Heart (17 page)

Déjà vu swept over Dex. They’d had this conversation before, more than once, and each time, Dex had resisted. Each and every time until that summer storm had hit the Cornish coast and collided with the knowledge that Braden was on his way to take him back to Hatfield—back to the caravan site, to Mikey and to hooking. Back to making
real
money, after Braden’s failed venture on the Cornish seafronts. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t, Dex. I just… I can’t stop thinking about you. I
want
you with me. Fuck, I just want
you
. Come home with me. Please?”

Nineteen

G
ENTLE
HANDS
shook Dex awake. He rolled over in the big, clean-scented bed and found Seb right there. “Wha…?”

“Rick called. Eddie’s off sick, so one of us has to go in.” Dex started to sit up, but Seb eased him back down. “I’ll go. I’m awake, anyway. Stay here and sleep. I’ll see you later.”

Dex tilted his face for a kiss that swept sweetly through his bones. It felt good… really good, like he wasn’t really awake kind of good. He lay back on the thick pillows and watched Seb disappear down the spiral staircase that connected his bedroom to the rest of the flat. He heard the shower switch on, and then the fridge rattle, but didn’t move until he heard the front door bang a few minutes later.

Satisfied he was alone, Dex sat up. There wasn’t much to Seb’s bedroom—just another big TV, a cupboard built into the wall, and, of course, his bed. Dex dipped his head and pressed his face into the covers bunched around his bent knees. They smelled like Seb and fresh-cut grass. They smelled
amazing
, still, even after three whole nights to get used to it.

Three nights. Three nights out of the seven Dex had spent at Seb’s place. At first, he’d resisted the call of Seb’s bedroom, but the lure of his arms had proved too strong, and Dex was gone now, lost to the magic of sleeping with Seb’s lips at his neck and his body curved around him, sheltering him, shielding him. Now he didn’t know how he’d ever slept without him.

Dex lay down and curled up in a ball. It felt strange to be in the bed without Seb, but he was tired. There were only a few days left before Christmas, and the restaurant was crazy busy. Some nights, he didn’t leave the kitchen before midnight, and last night, he’d still been there at two in the morning. He let his eyelids droop and drifted back to sleep, not waking until Seb dropped a kiss on his cheek sometime later.

“You went back to sleep, eh?”

“You told me to.” Dex sat up, noting the tiny square of London sky he could see through the skylight in the ceiling had turned from morning gray to a distinctly dusk-like navy blue. Oops. It seemed the bed had magical powers, even without Seb stretched out behind him.

“You don’t have to do everything I say, Dex.”

“Hmm?”

Seb’s grave expression puzzled Dex… puzzled him and got under his skin. It didn’t suit Seb’s face. Seb was a happy person. He smiled all the time, and the pensive look in his eyes was all wrong.

Dex couldn’t bear it. He kissed Seb, kissed him with all he had, until Seb was in the bed and beneath him, tugging at the hem of his T-shirt. Dex pulled it over his head and stripped Seb of his before he could change his mind.

Then he faltered, finding himself above Seb once more, straddling him in a position of control he’d never been in before. He stared at Seb, and Seb stared back, his eyes wide as he took in Dex’s bare chest… a chest that seemed too thin and pale in contrast to Seb’s strong, curved muscles.

Dex took his hands from Seb, but Seb caught him before he could fold his arms around himself.

“Don’t do that. God, don’t do that. Look at your skin… it’s perfect.” Seb ghosted his fingertips up Dex’s smooth abdomen and up over his hairless chest. “I didn’t get to look at you like this before. Sometimes, it feels like it was a dream.”

Dex trembled. Seb had said those words before, in that dingy bar the day he’d barged back into his life. Dex had disregarded them then, perhaps afraid to believe he could be a dream Seb could possibly want, but he believed it now.

Seb slid his hands down Dex’s ribcage and to his hips, grinding their bodies together in a light, slow circle. Dex gasped, feeling the thick outline of Seb’s hard cock press into him. He’d forgotten this, forgotten how big Seb was.

He put his hands on Seb’s chest, felt the thud of his heart through his palms, and pushed back, seeking the friction that made his eyes roll. He moaned… no, whimpered, and did it again and again and again.

Beneath him, Seb groaned and tightened his grip on Dex’s hips. “Come up here.” Dex’s eyes flew open. Seb pushed at the waistband of his borrowed sweatpants. “Take these off.”

Dex stripped and straddled Seb’s chest, his dick inches from Seb’s mouth.
Oh God, oh God.
He remembered this too… the way Seb had fucked him until he could take no more, then laid him flat and blown him until Dex was screaming, on the inside, at least.

Seb pushed on Dex’s back and guided him into his mouth. Dex fell forward and gripped the frame of the bed, giving in to the instinct to roll his hips forward. Sensation overwhelmed him. His breath caught and his skin burned and tingled like he was crawling deliciously out of his skin.

Dex put his hand on Seb’s head and wove his fingers into his hair. For long minutes, he was caught between the sweet, hot heat of Seb’s tongue and the probing twist of the warm, wet fingers he slipped inside him.
Curl them, God, please curl them.
Seb curled his fingers. Dex convulsed from his head to the tips of his toes, arched his back, and came in Seb’s mouth.

Seb held him in place until he was done, tormenting him with his magical tongue until Dex begged him to stop.

Seb released him and maneuvered him like he weighed nothing. He laid Dex down and pulled him close. Dex felt him hard against his thigh.

Shit. You forgot about him.

Dex pulled away from Seb’s kiss. “You can fuck me if you want.”

Seb smirked. “What if I want you to fuck me?”

“Why would you want that?”

There was a beat of silence before Seb shrugged. “When I asked you ‘top or bottom’ back in Padstow, you hesitated. I thought you did both. It doesn’t matter.”

Top or bottom
.

Dex thought back to the moment Seb had bent him over the counter in the kitchen of his Cornwall cottage and eased so gently inside him. The sensation had blown his mind… shattered it into a million pieces. Could he do that for Seb? Make him feel like that? Would he even know where to start?

Not a chance.

“Dex. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Seb shifted so Dex could no longer feel his dick, hard and waiting, and pushed Dex’s sweat-damp hair out of his face. “This only goes as far as you want it to, okay? It’s not why I asked you to come here.”

Dex finally regained sensation in his limbs and propped himself up on his elbows. He felt strange—disconnected from his body and the reality of the day. “What time is it?”

“Have a look.” Seb held out his phone so Dex could read the digits on the screen.

Dex squinted and let the numbers click into place. “Five o’clock? Really?”

“Yep. You’ve been in bed all day. Might as well stay here now. Want to get a pizza and watch a film?”

“Can we have mushrooms on it?”

Seb grinned. “Whatever you want.”

“M
ERRY
C
HRISTMAS
,
Dex.”

Dex’s hand trembled, threatening the neat line of whipped cream he was piping on the cake he’d baked for the special Christmas lunch service. He scowled at Seb. It was the third time he’d walked past him, brushed his fingertips across the base of his spine, and whispered in his ear, and the third time Dex had nearly fucked up his cake. Christmas Day meant little to him, but the simmering buzz of Seb beside him—every smile, wink, and loaded brush of skin—meant everything.

He finished up the chocolate cake and regarded it with a critical eye. It was the first recipe he’d devised and cooked all on his own, and Seb had picked a hell of a day to make him do it.

“You know how to bake a cake, Dex. You don’t need my help.”

Tosser. Still, all things considered, the cake didn’t look too bad. In fact, it looked pretty damn good, at least according to Rick, who’d brought him a glass of something pink and fizzy a little while earlier. Apparently, it was tradition for the kitchen staff to drink their way through the Christmas Day service, and Dex wasn’t going to argue with that. He liked drunk Seb. Drunk Seb was a lot of fun.

Service passed in a blur of laughter and fizzy wine. It was the most relaxed shift Dex had ever worked, and he felt deflated when it was over. Then he remembered he still had to write Seb’s name on his present.

He slipped away to the staff room and retrieved the paper bag containing the bandana from his locker. The bag was green, so he figured he didn’t have to find some wrapping paper, but there was no way he could get away with leaving the gift nameless.

He pulled his literacy book and a pencil from the locker and sat down on the floor, flicking through the book to find the right letters. The S and B were simple enough, but the E gave him a little more trouble. He held the finished result up to the light and glared at it with even more scrutiny than he had the cake. It was legible, just.

Bernie stuck her head round the door. “There you are. Do you have your present for the Secret Santa? We’re going to do it in a minute, before people start to go home.”

Dex stood and relinquished the green paper bag. Bernie knew without looking at his scrawl that it was intended for Seb, but she looked anyway and smiled.

“Would you look at that? He’ll be so proud of you when he sees it.”

“It’s supposed to be a secret.”

Bernie ruffled his hair. “Trust me, sweetie, he’ll know.”

Yeah, by the illiterate scribble.…
“Are you giving it to him now?”

“Yep. Get changed and come down so you can get yours too.”

Dex opened and shut his mouth, words dying in his throat as Bernie left him to it. It hadn’t occurred to him someone had picked
his
name out of the tin.

He changed and made his way downstairs. It seemed everyone and his dog had crowded into the bar. Dex slipped in unnoticed and took a seat in the corner beside Damon. Seb joined them a few minutes later with a tray of drinks, and then it was time for Rick to do his much talked-about impression of Father Christmas.

It wasn’t as funny as Dex had been led to believe, and he didn’t pay much attention to the festivities until his name was called. He got up and accepted the floppy silver-wrapped parcel and took it back to his seat.

Seb nudged him. “Open it.”

Oh. Carefully, Dex peeled away the shiny wrapping paper. A gray beanie hat and matching gloves fell into his lap. He turned the gloves over in his hands. They were thick and warm and lined with fleece. The sort of gloves he’d dreamed about when he’d slept on the streets of London all those months ago. The sort of gloves he’d dreamed of his whole life.

“Do you like them?”

Dex nodded. “They’re like blankets.”

Seb smiled, but said no more and headed up to the bar to retrieve his own gift. He returned with the green paper bag a few minutes later and set it, unopened, on the table beside Dex’s hat and gloves.

Damon eyed it curiously. “Not going to open it? Can’t be any worse than the set of teacups some knobhead got me.”

“Later. I want to get pissed while Rick’s paying.”

It seemed a sensible plan, given the way Rick was handing out drinks. Dex sat back in his seat, absorbed the warmth of Seb beside him, and took it all in. He was tired, and before long, more than a little drunk, but beneath it all lurked an emotion he wasn’t familiar with. He felt content and safe… happy, maybe, and as the night wore on, the sensation became more at home in his bones. Like it belonged. Like
he
belonged.

Later that evening, he found himself outside with Rick while he smoked a cigarette. Seb was inside, talking to his family in Spain on his phone, except he wasn’t talking to them in a way that made sense to Dex. He’d gotten the shock of his life when Seb’s sister appeared on the screen and called him by name. It had scared the shit out of him, and after a quick, hesitant wave, he’d made an excuse and followed Rick outside.

“Don’t blame yer, son,” Rick said gruffly through a lungful of smoke. “Leave them to that bloody bollocks.”

Dex reached for the broom leaning against the storage shed and absently swept a few spent cigarette ends into a neat little pile.

Rick’s chuckle rumbled through the frosty night air. “Leave it, kid. It’s Christmas Day. All this’ll still be here tomorrow.”

Dex set the broom aside and hoisted himself up on a disused wooden table. A companionable silence fell over them, but Dex wasn’t fazed. He often found himself alone with Rick, and the burly chef was a man of few words.

Not tonight, though. Tonight it seemed a whole day of drinking on the job had gone to Rick’s head. “So, how’re you doing, lad? Getting on okay?”