Morning Light, Morning Heat

Morning Light, Morning Heat
Finals week was finally over, and for the first time in weeks, Crane and I didn't have an exam hanging over our heads. I was the first to open my eyes on Saturday, the day after the last of the finals.

I turned my head on the pillow. Crane lay on his back, one arm flung above his head, the other resting across his stomach. His mouth was slightly open. A lock of dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He breathed in that slow, deep rhythm that meant he hadn’t moved in hours, the kind of sleep you only earned after burning yourself down to nothing.

I watched him for a while. The rise and fall of his chest. The way his jaw had gone slack. The faint crease between his eyebrows that never quite smoothed out, even in rest.

Then my gaze drifted lower.

His shorts; thin gray cotton, the ones he always wore to bed had ridden up in the night. And there it was. The unmistakable shape of him pressing against the fabric, hard enough that the outline left nothing to the imagination. Morning wood. Stupid, inconvenient, beautiful morning wood.

My mouth went dry.

Ten days. Ten goddamn days since we’d done anything more than trade exhausted kisses before collapsing into bed. But finals are over now. Saturday stretched ahead like a yawn.

I licked my lips. Shifted my weight. Propped myself up on one elbow, then slowly, carefully moved until I was hovering over him, my knees bracketing his hips, my hands planted on either side of his shoulders. The mattress dipped. He stirred.

His eyes opened.

His pupils dilated, adjusting to the light. The way recognition of me flickered across his face, and then something else, something warmer, when he realized where I was about to do.

He smiled. Actually smiled, slow and lazy, right into my eyes.

“Hi,” he said. His voice was gravel.

“Hi.”

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his palm, then let his hand fall back to the pillow. “Someone’s awake early.” I cooed, tracing my fingertip along the outline of his erection.

He chuckled and stretched beneath me, arching his back slightly, and the movement pressed his hips up against the inside of my thigh.

I leaned my head down and kissed him. He cupped the back of my head, pulling me down into something deeper. His mouth was warm and tasted like sleep, and for a moment I forgot about everything except the slide of his tongue against mine.

Then I pulled back. Slid down his body. Hooked my fingers into the waistband of his shorts.

His stomach tensed.

I tugged. The fabric gave, sliding over his hips, his thighs, catching briefly at his knees before I pulled it free and dropped it off the side of the bed. He was bare now.

“Mmmm. ”

The sound came from somewhere deep in his chest. Not a word. Just a vibration, a rumble, his head pressing back into the pillow as his hips shifted restlessly.

I settled between his legs. Let my breath ghost over the tip of him—already slick, already flushed that deep pink I’d memorized over and over. His scent hit me, clean and sharp and so distinctly him that my own hips ground down against the mattress without permission.

“Elias.” My name in his mouth was half warning, half plea.

I looked up. Met his eyes. Held his gaze for a moment. Then I lowered my head and ran my tongue along the underside of his cock, from base to tip, in one slow, deliberate stripe.

His fingers found my hair instantly. Twisted. Tight.

“Oh yeah. Fuck…Eli… ”

The words came out strangled. His thighs tensed on either side of my head. I did it again—slower this time, lingering at the ridge just beneath the head, the spot that always made his breath hitch and catch. His hips bucked, just a little, and I pressed one palm flat against his stomach to hold him steady.

My mouth closed around him.

Warmth. Salt. The slight give of skin over hardness. I took him deep, or as deep as I could, and let my tongue work the underside while I moved. Up. Down. Hollowing my cheeks. Finding a rhythm that made his grip on my hair tighten and release in helpless pulses.

“Christ,” he breathed. “Christ, your mouth.”

I hummed around him. The vibration made his whole body jerk.

His other hand joined the first, fingers threading through the mess of my hair, not pushing, never pushing, just holding on like I was the only solid thing in the room. In the world. Like if he let go he’d float away entirely.

I pulled back until just the tip rested between my lips. Sucked. Soft at first, then harder, watching the cord of muscle in his neck go taut as he groaned something incoherent. One of his heels dug into the mattress. His chest flushed, that splotchy red that crept up from his sternum and bloomed across his collarbones.

“I’m—I’m close,” he gasped. “Elias, I’m—”

I didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. I took him deeper and let my throat work around him, my eyes never leaving his face, watching the way his jaw went slack and his eyebrows drew together and his mouth fell open on a sound that wasn’t quite a word.

His thighs trembled. His stomach went rigid beneath my palm.

“Crane. ”

His name in my head, because I couldn’t say it out loud with my mouth full of him. His name was like a prayer I didn’t know I remembered.

His hips snapped up once, involuntarily, and I gagged but didn’t pull back. I didn't care. This was what I’d been missing for days, this exact thing—the taste of him, the weight of him, the way he came apart under my tongue like no one else existed.

“Oh god—Elias, I love you, I—”

He broke.

It hit him like a wave wiping out every thought behind his eyes. His whole body seized. The hands in my hair clenched so hard I felt the sting in my scalp. His mouth shaped my name again, and again, and then it dissolved into a sob that was half relief and half something tender, something that cracked my chest wide open.

I swallowed. I kept swallowing. Let him pulse against my tongue until his grip loosened and his thighs fell slack and the only sound in the room was his ragged breathing and the radiator’s distant hum.

Then I released him. Wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Crawled up the bed.

His eyes were glassy. Wet at the corners. He was still catching his breath, one arm thrown over his forehead, chest heaving.

“I love you too,” I said. Quiet. “In case you forgot.”

He laughed. A broken, breathless thing. “I can never forget.”

“Good.”

I settled beside him, my face inches from his, and waited for his breathing to slow. It didn’t.