Chapter 304
In the end, they must have slept, because Jayden eventually woke to a mild hangover and summer sunlight leaking in around the curtains. He was bathed in light and warmth, and his head ached, and his lower back had a twinge from the too-soft mattress, but the sun was warming the back of his head through the flimsy hotel curtains, and a familiar, heavy kind of heat was beckoning under the sheets.
Squinting against the light, Jayden cracked an eye open and flung out a hand, dropping his arm over Darren’s waist and pulling until he could mould himself up against that smooth back and inviting skin. He was flushed hot, and Jayden kissed the little mole to the left of his spine, just below the hairline.
Nothing. Darren was deeply asleep, and Jayden peered at the clock on the side table before giving up on it. Darren’s pill was an hour overdue, but he’d be okay. He’d been in a good mood, and he’d gotten proper sleep, and they didn’t have to get up for a few hours yet, and the new drugs didn’t have to be taken on the dot, which was good because of his shifts for work and…and screw it. They could sleep for a bit longer.
Jayden curled closer, pillowing his head between those broad shoulders and listening to the steady thump of Darren’s heart through his back. It was picking up, and a moment later, a long leg shifted under the sheets. Jayden tucked his knee between Darren’s, kissed one shoulder, and tightened his grip.
“Morning,” he whispered contentedly. Darren’s arm shifted, elbow pulling back in that jerky fashion it had had since he was sixteen, and fingers wrapped around Jayden’s wrist to squeeze lightly before going slack again. Jayden pressed his nose into Darren’s hair and inhaled. “You awake?” he murmured.
Nothing, but he was getting there. The complete relaxation had ebbed, and his breathing was a little quicker than it had been. He’d be awake soon. And anyway, Darren almost never reacted to Jayden—or anything else—when he was dead asleep.
Jayden contented himself with touching, rubbing the pad of his index finger over the tattoo on Darren’s shoulder before brushing his flat palm down Darren’s chest, smiling when he shifted and mumbled even in sleep as Jayden touched his nipple, and toying with the jut of his hipbone idly, tracing the very edge of his fingernail around the thin skin there. He could feel the heat coming off Darren in waves, maybe stronger because the sheet hid them both from the chest down, and when Darren’s hand swatted at the disturbance idly, Jayden just kissed his shoulder again and carried on drawing circles around his hip.
“J’yden…”
“Mm?”
“Fuck’f,” Darren slurred, and Jayden smiled, pressing his hand to the flat expanse of Darren’s lower abdomen, just brushing the wiry hairs, and leaning over his shoulder to kiss his cheek. “S’not fucking off.”
“You don’t really want me to,” Jayden coaxed, kissing his ear and wrapping both hands around his shoulder to pull Darren onto his back. Darren squinted up at him, groaned, and pulled the sheet over his head. Jayden pulled it back down, kissed him, and settled over his chest, half to pin him in place and half to hug him. After a pause, Darren tugged the sheet back up over both of them, and tucked his face against Jayden’s with a heavy sigh.
“What d’you want?” he mumbled sleepily. Jayden peeked to see closed eyes.
“You,” he murmured, stroking a finger down one cheek and kissing along the bone in tiny, feathery presses until he could kiss Darren’s ear. “I feel amazing right now.”
“Good for you,” Darren sighed more than said, his breath a soft exhale over Jayden’s ear, and Jayden kissed the tattoo, pushing himself up to drop fleeting kisses over whatever he could find: the shoulder tattoo, two freckles by his collarbone, a scrap of scar tissue, a faint red line where the shirt collar had pressed too tightly yesterday…“Mm,” Darren murmured, clumsily stroking Jayden’s hair before dropping his hand to Jayden’s shoulder and squeezing. “What’d you want?” he repeated.
Jayden kissed his neck. He felt…lucky, and too full, like he was going to burst. He wanted to do something, like there was too much energy under his skin, and he wanted to wrap himself up in Darren’s heat, and…
“You,” he repeated, and tilted his head, resting his chin on Darren’s chest. Under the lashes, he could see the faintest slivers of green. “I still have one of my Christmas vouchers.”
Darren’s fingers stilled in his hair. He was half-hard against Jayden’s hip, but he always was in the mornings—at least, he was without the SSRIs, and he was apparently back to that now, and Jayden chewed on his lip as he waited.