Chapter 1: The Confession
The sun wasn’t a ball in the sky; it was a hammer on the roof of the car, a physical weight. Connor shifted, the leather seat sticking to the back of his thighs. The traffic on the bridge was a solid, unmoving thing, a logjam of steel and frustrated heat. Every engine idle vibrated up through the floorboards and into his bones.
He’d needed to piss twenty minutes ago. Now, it was a critical, urgent fact of his existence.
A low, soft groan escaped him before he could choke it back. He pressed his knees together, a futile, childish gesture. The pressure was a deep, liquid knot just above his groin, a swollen, demanding ache. Every slight jolt from the car in front rolling an inch forward sent a sharp, treacherous pulse through his lower abdomen.
“You okay over there?” Aran’s voice was a lazy drawl, amused. He had one wrist draped over the steering wheel, completely at ease. A bead of sweat traced a path down his temple, into the dark scruff of his beard. Connor couldn’t look at him.
“Fine. Just hot.” The words came out clipped.
“Uh-huh.” Aran took a sip of his iced coffee, the crunch of the straw absurdly loud. The sound of liquid moving anywhere was torture. Connor watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and felt a corresponding, desperate throb in his own bladder.
Another minute crawled by. Connor squeezed his eyes shut, trying to breathe through it. He mapped the exits in his mind, a useless exercise. They were stranded in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by water he couldn’t use. The irony was vicious. He squirmed, the full, heavy sensation between his legs becoming impossible to ignore. He was acutely aware of the seam of his jeans, the way the denim felt like a tourniquet. A hot, insistent trickle threatened at the very edge of his control, and he clenched every muscle he had, a silent, internal scream.
“Connor.”
“What.”
“Just let go.”
Connor’s eyes flew open. He stared at Aran, his face flaming. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Aran just grinned, that easy, roguish smile that always made Connor’s stomach do something complicated. “I’m serious. It’s just us. Who cares? This gridlock isn’t moving for another half hour, minimum. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“I’m not going to piss my pants in your passenger seat.”
“Why not?” Aran’s tone was genuinely curious, conversational, as if they were debating takeout. His brown eyes held Connor’s, warm and unsettlingly direct. “It’s not that big a deal. I’ve done it.”
“Bullshit.”
“Swear to god.” Aran took another slow sip of his coffee. “Couple years back. Coming back from a hiking trip, chugged a giant Gatorade. Got stuck in construction on the I-5. Worse than this. Absolute parking lot.”
Connor said nothing. He was battling a fresh, urgent wave of pressure. He pressed the heel of his hand hard into his lap, a covert, agonizing pressure point.
Aran continued, his voice a low, intimate rumble in the stifling car. “I held it until I saw spots. Really thought something was gonna rupture. And then I just… stopped fighting it. Unbuttoned my shorts. Just let it happen.”
The graphic, casual confession hung in the air, mixing with the scent of hot asphalt and Aran’s faint, clean sweat. Connor’s breath hitched. It wasn’t disgust he felt. It was something else, a shocking, unwelcome thrill that spiked through his panic.
“What was it like?” The question was out before he could stop it, a whisper.
Aran’s gaze didn’t waver. “The relief was insane. Like, blinding. Felt so hot, flooding out of me. Soaked my boxers first, obviously. Then just… poured right through the khaki material of my shorts. Dark, wet patch just blooming everywhere, spreading down my thighs into the seat. Warm. So fucking warm. I just sat in it for the rest of the drive, windows down. Smelled like piss and freedom.”
Every word was a meticulously painted scene. Connor could see it. The dark stain on tan fabric. The steam in the cool car. Aran, relaxed, sitting in his own mess. The image was obscene. It was also the most intimately arousing thing Connor had ever heard. His face burned hotter. The ache in his bladder was now intertwined with a tight, aching heat of a different kind, a confusion of shame and sharp desire. He was painfully hard, trapped beneath the urgent need to piss, a brutal combination.
“You’re a sick bastard,” Connor managed, his voice strangled.
“Probably.” Aran shrugged, still watching him. “Point is, it’s just a body. It’s just liquid. It’s already in you. It’s gotta come out. Holding it is just pride. And pride is a shitty reason to be in pain.”
The car in front moved a foot. Aran didn’t take his eyes off Connor to creep forward. The intensity of his focus was paralyzing.
Connor’s control was a thin sheet of glass, cracking. He could feel the warmth of his own trapped piss, a simmering reservoir. A sharp, undeniable spasm made him jerk in his seat. A few hot, betraying drops escaped, soaking into his boxer briefs, a shocking dampness against his skin. He gasped.
“It’s okay,” Aran murmured. His voice was soft now, devoid of mockery. An invitation.
That did it. The glass shattered.
Connor’s body surrendered in a great, shuddering wave. He cried out, a short, sharp sound lost under the drone of idling engines. He felt the hot, violent rush as it burst free, a scalding torrent flooding his underwear, saturating the fabric instantly. The relief was catastrophic, a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain, wiping his mind blank. He heard it, a furious hissing against the leather seat, saw the dark, rapid stain explode across the front of his light-wash jeans, spreading down the inseam, pooling beneath him. The warmth was everywhere, engulfing his crotch, his thighs, a shocking, soaking intimacy.
He went limp, head lolling back against the headrest, breathing in ragged pants. Humiliation and dizzying, absolute release warred inside him. The air in the car changed, grew close and humid with the sharp, ammonia tang.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of his breathing and the distant honk of a horn.
Then Aran reached over. He didn’t touch the wet fabric. He gently pushed Connor’s damp hair back from his forehead, his fingers lingering for a second on his temple.
“See?” Aran said, his voice husky. “Not the end of the world.”
Connor turned his face, his cheek meeting Aran’s rough, warm palm. He kept his eyes closed, drifting in the aftermath, the world outside the windows blurring into insignificance. The traffic ahead began, finally, to move. Aran’s hand fell away to shift the gear, and the car rolled forward, carrying them and their secret, pungent truth across the rest of the bridge.
Aran’s hand fell away to shift the gear, and the car rolled forward, carrying them and their secret, pungent truth across the rest of the bridge.
The traffic began to loosen, a slow but steady crawl toward the off-ramp. Connor kept his head back, eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. It was a transparent defense, but it was all he had. The reality of the seat beneath him was inescapable. The cool leather had warmed to match his body heat, a swampy, sodden basin he was actively filling. Every minor bump in the road sent a subtle slosh, a humiliating reminder. The smell was potent, a sharp, animal musk cutting through the vanilla air freshener dangling from the mirror.
He was a mess. He was ruined.
And yet, beneath the crushing weight of his embarrassment, a treacherous warmth uncoiled in his gut. Aran’s story. Aran’s voice. The image it painted. The complete, unflinching acceptance in his tone. It swirled in Connor’s mind, mixing with the physical memory of that explosive release. His body, traitorous and confused, responded.
He felt the stiffening ache against the soaked denim, a tight, insistent pressure completely separate from the emptiness of his bladder. It was grotesque. It was thrilling. A low groan built in his throat, and he bit it back, turning it into a cough.
“You alive?” Aran asked. He’d rolled his window down halfway; the rush of outside air did little to dispel the intimate atmosphere in the car.
Connor opened his eyes, staring straight ahead at the taillights of a pickup truck. “Barely.”
He could feel Aran’s glance, a physical touch on the side of his face. He didn’t dare look. He knew the dark patch on his jeans would be glaringly obvious in the passing streetlights. Knew the taut, telltale shape of his arousal would be just as visible. Heat flooded his cheeks, a blush so fierce it felt like sunburn.
Aran saw it. Of course he saw it. He didn’t speak for a full minute, navigating the merge onto the city streets. The normalcy of stoplights and sidewalks felt like a bizarre dream.
At a long red light, Aran leaned his elbow on the console, his head propped on his hand. His gaze was heavy, curious.
“Christ, Con,” he said, his voice a quiet rumble. Not mocking. Just… observing.
Connor squeezed his eyes shut again, wishing the stained seat would swallow him whole. His hardon pulsed, a brutal counterpoint to his humiliation.
The light turned green. Aran drove, his silence more articulate than any joke. After two more blocks, nearing Connor’s apartment, he spoke again, so softly the words almost dissolved into the sound of the engine.
“Have a wank if you want.”
The words didn’t register at first. They just hung in the thick air, another impossible fact in an impossible situation. Connor’s eyes stayed shut, his breathing shallow. The damp denim was cooling now, a clammy prison. The frantic, shameful erection hadn’t subsided; it ached against the wet fabric, a raw nerve.
“What?” The syllable was cracked, barely audible.
“You heard me.” Aran’s voice was matter-of-fact. He turned the wheel, guiding the car onto Connor’s street. The familiar row of brownstones looked foreign, staged. “You’re a mess. You’re wound tighter than a spring. It’ll help.”
Connor finally turned his head, looking at Aran. His friend’s profile was calm, focused on the road. There was no leer, no crude suggestion in his expression. It was stated as simple logic, like recommending a glass of water for a headache.
“I’m not… I can’t just…” Connor stammered, the protest dying in his throat. The idea was unthinkable. It was also all he could think about. His hand twitched in his lap.
Aran parallel parked in a spot two doors down from Connor’s building with an effortless efficiency that felt like a taunt. He killed the engine. The sudden silence was a vacuum, filled only by Connor’s ragged breathing and the distant sound of a television through an open window.
“No one’s watching,” Aran said, not looking at him. He reclined his seat a couple of inches, staring up at the fabric of the car’s ceiling. A casual surrender of attention. A granted privacy.
This was permission. This was a door swinging open into a dark, unknown room. Connor’s heart hammered against his ribs. The soaked jeans were a cold reminder of his utter loss of control. What was one more?
His hand moved almost of its own volition, trembling as it hovered over the brutal bulge straining the wet denim. The zipper was a treacherous metal line. He fumbled, the sound obscenely loud. He got it down an inch, then another, the relief of expansion immediate. He didn’t push the jeans down. He just slipped his hand inside, through the soaked, warm cotton of his boxer briefs.
The touch was electric, a shock of sensitivity so intense he gasped. He was hyper-aware, every nerve ending screaming. He looked straight ahead, through the windshield at a cracked sidewalk slab. His movements were small, desperate jerks at first, hindered by the confines of his clothes. The friction was rough, almost painful, amplified by the damp fabric.
A soft, choked sound escaped him. He bit his lip, hard.
In his periphery, he saw Aran shift. Not to look. Just to settle. One hand came up to scrub slowly over his mouth, his jaw. Connor could hear his breathing, slow and even. A witness. A silent accomplice.
It was the strangest, most potent intimacy Connor had ever known. The humiliation was still there, a sharp stone in his gut, but it was being eclipsed by a wave of something darker, needier. His rhythm became more urgent, his palm slick now not just with urine but with his own gathering moisture. The smell of it all—the piss, his sweat, Aran’s coffee—wrapped around them. His head fell back against the headrest, a stifled moan tearing from his throat as he tipped over the edge, pleasure spiking through him in hard, punishing waves, melting the last of his rigid shame into a boneless, shuddering exhaustion.
For a long time, there was only the sound of his breathing returning to normal. The world outside the car resumed—a dog barking, a distant siren.
He slowly extracted his hand, sticky and spent. He couldn’t move. He felt eviscerated.
“Better?” Aran asked. His voice was low, gravelly.
Connor nodded, a barely perceptible movement. He felt emptied out in every possible way.
Aran popped his door open. The dome light was a brutal invasion. He walked around the front of the car, his footsteps measured on the pavement. He opened Connor’s passenger door. The night air washed in, cool on Connor’s heated face.
“Come on,” Aran said, not offering a hand, just standing there as an anchor point. “Let’s get you inside.”
Connor moved like an old man, unbuckling and swinging his legs out. The ruined front of his jeans was blatant in the orange glow of the streetlight, a dark, sprawling map of his degradation. He stood on shaky legs, the damp fabric clinging coldly to his thighs. He didn’t try to hide it. There was no point.
Aran didn’t comment. He just fell into step beside him, a solid, silent presence up the three stone steps to the building’s entry door. Connor fumbled for his keys, his fingers clumsy. Aran took them from him, smoothly found the right one, and unlocked the door.
They climbed the stairs to Connor’s second-floor apartment in silence. The only sounds were their footsteps on the creaking wood and the soggy, faint squelch of Connor’s jeans with every step. Inside, Aran flipped on the kitchen light. It was harsh, exposing the mess of yesterday’s dishes, the stack of mail on the table.
“Shower,” Aran said, a quiet command. “I’ll make tea.”
Connor stood in the middle of his own living room, stranded. The normality of the space clashed violently with the reality of his body. He just looked at Aran, his best friend, who had seen him break apart and hadn’t looked away. The question was there, huge and unasked, in the space between them.
Aran met his gaze, his brown eyes unreadable. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug, as if to say, This is just us now.
He turned toward the kettle.
Connor walked to the bathroom, peeling the soaked, filthy clothes from his skin, leaving them in a heap on the tile floor.
Connor walked to the bathroom, peeling the soaked, filthy clothes from his skin, leaving them in a heap on the tile floor. The shower spray was needle-sharp and far too hot. He scrubbed at his thighs, his groin, the smell of urine and sex stubborn in his nostrils. The soap lathered, rinsed away, lathered again. He stood under the scalding stream until his skin was pink and raw, but the memory was a tattoo.
He toweled off, the rough cotton abrasive. He didn’t look in the mirror. He pulled on a pair of soft grey sweatpants and a worn t-shirt, the clean fabric a silent rebuke. The shame had cooled, settled into a heavy, quiet lump in his chest. But beneath it, a live wire hummed.
The smell of chamomile tea met him in the hallway. Aran was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, two mugs steaming beside him. The domesticity of the scene was absurd. Connor paused in the doorway, his damp hair dripping onto his shoulders.
Aran looked up. His eyes were dark, unreadable pools in the soft kitchen light. He pushed one mug across the counter toward Connor.
“Thanks,” Connor mumbled. He didn’t move to take it.
The silence stretched, thin and brittle. The hum of the refrigerator was loud. Aran just watched him, waiting. He hadn’t asked a single question. He hadn’t offered platitudes. He’d just… witnessed. The weight of that witnessing pressed down on Connor, crushing the air from his lungs. He needed to name it. To put the grotesque truth into the space between them, or it would choke him.
He swallowed, his throat tight. He forced his eyes up to meet Aran’s.
“I peed in my undies,” he said, the words bald, childish. His face flushed hot.
Aran didn’t react. He just took a slow sip of his tea, his gaze steady over the rim of the mug.
Connor’s voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “And they are full of cum.” He felt dizzy. “But I’m hard as a rock.” He turned beetroot, the confession hanging in the air like a foul smell.
Aran set his mug down. The ceramic clicked against the countertop, a sharp, final sound. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look away. He slowly ran his tongue over his lower lip. Then his hand drifted down, palming himself through his jeans with a deliberate, possessive pressure. A sly grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, not mocking, but hungry. Triumphant.
“I know,” Aran said, his voice a low gravel. “I was there.”
He pushed off from the counter. The few feet of linoleum between them felt like a canyon about to collapse. He took one step forward. Then another. The sly grin softened into something more intense, more dangerous. His eyes held Connor’s, a silent question that had been years in the making.
Connor didn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. The live wire in his chest sparked, connecting to the heat pooling low in his gut. The clean sweatpants felt suddenly flimsy, irrelevant. Aran stopped, close enough that Connor could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell the coffee and the clean cotton of his shirt undercut with something sharper, muskier.
Aran’s gaze flicked down, then back up, capturing Connor’s. “So,” he murmured, the word barely a breath. “What now?”
Connor’s words hung in the air, raw and stripped bare. The kitchen light felt interrogating. He watched Aran’s face, searching for the disgust, the pity, the revocation of the last hour’s impossible intimacy. He found none of those things.
Aran’s hand was still resting on himself, a confident, idle claim. He didn’t move it. His dark eyes held Connor’s, and the roguish grin was gone, replaced by something starkly serious.
“What now?” Connor repeated, his voice a frayed thread. “I peed myself like a kid. And it turned me on.” He swallowed, the sound painfully loud. “Did you feel like that too… when you…”
He couldn’t finish. The question was too huge. It wasn’t just about the physical act. It was about the shame, the thrill, the broken dam inside that released more than just urine.
Aran was silent for three long heartbeats. He took a final step forward, closing the last of the distance. Connor could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the subtle pulse in his throat. The scent of him—clean sweat, the night air, something fundamentally Aran—wrapped around Connor, overwhelming the sterile smell of soap.
“Yeah,” Aran said, the word simple, definitive. His free hand came up, not to touch Connor’s face, but to hover near his jaw, a warmth just shy of contact. “The relief was one thing. It was a dump truck unloading. But after?” He let out a short, quiet breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Sitting there in that warm, wet mess? Feeling it go cold? Yeah. It got me hard, too. Took me half an hour to get home, and I was throbbing the whole fucking time. Sat in it. Rode it out.”
The confession was even more graphic than the first. It was a mirror held up, and in it, Connor saw his own twisted reflection acknowledged, met, matched. The tension in his shoulders didn’t leave; it transmuted, melting into a different kind of ache.
Aran’s hovering hand finally made contact, his knuckles brushing Connor’s cheek, a touch so tentative it made Connor’s breath catch. “The thing is, Con,” he murmured, his voice dropping to that low, intimate rumble that seemed to vibrate in Connor’s bones. “You didn’t pee yourself like a kid. A kid is scared. Ashamed. You?” His thumb stroked once, a rough, electric pass over Connor’s skin. “You finally let go. After years. Of everything.”
The interpretation was a key turning in a lock Connor hadn’t fully known was there. It wasn’t infantilizing. It was liberating. The wire in his chest snapped, sending a current straight down his spine.
Connor’s own hand came up, fumbling, to cover Aran’s where it rested against his own cheek. His fingers were cold. Aran’s were warm. He turned his face, just an inch, and his lips brushed the heel of Aran’s palm.
It was permission. It was an answer.
Aran’s other hand, the one that had been palming himself through his jeans, lifted. He cupped the back of Connor’s neck, his grip firm, sure. No hesitation now. He pulled him in, not for a kiss, but to press their foreheads together. Connor’s eyes slammed shut. He could feel Aran’s breath, warm and quick, mingling with his own.
“What now?” Aran whispered, repeating the question back into the scant space between their mouths. “Now we don’t pretend.”
He closed the final distance.
The kiss wasn’t soft. It was a collision. A claiming. Aran’s mouth was hot and insistent, his tongue sweeping in to tangle with Connor’s. Connor met him with a desperate, hungry noise, his hands flying up to fist in the front of Aran’s shirt. The taste of him was coffee and something darker, addictive. The stubble on Aran’s chin scraped his skin, a delicious, rough friction that anchored him in the reality of it.
They stumbled back a step, connected at the lips, until Connor’s hips hit the edge of the kitchen counter. The mug of tea rattled, ignored. Aran pressed into him, his body a solid, welcome weight. Connor could feel the hard line of Aran’s erection against his own thigh, and through the soft sweatpants, he was already half-hard again, shamefully, effortlessly responsive.
Aran broke the kiss, breathing heavily. He didn’t go far, his lips trailing a damp, blazing path along Connor’s jaw to his ear. “Your bedroom,” he said, the words a direct command. “Now.”
Connor just nodded, his brain offline, operating on pure sensation. He let Aran steer him, walking backward, unable to break the intense, magnetic lock of their gaze. They bumped through the doorway, into the short, dark hall.
Aran pushed the bedroom door open with his shoulder. The room was shadowed, just the faint glow from the streetlight slicing through the blinds, painting Aran’s face in stark lines of light and dark. He looked feral. Beautiful.
He walked Connor backward until his legs hit the bed, and he sat down with a soft thump. Aran stood over him, looking down. For a moment, he just looked, his chest rising and falling. Then he reached for the hem of his own shirt and pulled it off in one swift motion. The defined planes of his torso, the dark trail of hair leading down, were suddenly, breathtakingly real. Not a fantasy. Here.
Connor’s mouth went dry. He reached out, his fingers trembling, and touched the warm skin just above the waistband of Aran’s jeans. A confirmatory press. Real.
Aran caught his wrist, not to stop him, but to guide his hand lower, pressing it firmly against the denim-covered bulge. “Yours,” Aran said, his voice rough. “All this? It’s always been yours. You just had to ask.”
The words shattered the last of Connor’s reserve. He fumbled with the button of Aran’s jeans, his fingers clumsy. Aran helped, shoving them down along with his boxer briefs, kicking them aside. He stood there, fully exposed, in the dim light, completely unselfconscious. He was thick, hard, and vividly real.
Connor stared, a wave of dizzying want crashing over him. He leaned forward, his intention clear, but Aran’s hand came down, gentle but firm, in his hair, stopping him.
“Later,” Aran breathed. He pushed Connor back onto the mattress. “My turn.”
He knelt on the floor, his hands going to the waistband of Connor’s sweatpants. He didn’t ask. He pulled them and Connor’s briefs down in one motion, exposing him to the cool air of the room. Connor was naked, laid bare in every sense, his renewed erection curving up against his stomach.
Aran didn’t move for a long moment. His eyes travelled over Connor’s body, the wiry frame, the trembling thighs. His gaze was reverent. Humbling.
“See?” Aran whispered, more to himself than to Connor. He leaned forward, his nose almost touching Connor’s lower belly. He inhaled, deeply, audibly. “Still smells like you. Like us. In the car.”
The observation was so filthy, so profoundly accepting, that Connor moaned, his head pushing back into the pillow.
Aran’s mouth followed where his nose had been. He didn’t kiss. He nuzzled. His lips and the scratch of his beard traced a path through the faint, clean dampness that remained on Connor’s skin from the shower. He was scent-marking him. Remembering him.
Connor’s hands found Aran’s hair, tangling in the dark waves, holding on as the heat of Aran’s mouth moved lower, bypassing his cock, mouthing at the tender skin of his inner thigh. The intimacy of it was devastating. It had nothing to do with technique, everything to do with acknowledgement.
Finally, Aran took him into his mouth, and Connor cried out, a ragged, broken sound. It was wet, and hot, and perfect. Aran’s hand slid under him, cupping him, pulling him deeper. His other hand gripped Connor’s hip, fingers digging in, a possessive anchor.
Connor babbled. Nonsense words. Aran’s name. Pleas. The coil tightened in his gut, impossibly fast. The sensory overload—the smell of his own skin on Aran’s face, the searing heat of his mouth, the rough grip on his hip—was too much.
“Aran, I’m—“
The warning was swallowed. Aran just hummed, a low vibration that tipped Connor over the edge. He came with a choked shout, back arching off the bed, vision whiting out. Aran took it all, swallowing every pulse, until Connor was spent, shuddering, collapsing back into the mattress like a puppet with cut strings.
Aran released him slowly, pressing a final, soft kiss to his hip bone before resting his forehead there. They both breathed heavily in the dark room.
Slowly, Aran rose. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a casual, intimate gesture. He looked down at Connor, his eyes gleaming in the half-light. He was still painfully hard.
Without a word, Connor shifted, making room on the narrow bed. His body felt liquid, boneless, but his mind was clearer than it had been in years. He reached out.
Aran slid in beside him, the heat of his body immediately enveloping Connor. They faced each other on their sides. Connor’s hand, tentative, drifted down between them. He wrapped his fingers around Aran, feeling the slick, hot, silken weight of him. He began to move, his rhythm slow, exploratory, watching Aran’s face.
Aran’s eyes fell shut. A low groan rumbled in his chest. He pressed his face into the crook of Connor’s neck, his breath hot against his skin. “Connor,” he murmured, just that, a prayer and a curse.
It didn’t take long. Connor felt the moment Aran’s control fractured, felt the tense, trembling buildup in the muscles under his hand. Aran came with a sharp, gritted-off cry, spilling over Connor’s fingers, hot and wet between them.
Silence, then. Heavy, breathing silence. The stickiness between them was a new fact, a bond.
Aran finally lifted his head. He looked wrecked. Beautiful. He reached for the discarded t-shirt Connor had been wearing, using it to clumsily clean them both. He tossed it to the floor.
Then he pulled Connor in, arranging them so Connor’s back was against his chest, his arm a heavy, secure band across Connor’s ribs. Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat.
The streetlight glow crept across the wall. A siren wailed in the distance, fading.
“So,” Connor whispered into the dark, his voice hoarse. He felt Aran’s chin rest on his shoulder. “That’s what now.”
He felt Aran’s smile against his skin.
“That’s a start,” Aran murmured, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction. His arm tightened. “Go to sleep, Con.”
And for the first time in memory, Connor did.