Jude obliged him and let himself be guided in the motion, pulled in closer, and... oh. He had never thought this would be particularly important to him – and maybe it still wouldn’t matter so much, if it weren’t Kieran – but he was beginning to understand the appeal. He hadn’t realised how impossibly good it would feel to have Kieran around him, to be so entirely tangled up with someone else.

And then he moved in him, and every thrust felt like a new challenge in self-control, trying to rein himself in as the feeling went deeper and more desperate. The world had narrowed just to this, one hand on Kieran, warm under him, and his other pressed into the bedsheets; the scrape of stubble of Kieran’s jaw against his whenever Jude gasped into his mouth, too breathless at the rhythm they had found to kiss him properly. There were still too many things he wanted to say – to tell him the list of things he loved him for – and Jude wished he could, but it had turned out too ambitious a thought: he was too far gone to achieve eloquence now.

“Kieran,” was about all Jude could manage as he moved a hand down to cover his, too close to the edge to do much else for him. A moment later, his body shuddered and relaxed; he buried his face in Kieran’s shoulder and finished with a moan.

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