Page 143 of The New Place

“You’re. Funny,” Ned gasps. “Oh.”

Abbot watches Ned, and lets Ned watch him, his gaze on his body, snapping down to his cock when Abbot grips himself. Yes, there, the glassiness in Ned’s eyes, the looseness in his face, before he sucks down a gulp of air and his body strains taut, hips rising up, hands grinding Abbot down onto him with a deep moan.

Abbot brushes Ned’s hair back from his forehead as he starts to breathe again, as his grip eases and the tension in his body does too.

“Fuck, Abbot,” Ned says, succinct and profane and perfect, his voice a rough rasp, his chest still rising and falling rapidly.

“That was the idea,” Abbot agrees, and as he eases off of him, Ned gasps again.

Yes, he likes Ned like this too, likes all of it, him gasping at the movement of their bodies and him now, pliant and loose-limbed, rolling onto his side to face Abbot when he lays down next to him, their kiss a soft one, and the next and the next gentle as well.

And then Ned gets onto his knees, and there’s the sound of the cap coming off the bottle of lube, and the shift of the mattress as he moves⁠—

Abbot presses his palm to his face as Ned swallows him down, fingers slipping inside of him. He’s still wearing his glasses, he realizes only then, fingers shaking as he tries to take them off, nearly missing the nightstand when he shoves them in that direction. Let them fall to the floor. He hardly cares, gripping at his own hair, Ned’s fingers skilled and his focus pointed again.

Centered on Abbot, he knows, and that had been the intoxication of their first time together, Ned’s attention on him. He’ll never grow used to it, the potency of his touch as overwhelming now as it has always been. It’s Ned, his mouth warm and wet, his finger finding⁠—

“Oh.” Abbot nearly levers off the bed, stomach tightening, catching himself on one hand as he half sits up.

Ned hums, which does nothing to ease the sudden grip of pleasure. Abbot sinks onto his elbow, his other hand finding the back of Ned’s head. Abbot’s world narrows to the stroke of Ned’s finger in him, the rhythm of his mouth. Abbot’s thighs shake and his orgasm wells up all at once, sudden and shocking in its strength, leaving him writhing both away and into Ned’s touch as he rides it out.

It’s impossible that sex is this good. That his mind can blank out so thoroughly, that his body can be played so expertly. That Ned cared enough to learn how to wring this from his body, and then has set about applying that knowledge. That he’s here at all, and that he’ll keep being here forever more.

Abbot folds himself into Ned, his skin tingling, his breath gasped against Ned’s chest. Ned strokes his hair, his back, lifts Abbot’s limp hand and kisses it.

The ring on his finger glints in the lamplight. Ned holds his wrist, turning his hand this way and that.

“Are you happy?” Abbot manages when he finds his voice again.

Ned hugs him. “Yeah. You?”

“Yes.”

Ned’s fingers sift through his hair. “Maybe not what I figured we’d be doing today, but we’re good.”

“We are,” Abbot agrees.

Yes, they are. Of course they are. They’re together, and that’s been the best version of both of them, and in the end, all that matters. An official piece of paper, rings on their fingers, none of it is as important as this, laying pressed together.

30

NED

Ned ignores the beep of his phone like he’s ignoring that it’s Sunday afternoon. He’s busy laying here drowsily in bed, Abbot half awake next to him, rumpled sheets and sweat drying once again on his skin, and his phone has no business making noise.

If it’s important, whoever it is will call again. Peggy’s at Jen’s and that’s the only thing that would get him upright. He’d just talked to her that morning when he’d hauled himself out of bed long enough to walk Baxter and check in with the outside world. It’s continuing on without him and Abbot just fine, leaving them to busy themselves amassing takeout containers of delivered food downstairs while they camp out in the bedroom.

When was the last time they had a weekend like this? Work forgotten, their phones set aside, just the two of them and the quiet of the house around them?

They should get married more often, if this is what they get in the days afterward. He wants to laugh at that thought, but it’s true, with the dreamy sense of time ticking by but that having nothing in particular to do with either of them, everything of importance in this room.

Yeah, this weekend coming to an end isn’t something Ned has to deal with quite yet. Married, he remembers, and again the word is as jarring as the buzz of his phone.

He reaches over to silence it and then drapes his arm over Abbot’s bare back. “Again?” Ned asks, and they’ll have to get up at some point, but that’s later, and this is now.

“I’m not sure I can.” Abbot’s jaw is dark with stubble.

Ned touches the back of his finger to the roughness. “Me neither, but let’s try.”