“There are complimentary mints for you if it had been a blowjob,” he told me, dropping down onto the edge of the bed.
“Oh, how sweet of you,” I said with a laugh, aiming and managing to make the hamper with the towel.
“I am a consummate gentleman,” he said.
Before I could reply, he drifted backward until his head rested on my stomach. I paused for a moment, then smiled as he closed his eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through his hair, not caring that it was a little damp from our double whammy, especially when he made a soft noise of approval when I brought my nails into the equation to begin rubbing down his scalp.
“You have your moments,” I said after a couple of minutes of silence.
“My moments?”
“Of being a gentleman.”
“Careful, you sound dangerously close to giving me a compliment.”
I chuckled, maintaining the steady pattern of my fingers through his hair. “I guess after sleeping with you for over a month, I’m finding it difficult to be too rude to you.”
“There’s a comment about how I might have managed to fuck it out of you somewhere in there,” he said, eyes still closed but smiling softly.
I closed my fingers in his hair and tugged at it. “Don’t push it.”
“Careful. I might have worn myself out a bit there, but if you keep doing that, I might just ask you to do the fucking this time,” he said with a low grumble.
“You’re going to have to wait for that,” I said with a laugh, running the back of my hand down the slight scratch of his stubble. “I’m well and truly fucked right now. But I guess we’ve established you like my dick in you and a vibrator while you’re fucking me.”
“The fact that I was able to stand up after that is nothing short of a miracle,” he said, sounding content.
I smiled, enjoying the sight of him. There was something incredibly vulnerable about him at that moment, in this private space, where he didn’t have to resort to quips or comments. Although he wasn’t sharing his innermost secrets or even talking much, I had seen enough of him to know this was a side of him he rarely showed to other people.
Here he was calm, feeling no need to put on a show or a front. Maybe he was just physically content and a little tired, but I suspected that was only part of it. There was just something so comfortable about being around him when he let his guard down just enough to be a genuine person while around me.
“Did you ever think it would last this long?” I asked. “What we’ve been doing, that is.”
“Interesting phrasing,” he said because he was still a jackass and knew that word always made me want to slap him. “And I never gave it a great deal of consideration.”
“A jackass and a liar,” I said softly, adjusting his bangs.
“Oh?”
“You think. You think all the time. You’re always analyzing everything going on around you. Every interaction you have with someone, every time you watch someone else, you’re constantly thinking, breaking it down.”
“And just how sure of that are you?”
“Sure enough to say it to your face and allow you to argue against it.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. You’ve never been one to open your mouth unless you were confident in the words you were about to say.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say never.”
Shane snickered. “Fine, for as long as I’ve known you, you haven’t done that.”
There was a world of difference between speaking because you were right and speaking because you thought you were right, but I would take the compliment all the same. “So, uh, what’s normally done around here for Christmas?”
“Ah, right, you did mention the other day you were going to be around for another holiday.”
“Two more, if you count New Year.”
“What, you’re not taking it off?”