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Stede woke up when the sun passed the edge of his window and roused him with its light. He turned his head to the side and his nose brushed against hair smelling of a familiar shampoo. He craned his neck a bit farther to nuzzle in and pressed a kiss to the crown of the head curled onto his shoulder. I’ll never stop appreciating this, he thought, as his body slowly awakened to Ed wrapped around him, hand over and tucked around his waist, leg draped over his own. Ed stirred from the movement; he was a light sleeper, always the one to hear a sound in the night, to wait and listen to identify where it came from before falling back asleep. Ed pulled himself further into Stede, pressing the length of his body against him and tucking his head into Stede’s neck.
“Mmghm,” Ed mumbled against his skin.
“Good morning,” Stede replied, kissing his messy curls again. Ed gripped his hand against Stede’s side, raised his head.
“Morning, yourself,” he said, eyes blinking open slowly, edges creased happily. It should be criminal to have eyes this pretty, Stede thought.
Stede pulls him into a long kiss. “You’re gorgeous, Ed,” he says, running his nose along Ed’s.
“Oh, shut up, you are,” Ed said quickly, but Stede noted the blush and small smile Ed tried to hide. If Stede had a life mission anymore, it was to pull that blush and smile from him everyday.
“You of all people should know I never shut up,” Stede pointed out. Ed laughed into his chest.
“I know, I love it,” Ed said with a grin, and Stede kissed him again, couldn’t stop himself. Ed grinned into the kiss. “Except when you’re kissing me.”
“Yes, except then,” Stede agreed, and before retreating from the last kiss, he gently hooked his teeth into Ed’s lower lip, pulling it. Ed moaned low, almost embarrassed with how little it took, but only almost. Because Stede had his hand sliding down Ed’s cotton shirt, then across the silk pants Stede gave him to replace his leather in bed.
If Stede was inexperienced a few weeks ago, he’d proven to be quite the quick study, particularly in what made delicious sounds grow from Ed’s chest, what made his fingers curl. It made Stede feel confident, dependable, in a way he’d never been before, that he was perfectly suited for the dream of making Ed feel good. They had been surprising each other with how true they could be together in the safety of Stede’s bed, how stripped bare.
As Ed gasped a little when Stede held him through the silk, he drew his own hand up Stede’s night shirt, hand palming and grabbing flesh. Ed rolled himself up on his knees and tossed down the sheets. Fuck. Stede looked good like this, and Ed felt his stomach doing all sorts of gymnastics within him. Lying sleepy on his pillows, hair still somehow perfectly wavy and catching the light, nightshirt hiked up.
He kissed up to Stede’s hip, seeing his progress by a shape forming under Stede’s nightdress. He tried to peel it up from under Stede. “I wanna see you,” he said.
“Mm, you first,” Stede countered with a smile. Ed felt something burn in him. His chest was bare moments later, cotton falling on the ground beside them. He kept the cravat on, always on, always marking him as chosen, as wanted. Stede was looking up at him, just about out of his mind with lust, admiring Ed’s skin taut across him, decorated with scars and tattoos, stories and experience. He relished in them all. His eyes fell across Ed hungrily. “No, Ed, all of you.” Ed felt his cock throb in the silk pants, his brain running with what the fuck, how the fuck did I find you, I’ve never been seen so much so clear, and Stede sat up to help him with the silk trousers, pulling them down, running his hands on Ed’s hips. Everything felt so right, so natural, on this sunlit morning, on all these sunlit mornings.
Trousers around Ed’s knees, Stede raised himself to Ed’s level to kiss him, his mouth so hot and wet and inviting, and grabbed ahold of him. Ed swore into his mouth and Stede smiled, running his thumb over Ed. Stede felt, gods, like he’d been made for nothing else as he felt Ed hard and heavy in his hand as he stroked him. Stede’s lips latched onto his throat then, and Ed groaned, “Fuck.”
“Mm, you taste good,” Stede said against his neck. “You always taste good.” He ran his free hand across Ed’s chest, pushed him back a little so Stede could see him, all of him, Ed swaying a bit with pleasure, looking at Stede with those eyes that hold all the world in them. “I’m of half a mind to burn all your leather, have you like this always.”
“Yeah?” Ed asked breathed, voice low and rough.
“Yes, and you could have one of my robes, if you get cold.” He lifted the edge of the silk pants, ran it up Ed’s thigh, delighted at the shivers he could feel from Ed’s leg.
“Could just have you if I get cold,” Ed countered, almost in a purr.
“Now that is a wonderful idea,” Stede said and twisted his wrist the way he knew Ed liked.
“Oh, fuck, Stede,” Ed groaned, crashing their mouths together again and running his hands through Stede’s hair. He grappled at Stede’s nightshirt. “Need this off now. Need to see you.”
“Mm, if you insist.”
“I do fucking insist, actually,” Ed said, and Stede grinned at him as he helped slide it over his head. “Gods, look at you,” Ed growled. Stede leaned backwards into all the pillows, teasing Ed into following him down. Ed looked at Stede like a starving animal, then assuredly ran his hands and mouth over each piece of him, nipping and leaving tiny marks where he’d been. Ed loved Stede’s softness, the softness Stede had always hated, loved how his skin yielded to his fingers, everything smooth and rounded and sensitive. When he reached Stede’s cock, he felt his head rush at how proud it stood, so ready for him. Ed took Stede in his mouth and held his hips, squeezing.
“Oh, Ed,” Stede moaned. He craned his neck. “Let me look at you,” he said, gathering Ed’s hair to hold it behind him. Ed looked up, making eye contact with Stede as he raised and lowered his head slowly, lips taut and red and wrapped around Stede. “You make me feel so good. You know — ah — exactly what to do, oh gods.” Ed groaned around Stede, eyes closing from the warmth flooding through his head. Ed had tucked the silk pants beneath him, was rocking his hips into them as he went down on Stede, hummed and moaned around him while Stede became decidedly ungentlemanly beneath him.
“Ed, come here,” Stede said, giving Ed’s hair a small tug that made Ed release him with a moan. Ed crawled on top of Stede as Stede sat up, guiding Ed onto his lap. They moaned when their cocks slid together, Ed rutting his hips against Stede.
“Fuck, Stede, please. Driving me crazy.”
Stede gave him a look of fake remorse. “But you look so good like this.” He did, backlit from the window, hair messily falling around him, lips red and — okay, yes, Stede needed more too. He grabbed a jar from a convenient drawer at the bedside and spread oil on his fingers. He quickly pressed a finger inside Ed.
“Fuck, yes,” Ed groaned, moving himself on Stede’s fingers as Stede added them. Stede’s other hand moved between them, holding both of them, and, fuck, he was so good. “More, Stede.”
“Anything you want,” Stede said, head spinning feeling Ed around his fingers. “You deserve everything you want.”
“I want you, just you,” Ed said, pressing his forehead to Stede’s and opening his eyes to look at him.
“You have me. You have me entirely.”
Ed made a sound that was like a cry and a laugh and a prayer and pressed his mouth to Stede’s. After a few moments, Stede removed his fingers and Ed actually fucking whined before Stede stole it from his lips with a kiss. Stede smiled at him, “Turn over for me?”
Ed rolled away from him and onto his elbows and knees. Stede drank in the sight of him. “You are a vision,” Stede said, running his hands over Ed, “You make me think I’m dreaming. You can’t imagine how happy you make me.” Ed made a small sound, eyes pressed shut, just reached back for Stede’s hand and pulled on it, bringing Stede around him and kissing each knuckle and fingertip. Ed moved backwards, felt Stede hard against him. He put his lips around Stede’s finger and sucked, trying not to beg out loud to be fucked.
Stede moaned as he ground his hips against Ed. He took a bit more oil and slicked himself, then pressed himself slowly in. He draped himself over him, pressing his forehead to Ed’s shoulder blades.
“Ed, you feel so good,” he groaned against Ed’s skin as he pulled out and thrust back into him, starting to set a pace. Ed craned his hips delectably, hands gripping the sheets, letting moans slip from his lips like breath because Stede loved them, wanted to hear them.
“Fuck, Stede, yes. Yes. Want more of you,” and Stede was ever happy to oblige him, comfortable adding a bit of oomph, so to speak. He gripped Ed hip with one hand, rested his weight on the hand curled up in Ed’s own, and leaned into Ed in a way that tore a groan from Ed’s throat. Stede kissed Ed’s shoulder blade, tasting the salt on Ed’s skin and his lips.
Stede gently moved the knot of the cravat to the back of Ed’s neck, wrapped his other arm tight around Ed’s chest. “Come here,” he said, lifting Ed onto his knees by his chest while applying soft pressure to his cravat, just enough to make Ed moan in a way that went straight to Stede’s cock. “Can I have you like this?”
“Stede, fucking hell, yes,” Ed replied, hips already moving. Stede was up kneeling, and Ed was kneeling on his lap, his back pressed against Stede’s chest.
“Good, you’re so beautiful. You hold me so well.” Stede started moving again, pushing up into Ed, and his words got harder to put together as his body was overwhelmed by the sensory overload and the sounds coming from Ed. Ed’s hands held Stede’s thighs, carefully holding the soft skin, even in his quite fucking delirious state. He was moaning Stede’s name like it was the last word he could remember how to say.
Stede reached and gripped Ed’s bobbing cock, and Ed cried out, hips stuttering. Stede paused where his lips were sucking Ed’s neck to say, “I love you, I want to see you, hear you.” He grazed his teeth over the sensitive spot on Ed’s neck and then Ed was shaking, neck stretching onto Stede’s shoulder, Stede stroking him through, holding him against his chest as sweet words and sounds spill from Ed’s lips, and then Stede is there too, and presses his forehead into Ed’s neck as he cries out, hips jerking upwards.
When the haze retreats, Stede peppers kisses on Ed’s neck to soft “mmm”s. He pulls a clean handkerchief from a bedside shelf and cleans them both up best he can, kissing along Ed’s shoulder. When he’s finished, they collapse onto the bed together, tangle themselves up.
“You’re fantastic,” Ed mumbles through their lips. “I love you.”
“I love you,” Stede answers, holding Ed’s face gently.
“Though I think you’ve properly fucked all the energy I had for today out of me.”
Stede smiled into the kiss. “Guess it’ll be a captain-ordered nap, then.”
Ed just nodded, tucking his head back into Stede’s neck. Stede held him as his breathing slowed.
And maybe this was the best part for Stede, laying with Ed asleep on his chest, warm in the afterglow of love, in this place of belonging they had found in each other.