Page 61 of The New Place

“Is Peggy asleep?”

“She was when I left.”

“Convenient.” Abbot moves down his body.

“Mom’s awake, though.”

Abbot presses his forehead to Ned’s sternum, breathing him in, and slips a hand up under his shirt. So they’ll be quiet, though they always are here. Subdued and as discreet as they can manage, trying to ensure it’s only the shift of the blankets that’s audible, and even that surely doesn’t carry beyond the closed door.

Abbot kisses his chest through the fabric of his sweatshirt. “You’ll have to keep quiet, then.”

Ned’s hands fall to Abbot’s head and he noses the hem up enough to kiss his stomach. “I will,” Ned says, and his stomach twitches a little at Abbot’s next kiss.

“That remains to be seen.” Abbot brushes his nose over the front of Ned’s jeans.

Ned jumps and Abbot pulls back, surprised. Though it’s not the hint of contact to the growing ridge of his cock that startled Ned, but Baxter, whose nose is pressed to the skin revealed by Ned’s sweatshirt riding up.

“That’s cold,” Ned says and pushes the dog’s head away. “Go lay down.”

Abbot squeezes his thigh, bending back to the enticement of his zipper and the button on his jeans.

Baxter paws at the bed.

“Bax, please.” Ned points to his desk and the dog bed beneath it. “Lay down there.”

Baxter does, and Ned gives him one last glance, apparently satisfied he’s sufficiently settled because he’s rolling over Abbot and he lets Ned press him deliciously down into the bed.

He finds Ned’s mouth to kiss and loosely drapes his arms over his shoulders, laying there for a long moment to enjoy the give and take of their lips, the warm weight of his body, and the fact of being here, in bed together. This is what he thinks about during those long nights alone, trying to conjure the details of Ned’s foot rubbing against his, exactly how the hair on the back of his head slips between his fingers. And yes, the growing energy between them, a subtle shift of Ned’s hips that could be him just getting comfortable, but he repeats it, and then does it a third time, and Abbot answers with a tilt of his own, rising up to rub against layers of clothing.

“I really want to fuck you,” Ned whispers.

Abbot digs his fingers into his shoulders. “Can you be quiet?”

“Hell no.” Ned rolls his hips again.

Abbot arches against him. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a bad idea, but yes.”

“We’re full of those these days.” Ned grabs for the drawer in the nightstand.

Abbot lifts Ned’s sweatshirt while he’s stretched out, raising it up his torso and over long arms, Ned reemerging with a grin and dropping the bottle of lube between the two pillows.

Abbot pulls him back down and kisses him, shoving at his pants and his boxers, and Ned kicks them off toward the bottom of the bed. That’s so much better, Ned hardening in Abbot’s hand as he squeezes him, a small sound escaping Ned’s throat as they kiss.

“Quiet,” Abbot whispers, smiling against his mouth.

“I am—oh—quiet,” Ned says, dropping his head to the pillow beside Abbot’s.

“Quieter.” Abbot goads him with his thumb circling the head of his cock just how Ned likes.

“Oh,” Ned says, louder, but it’s muffled in the pillow.

Abbot does it again just to hear the moan. “Like that?” As if he doesn’t know by now.

“That feels so good.”