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“And you can be the little spoon, geez. You’re so demanding.”

I laughed, letting him whisk me to my bedroom and lay me down amid the softness. He put his hands on either side of my head and stared down at me for a moment, as if searching my face for some answer I wasn’t sure I could give.

Wonderfully weird, he’d called me. Did he really think that? Would he still think that if he knew the truth about what I could do?

I wanted to tell him desperately—he was the first person I’d ever felt might understand—but I was scared of the consequences of this secret.

So I kept quiet and let him kiss me into the pillows. I let him take my clothes off and wrap me in my fluffy covers. I watched him take off his own, wishing we weren’t in the dark so I could see him bare in front of me, but I didn’t want to disrupt the little bubble we were in.

Darkness around us, the world quiet and still finally.

His heavy body on top of mine, warm and slightly rough. He pressed me down into my mattress, lifting my thighs around his hips and rubbing against me until we were both shivering and gasping into the unbroken kiss.

He didn’t push for more. Like he could read my mind and see that this was enough, he kept it slow, and gentle, maddening until the very moment he brushed the tips of his fingers against my hole and made us both topple over the edge.

Even the orgasm he gave me was gentle and slow instead of the previous wildfire. It made me feel cared for and fulfilled.

He got up to get something to clean us up and I looked through the darkness after him. I realised I couldn’t wait to have him back in my bed. Wrapped around me. I smiled when I saw his shadow approaching, then realised my tired eyes were tricking me because he slid into bed from the other side.

There was a soft knock on the window and I turned my head towards it. Barth was there, nose pressed against the glass.

“What the hell?” I whispered, and Ryan propped himself up on his elbows to look. Another pirate leaned in and smeared his ghostly essence all over the glass before a third one slowly wrote something in the smudge.

4/10

“Bullshit!” Ryan exclaimed, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at the window. “Absolute bullshit. That was lovely.”

Barth reached out and underlined the score once before they disappeared from sight, leaving Ryan fuming.

“It’s okay,” I said, patting his sweaty chest. “I give it a ten.”

“Thank you, but this is a pride thing, love. You’re not objective.”

“I guess there’s only one solution, then.”

“We keep doing it until we get a perfect ten?” Ryan answered.

“I was going to say that we close the curtains next time, but sure!”

Ryan looked at me for a moment before he burst out laughing, kissing me back into the remaining pillows between chuckles until we were both sleepy again.

He cleaned us up and we changed into something to sleep in before I cuddled up against him and closed my eyes, letting dreamland take me under as he kept me safe.

fourteen

Night-Mare

Ryan

Casual.

This was totally casual still.

We were casually sleeping together after casually getting each other off, after casually making out, after casually having a heart to heart.

I totally had everything under control.

Casual control, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Owain’s whispered in my brain.