Page 37 of His Country
Because Ethan made the winter less cold. He made chores bearable. He made Aiden smile and whenever he was around, Aiden felt like he could breathe. Like that knot in his chest, the one that kept him tethered to his shame, didn’t have anything to moor itself to. It fell away and left nothing but Aiden behind. Just him and the things he was allowed to want.
And he wanted Ethan. In ways he’d never wanted anyone, he wanted Ethan. As terrifying a realization as it was exhilarating. Aiden waited for the inevitable disgust, the horror and hate to come flooding it, but it couldn’t. Not when Ethan stayed.
Not when he called himbabyas easy as breathing. And maybe they weren’t anything. Maybe it was an accident. Aiden didn’t care. Not when he could exist here, with Ethan, in a spaceall their own where things like labels and hate andwrongdidn’t exist.
Aiden didn’t care.
Aiden, who spent so much time caring what they’d say. What they’d think of him. He spent so much goddamn time caring about everyone else he never stopped to consider what he cared about.
Right now, it was the flush of a winter morning on Ethan’s cheeks and the flutter of hay on his jacket as he exhaled. It was the twitch of an eyebrow as he almost woke and the messy way his hair was sticking straight up. The long fingers curled around his arms as he hugged himself in sleep.
As if sensing the scrutiny, Ethan’s eyes opened. There was a moment, before his eyes focused and his mind caught up with him, that Ethan simply smiled at Aiden. Like he was saying goodbye to the remnant of a sweet dream, hoping the parting will linger if he fights to sleep just a little bit longer.
“You stayed,” Aiden surprised himself by saying.
Ethan blinked the sleep from his eyes and pushed himself up. “Why would I leave?”
Because permanence is a luxury Aiden has never had. When even the land under his feet had an expiration date and he was too afraid to plant roots in borrowed ground. Ethan was asking himwhy would I leavelike he genuinely believed it was a choice. Like it was simple.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it was as simple as choosing to stay. Choosing to ignore all the voices in the back of his head that said he should care, because while they were busy telling him he was wrong, Ethan was making him feel right. Giving him a place to exist in his skin. On ground that was as solid and steady as he was.
And maybe it was time Aiden started to choose.
Ethan gasped when Aiden kissed him. For a moment he didn’t do anything but blink, slow, like he wasn’t sure this was real or if he was still dreaming. But then Aiden grabbed him by his jacket, sliding into his lap and that was it. Ethan was kissing him breathless, pushing himself off the wall so he could close the distance between them.
He let Aiden lead. Usually, Ethan had his hands in his hair or on his face, guiding him. Showing him the way they fit together, but not this time. This time he splayed his hands on Aiden’s back, supporting him while he stumbled through kissing him. Clumsy, and with less bravado than he had when he climbed into his lap. It was slow, not unlike someone walking down a dark hallway. They knew the way but still crept forward, one hand in front to keep from running into something.
Ethan groaned. Something low and guttural, hands digging into Aiden’s back like he was struggling to keep them still. It was like throwing a match on gasoline, and the flames that erupted in Aiden quickly burnt away any hesitation.
Rather than kissing, he began chasing. He sucked Ethan’s lower lip into his mouth, nibbled on it until he hissed—in pleasure or pain—and Aiden was able to lick into his mouth.
Aiden thought about kissing a lot as a teenager. Lying awake at night, alone in the quiet with nothing to keep his thoughts in check, he would think about how to kiss? And does it really feel as good as people made it seem? It couldn’t. He’d curled his hand, thumb pressed to the side of his pointer finger, and kissed it. Even closed his eyes. But he didn’t feel any kind of way. Except maybe embarrassed.
Once, he even pictured kissing Everett. He got as far as thinking about looking into his pretty blue eyes and then he had to stop. Jerk himself away from a fantasy that feltso wrong.Like he was violating his friend by even contemplating it.
Now he understood. It wasn’t the brush of lips. Or the heat from their bodies fizzling on lips chafed and sensitive, or the exchange of breaths. It wasn’t even the tangling of tongues or the smell of sleep he could only find because his nose was pressed so close.
It was the tangible answer to a question that could never be asked with words.
Andohhow Aiden asked. Ethan answered.
Aiden ripped Ethan’s shirt out from where it was tucked into his pants. The starched material felt crisp under his fingers. Caught on his callouses, strained against the buttons. Ethan hissed when his cold hands slipped up his ribs, but he didn’t move away, didn’t even stop kissing Aiden.
Parting for breath, Aiden leaned back, and found Ethan looking up at him. His eyes were dark, dilated under quivering lashes. Lips red, raw, and swollen where they parted around shallow breaths. He was beautiful and Aiden hated all those voices that made him think otherwise.
Because they said that kissing Ethan would send him to hell, but he had to question if they’d ever truly seen heaven. Because on his lips, between one exhale and the next, Aiden was closer to salvation than he’d ever been between dusty pages on a pew.
They said and Aiden had listened.
But he wasn’t listening anymore.
“Aiden, are you?—”
He answered Ethan with a kiss. His fingers were thick, fumbling on buttons he wasn’t used to unbuttoning from this angle. Skin he’d never seen, but knew he was meant to, opened up to him. Framed by the crisp lines of his dress shirt, Aiden bent down to kiss his prayers. Leave behind bruises on the altar of Ethan’s church. Flickering Votive candles.
Ethan’s hands grew insistent, sliding down Aiden’s back to cup his ass, dragging him forward. He stuttered when theirerections brushed, hot and insistent. Aiden couldn’t even blame it on morning wood. Digging his teeth into Ethan’s collar bone, he rocked his hips.