Open - Part Thirteen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here. The episode below is NSFW and contains mature content.
Thunderclouds fill the sky over Ketterbridge, thick and dark. We get back to Noah, Raj, and Mel’s house before they can break, but Aiden and I basically have to sprint to stay ahead of the rain by the time we park in front of my apartment.
We stop just inside the door, gasping, watching as the light drizzle swells into a torrential downpour.
“Beat that by about two seconds,” Aiden observes, slicking his damp hair out of his eyes.
“That's twenty-eight seconds better than we usually do,” I answer, and Aiden huffs out a little laugh.
“That’s true. We didn’t get drenched, this time.”
“Hey, our first victory over the rain,” I say cheerfully, then gasp and seize Aiden’s shirt as a huge roll of thunder startles the hell out of me.
Aiden laughs, shifting our bags to his other hand so he can ruffle my hair. Then he takes the back of my head and pulls me in for a forehead kiss. I spread my hand on his chest, filled up with toe-curling happiness from just this one little gesture.
It’s dark out. We got back into town late into the evening, and the storm clouds are absorbing any moonlight that might have made it down to us. But everything feels so - bright. It’s like we brought the sunshine back with us.
In the semidarkness, with the rain thrumming in our ears, we walk hand in hand up the stairs.
It’s only when I’m stopped outside of my door that I realize I didn’t ask Aiden if he wanted to be dropped off at his place, instead of coming to mine. I just brought him home, without thinking about it. I really want him to stay over, but still. I probably should have checked first. We had a full weekend spent with other people, and he might be in need of some alone time.
But when I turn around to ask, he’s smiling, relaxed, leaning into the hand he’s got up on the doorframe. Waiting for me to go in, so he can follow.
Biting back my smile, I turn around and unlock the door.
We both kick off our shoes, set aside our bags. Aiden starts making some tea, and I lean my elbows against the kitchen counter, watching him.
He glances at me over his shoulder. Casts a small, intimate smile at me, a lock of his glossy hair escaping from his snapback. Somehow I’m in love with just that one strand of hair, with the way it falls to kiss one of his dark eyebrows.
I move around the counter and wrap my arms around Aiden, rest my cheek against his broad back. I breathe him in. Vetiver, the last traces of seawater, his deodorant, his hair, his body, just - him.
Aiden goes still when my hands slide over him to lock around his waist. I can’t see his face, but somehow I know that he’s smiling.
I wish we could spend all night like this. I wish we could spend all week like this. I know that we have responsibilities to get back to - the exhibition, the case, our jobs, everything - but I just want a night to not think about any of that stuff. I want a night to be with Aiden, only with Aiden. I want one of those nights where he takes me into his arms and instantly a whole world is born around us. A small, cozy, intimate world. A haven. A cocoon of warmth and comfort that feels untouchable to outside forces.
I consider saying something about it, but I can tell that Aiden is working his way up to saying something, himself. It’s a long process for him, and I don’t want to disrupt it.
Besides, I don’t mind waiting. Not when it’s like this, our bodies and hearts close together.
A few minutes pass, and then Aiden says something. I miss it, absorbed as I am in the vibration of his low voice against my cheek.
“What?” I ask, turning my face to nuzzle my nose into the warmth of his back.
“I said - do you want to take a night just for us, Keane? Before we get back to all the - everything? I know we have shit to do, and I know that we technically just took a vacation, but that was with other people, and - look, we can’t really start doing work tonight, anyways. It’s already late, so…”
I smile so hard that my cheek rounds out against Aiden’s back. He looks down at me over his shoulder, catches the look on my face, huffs out another soft laugh. He turns in my arms, lifts my chin with his fingertips, and bends down to kiss me.
We take our mugs into the bedroom, where Aiden pushes open a window. Cold, rainy air drifts inside, flutters through the thrown-back curtains, stirs Aiden’s hair as I reach up to take his snapback off. I look into his deep, intensely blue eyes, then have to close mine for a second, overwhelmed.
But it’s like I can still see them. Like I can still see him.
I feel him gently stroke his knuckles over my cheek before he gives me a soft push, sending me onto my back in the bed.
We curl up together in the blankets, drinking our tea, looking through apartment listings in Ketterbridge. Aiden sits with his back against the headboard, me between his knees, my back against his chest.
I’m chattering away, sharing my thoughts about each apartment that we pull up. Aiden is being quiet, but that’s not unusual, nor is it a sign of anything bad. I know without turning around that he’s happy.
I am, too. Happier than I ever thought I’d be about the prospect of giving up my own apartment, searching for a place to share with someone else. It’s just - I don’t have any doubts about this. None.
Aiden and I can’t seem to go a day without needing to see each other. Sometimes when I pick him up from work we go rushing into each other’s arms like we haven’t seen each other in ages. And none of that has worn off even a little, over the course of our relationship.
So. Yeah, we need to get a place together.
I think we must sound nice, right now. Aiden is listening to me talk, but I also sense that he’s listening to us. He says very little, and when he does say something, his sentences trail off, unfinished.
But it’s fine. I understand what he’s trying to tell me. We don’t always need words, for that.
Eventually, though, I wonder if he is paying attention to what I’m saying, or if he’s completely lost in the music. I decide to test the waters.
“How about this one?” I suggest, holding up my phone to show Aiden the listing. “Check out the photo. Looks like - a hut, in the middle of some farming fields. Ceiling is visibly falling in, nice, that’s good. Just like the farmhouse John Botswick collapsed, hey? And look at this - the listing says No Background Check Required, in all caps. That sentence is bolded, actually. Underlined, too. Promising, right?”
“Perfect,” Aiden agrees immediately.
“Oh, yeah?” I bite my lip, trying not to laugh. “Should we take it, then?”
“Yeah, sure. You want to get attacked by feral street turkeys every time we step outside of our door, Keane? If that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll get. I’ll call the guy, put down a deposit.”
“What?” I laugh, and then realize that there’s a stray turkey in the back of the photo, lurking near the side of the house. A malicious looking turkey, at that. “Oh, my fucking god.”
Aiden bursts out laughing, and I groan deeply, throwing my phone aside.
“I thought you might not be listening,” I explain, snuggling back in Aiden’s arms.
“To you? I’m always listening.” He bends to kiss the slope of my shoulder. “Just - sometimes you sound so good that it’s hard to hear what you’re actually saying.”
I try not to let him see quite how wide that makes me smile.
“Well, glad you were paying enough attention to prevent us from moving into the house of murder turkeys.”
“The house of murder turkeys?” Aiden laughs. “Sounds like some kind of weird-ass, very low-budget Thanksgiving mov-”
He breaks off as I turn over in his arms and kiss him. He’s caught by surprise, and I am, too. I don’t even remember deciding to do that. Something just took hold of me at the sound of his deep, huffing laughter.
I just adore it too much to keep away from him when it’s happening. He holds my entire heart in his gentle hands, with that airy little sound.
Aiden smooths his thumbs over my cheeks as he kisses me back. The sound of the downpour comes in through the open window, thickened here and there by soft rumbles of thunder. A few stray droplets ride a sweep of cool air inside. They sprinkle over my skin, over Aiden’s.
Aiden rolls us over, covers my body with his, lets his heat seep into me, and I’m dazed, dizzy again with how much he overwhelms my heart.
In the cover of the storm, cozied up together on my bed, we lapse into one of those long, unbroken, intimate talks we so often find ourselves having. I tell Aiden that I know he’s a quiet one, but I do need his opinion on the places we’re looking at. He says that he doesn’t really care which place we choose, so long as I’ll live there with him. That he just wanted to look at listings with me because he likes to watch me do it, likes how it makes me sound.
I tell him that’s very cute - stammering badly as I say it - but that I do want our new home to be someplace special, someplace - us. That it’s important to me.
Aiden considers this for a while. I wait, watching him, his serious, sensitive blue eyes. I know he’s self-conscious about how long this takes, but honestly, I love to watch him think. I’m in love with his mind, with how it works. Just as I am with all the rest of him.
“If you could have everything that you wanted,” he finally says, trailing his fingers down the side of my body, “What would our new place look like?”
So I end up telling him, in detail. He listens silently, toying gently with the hem of my t-shirt while I talk. And that leads us down a winding road. Soon we’re talking about everything and anything. The rain hammers down against the windows, but Aiden’s deep, rich, smooth voice - quiet though it may be - seems to soften the sound of the downpour, to glide over it. At least to my ears.
That voice. It’s soft leather, warm chocolate, bass notes, gentle thunder. It enwraps and enfolds me like a blanket as we lay there talking together.
His heat keeps me warm, as do his soft-spoken words.
We’re still wearing our clothes, but it feels like we’re both so naked, when we talk like this. That feeling would make me anxious with anyone else, make me feel like I should just shut up and close up. But Aiden has some effect on me that utterly quiets that instinct. He moves something in my soul with the way he looks at me, and I just - I want to tell him everything in my heart.
All the while, he’s holding me, watching me, listening intently to me. He slips his fingers into my hair as we talk, trails them along my collarbone, walks them down the side of my arm. His subtle movements begin to draw me in closer to him, pulled by some magnetism I don’t know how to name.
And then our bodies are pressed together, and our voices have gone quiet. We’re talking with our hands, now. With our breaths. Just feeling each other, fingers stealing through each other’s clothes, our eyes locked together.
Aiden gets up on his knees and leans over me, his breathing heightened, but his movements slow, steady. One by one, he takes off each piece of clothing that I’m wearing. Between each one, he stops, looking down at me with his pupils blown all the way out.
I would normally flinch beneath such an intense, unwavering gaze. Beneath eyes that seem to look so deeply into me, to see everything.
But not with him. Not with Aiden. He dissolves that.
He sits back when there are no more clothes to take off of me. He touches a hand to my ankle, but doesn’t do anything else. He just stares, kneeling before me at the end of the bed. His lower lip pinned between his teeth, his blue eyes wide, roaming all over me.
I sit up and begin unbuttoning, unzipping him. Forcing myself to go just as slowly as he did, to appreciate what’s beneath every layer I pull away. He watches me, holds still to let me, raises his arms to help me.
I have to stop and catch my breath by the time I pull back. There’s something so blindingly beautiful about Aiden in these moments when he’s so himself, so open. And now our bodies are bare to each other, just like our souls already were.
We stretch out on the bed again, clothes in a pile on the floor. I start to move towards Aiden, but he gently spreads a hand on my chest and holds me still. I guess he’s not done looking, just yet.
Eventually he lifts his hand, touches a thumb to my nose.
“So many freckles, after the beach trip,” he says, all teasing.
I laugh, my cheeks turning red all over again. Aiden smiles, and the corners of his eyes crinkle up. I can’t help myself, so I lean forward to kiss them, slow and lingering. When I pull back to look at him, the love shining out from the blue depths of his eyes stops my heart.
Any other time, I’d be climbing on top of him or pulling him on top of me, by now. But when our mouths and bodies come together this time, it’s something else, something different. It’s not sex, it’s - adoration. Neither of us moves to take it further. We only feel each other, touch each other. Aiden buries his nose into my hair and takes a deep breath, and I do the same in the warm nook of his neck. He kisses me softly and slowly, and I do the same to him.
But we can only do this for so long before we both start to want more.
Slow, gentle kisses begin to grow harder and faster. Passionate, frenzied. Our breaths begin to pick up, to grow heavy with desire. A familiar, intoxicating fever takes over my body as Aiden teasingly works his against it, and I find myself gripping his hair tightly, digging my heels into the bed.
I sense that we’re both trying to hold ourselves back. To stay suspended in this place, this perfect place where all we can do is feel each other and want each other and nothing more.
I start to wonder who can hold back the longest. Who can make the other one break first. I look up at Aiden, and see that the same thought has occurred to him.
A competitive fire lights in his eyes. I feel it reflected in my own. We both laugh, and it’s officially on.
We start doing everything, anything we can do to each other without actually having each other. I bite and lick and sink my fingernails into Aiden, wrap myself around him like a curling wave, let him feel how badly I want him. Caressing him everywhere, touching him everywhere, slowly dragging my tongue up his thigh.
Aiden holds me and breathes against me, kisses me like it’s the last thing he ever wants to do. His tongue savoring my lips, my skin, his hands following it everywhere. He puts his mouth to my ear and says things in that deep, rumbling voice that make me shiver and grasp at him, things that make my heart stumble helplessly and my cheeks burn out of control. I slide my fingers down his body as he speaks, and hear the shuddering, deep breath that he takes. I move my hand to the rhythm of the words pouring out into my ear, then stop and start stroking those hard curves of muscle at his hips.
We roll all over each other, all over the bed, kissing and touching each other with wild heat and urgency, until we both need to slow down, stop to breathe, to get control of ourselves. Then we immediately start back up again. And this happens over and over and over.
I can almost taste the mounting intensity as we keep going, the deepening and enriching of every powerful desire already consuming us. The want in me swells into a full-body storm to rival the one beyond the windows. Every kiss that Aiden places on my skin leaves a burning, tactile mark where it was. I feel high on this, my whole body turning to fire and smoke, my soul swimming in Aiden’s hazy, love-drunk blue eyes. I swear those eyes are pouring magic all over me, doing something to me, making my whole body vibrate and melt and tremble.
Based on Aiden’s breathing, his expression, the response of his body, and the sounds I’m coaxing from him, he feels the same way. But neither of us is willing to give up.
Aiden presses me into the bed with his body, rocks against me until I can barely breathe, kisses me fiercely, rouses me to ecstasy until I’m twisting in the sheets beneath him - but falls back, won’t do more.
I pin him to the bed and lick my way up his muscled chest, let his hands feel me everywhere. Trail my fingertips through his body hair. Breathe slowly on places that I know will make him go wild, letting out long inhales and exhales against his skin. I bite his shoulder, and he hisses through his teeth - but I won’t do more.
We go on and on like this, torturing and tantalizing and then denying each other. Going deeper and deeper into intensity and intimacy. Rising to someplace we only reach together, someplace elusive and sublime and all-enveloping. Sometimes frantic and fast, sometimes achingly slow. It all feels like a dream, a perfect dream.
Aiden has me rolled onto my side. He’s pressed up against me, his hand reaching over me to toy with me, tease me. When I move back, I can feel his body aching for me, and when I move forward, I move into his hand. Nowhere to go that doesn’t feel unbelievably, unbearably good. I start gasping for air, start thinking that this is what’s going to make me lose the competition - but it must have been having a major effect on Aiden, too, because he suddenly stops, his breathing ragged in my ear.
He has to go still again, to get his breath back before we can do anything else. He falls flat on his back and runs a hand through his hair, trying to calm down. But this time I don’t let him. I sit up and lock eyes with him, then slowly, finally, take him into my mouth.
He shivers so hard that I barely even register the faint sound of our mugs shattering on the night table. I can feel Aiden’s whole body burning, trembling. He’s gripping two fistfuls of the sheets, panting like he’s been running for miles, his cheeks a deep shade of crimson.
I move my head once, twice, going slow. Aiden whimpers softly, struggling to hold still, his breaths stuttering and uneven.
I pull back, and don’t do anything more.
Aiden lifts his head, realizes that I haven’t caved yet, and lets out an agonized sound. He seizes my arm and wrenches me up to him. We roll across the bed, tangled together, Aiden kissing me like he’s pouring fire into my mouth, and -
We both break at the same time.
I practically climb Aiden, who is holding me so tightly that I know I’m going to have bruises, his blue eyes blazing and burning. We both moan when our bodies finally come together, and I have to seize hold of the headboard so I don’t collapse onto him. He starts moving beneath me, desperate movements, hard and fast, and all I can do is hold on -
I hear glass breaking behind me, but I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care…
We both cry out at the same time. My head is thrown back, my body on fire. I’m shaking from head to toe, clutching at Aiden like he’s the only thing holding me to the earth, and he’s holding me to him like he wants our bodies permanently fused together. Lights explode behind my eyes, and I open them just in time to catch the look on Aiden’s face.
The whole rest of the world disappears for me. I’m swimming, flying through an open ocean of ecstasy, of sublime pleasure, of love.
I rock gently against Aiden as we drift back down from that place where we were, earning a soft, hoarse little gasp with each movement, until we both fall in a trembling heap onto the covers.
We lay there for a long time, silent, stunned.
“Okay,” I finally stammer. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”
“Yeah,” Aiden mumbles, clearly having trouble finding words. “Holy sh… yeah.”
Another long silence falls, neither of us even remotely able to speak, to think, to do anything.
“Call that a tie?” Aiden finally asks, and I laugh, dazed, overwhelmed.
Aiden laughs, too, then looks at me, his pupils still enormous, his eyes still very wide.
“It’s a fucking lie, that there’s no textbook on magic,” he murmurs. “There is one, and you wrote it, Keane.”
I laugh again, looking away from him. He can’t see that I’m blushing even deeper, right now. That’s ridiculous.
My eyes fall on the window, and I realize that the sun is coming up. That we did this literally all night. And - all of the windows have cracked. All of them.
We fall asleep almost immediately, still speechless, wrapped in each other’s arms.
I wake up a few hours later to find Aiden in his boxers, standing before my windows. He’s got one hand on my foot, keeping the connection open to control his magic. He’s slowly and carefully trailing his fingers along the broken places in the windows, trying to heal them with his heat.
It’s kind of working, actually. The glass flows back together, sealing up. But there’s a blurry line, ripples in the glass where the breaks once were.
Fine by me. It’s a small, subtle mark of how deeply we’ve loved each other here.
It feels right to leave that behind, when we find a place to call our own.
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