shame he wasn’t smiling like he did in Sid’s more pleasant dreams. Dante’s troubled gaze fixed on Sid, then widened a touch as it flared with an emotion Sid recognised too well: concern.
He cringed. “Do I look that bad?”
“What? No.” Dante ventured forward with a glass of water. He sat on the bed, held it to Sid’s lips, waited for him to drink, then set the glass down. “The opposite of bad, as it goes, but you look like you’re in pain. Something wrong?”
“Nope. It’s just the morning. You might want to take a shower or a trip around the world while I haul myself out of bed. It takes a while.”
“Do you need help?”
“I got it.”
“Sure?”
“Mate, I don’t need a human Zimmer frame. I just... let me do it, please?”
Dante nodded. “I’ll go home—”
“No, no.” Sid shot out a hand and grabbed Dante’s wrist as he began to stand. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant. Please don’t go. I just need a few minutes. Use my shower?”
“Okay.”
Dante peeled Sid’s hand from his wrist and held it a moment, then he rose and left the room, leaving his patented silence behind like a thick cloud of... what?Finish that fucking sentence. But Sid couldn’t. Cognitive thought wasn’t his friend so soon after waking. Whatever storm was raging in Dante’s complex gaze would have to wait.
He crawled out of bed and to the kitchen for more water and the snack he needed to stomach his morning medication. His legs were heavy and stiff, but the tremors in his hands eased as hydration kicked in, and the spasms in his back faded too. He was upright, mostly, when Dante emerged from the bathroom, still shirtless, but this time with damp hair and water glistening on his inked skin.
Sid groaned and banged his head on the kitchen counter.
Dante was beside him in a flash. “What is it?”
“You,” Sid grumbled. “I thought we’d maybe calmed the beast, you know? But I can’t fucking look at you without wanting to do things even able-bodied me would’ve had to train for.”
Dante splayed a light hand at the base of Sid’s spine, a touch so gentle it seemed to shimmer across Sid’s burning nerves. “What things?”
“Filthy things.”
“Filthier than getting nasty in the woods?”
Sid raised his head. “You’re actually quite sweet, aren’t you?”
“Um...” Dante mauled his bottom lip and frowned. “In what sense? Cos I told you already I’m not a nice person.”