Page 63 of Grief & Glitter

“No?”

“I want this for five minutes.”

I understood. Before phone calls, before plans, before tuition and schedules and telling Lyle and everyone at the rink, he wanted five minutes where it belonged only to him.

I brushed my thumb beneath his eye, catching a tear before it could wreck the glitter. “I’m proud of you.”

His face changed. “Yeah?”

“So fucking proud.”

He kissed me, different this time, slow, his hand settling against my cheek and mine finding his waist.

There had been a lot of kissing in this hotel room already: quick kisses before I left for the hospital, goodnight kisses, I’m here kisses, the kiss Ryan had pressed to my forehead at three in the morning when I woke shaking. This was more.

Ryan shifted onto my lap. “You okay?” he whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Today was a lot.”

“I know.”

“We don’t have to do anything.”

“I know.”

His fingers moved into my hair. “I want to.”

Ryan searched my face. “What do you want?”

“You.”

His breath caught. I kissed him again. Slow, no desperation, no trying to shut my brain up. I’d spent years using pain to make everything quiet, hockey until my muscles screamed, cuts until there was something physical to focus on, anything that stopped me thinking. This wasn’t that.

Ryan’s mouth was soft against mine, his hands warm, and I felt everything. I wanted to.

He eased me backward until my head hit the pillows and kissed along my jaw. I slid my hands under his shirt, palms settling against warm skin.

“You’re so handsome. So beautiful,” I murmured. Ryan stilled, then lifted his head. “You know that, right?”

His eyes shone. “Sometimes.” He kissed me again. His mouth moved down my throat, my chest, slow enough that I could stop him, slow enough that he could stop too. When his fingers reached the button of my jeans, he looked up. “Can I?”

“God, yes.”

Ryan kissed the skin just above my waistband then lower. He was watching me as he closed his lips around my cock, glitter around his eyes, red hair mussed from my hands. My Ryan. Pleasure hit me hard enough that my fingers twisted into the hotel sheets.

“Fuck.”

Ryan’s hand found mine. I held on.

That was what stayed with me. Not what he did with his mouth or the way my whole body tightened as pleasure built. His hand in mine. Ryan holding on to me while I let myself have something good, no guilt, no punishment, no voice telling me I hadn’t earned it. Only Ryan.

When I came, his name broke out of me. Ryan finished himself seconds later, still holding my hand. I pulled him close, his head on my chest while my heartbeat slowly returned to something approaching normal.

“Wow,” I managed.

Ryan laughed. “Excellent review.”