I kissed him. He kept his hands at his sides until I reached up to the back of his head. Then he slipped his hands under the hem of my hoodie, flat against my ribs.
I lifted my arms, and he pulled my hoodie off over my head. Then he kissed me hard, with an open mouth and zero patience. He stripped off his henley. The chain at his throat caught the light of a lamp on the nightstand.
He walked me backward. The backs of my knees hit the bed, and he pushed me down with one hand in the middle of my chest. He stood between my knees.
“I want you,” he said.
He went down on his knees on the rug between my thighs. He worked my belt open and then unzipped my jeans. He looked up at me once, made sure I was looking back, and did not look away while he took me into his mouth.
I had to bite down on my lower lip to stay quiet. He didn’t look away as my cockhead slid into his warm, wet mouth.
He kept the rhythm steady. His hair fell over his forehead as he moved his lips forward and back. His hand wrapped around the base of my cock and stroked faster.
He shifted his angle. The change pulled a sound out of me I didn’t recognize. I bit it back to keep the sound from drifting to the rest of the house. Farrow didn’t stop. He picked up the pace.
I didn’t last as long as I wanted to. He felt it coming and didn’t pull off. I came in his mouth with one hand fisted in his hair and the other gripping the edge of the mattress. My entire body jerked.
He stayed where he was for a count, then sat back on his heels, swallowing. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and looked up at me.
“There you are,” he said.
I pulled him up off the floor, onto the bed, and over me. I got him out of the rest of his clothes and reached down between us. I stroked him until he came against my stomach with his forehead pressed hard into the pillow beside my ear.
I held him as his breathing slowed.
“Blaise,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.”
He chuckled and turned his face into my neck.
I pulled the comforter up over both of us. He was shaking slightly. I put my hand on the back of his neck and held it there.
“Why are you shaking?”
“Because you said my name.”
Chapter twenty
Farrow
The plow had been working on Brattle Street since four a.m.. Six inches of snow had come down overnight, and I’d been tracking the orange flash through the kitchen window. It swept across the brick fronts of the houses opposite until it finally turned a corner, and the street went dark again.
I poured a second cup of coffee.
I was in the kitchen at the Brattle House. Wiley and Samuel were upstairs in one of the front bedrooms. Köhler was in the other. Vega had taken the chair outside Köhler’s door at midnight and would hold it until six. Reed was at the front door.
Five-eighteen. Two more days until the wedding.
I’d met Dane in the front hall at eleven-forty for the watch handoff. He’d put a hand on the side of my neck for a count before lifting his coffee mug off the counter. He didn’t say anything. Then he’d gone upstairs to sleep.
I sipped my coffee and thought:I’m going to tell him today.
His feet sounded on the stairs. He was coming down early. I filled another mug and joined him on the landing.
“Anything?” he asked.