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Alex looks gorgeous on his knees.
Henry has always known this, but there’s something special about being reminded from time to time, just like now, when he watches Alex obey his commands to undress and kneel without an ounce of hesitation.
Henry is still fully dressed except for his jacket, neatly placed on the back of a chair, and his tie, which he used less than five minutes ago to tie Alex’s wrists at the small of his back. It’s a contrast that makes Henry suppress a shiver as he stands in front of Alex, above him, gently stroking his cheek.
“Stay here,” Henry whispers, brushing his thumb along Alex’s lower lip, “and stay quiet.”
Alex swallows audibly but nods slightly, not making any sound. Henry rewards him with a soft, “Good boy,” and smiles at the blush climbing up Alex’s neck to his cheeks.
He turns to his right and reaches to open the first drawer on Alex’s nightstand; he distinctly remembers Alex storing a bottle of lube there last night, so he knows there is some.
“Henry—”
“Quiet,” he orders, curling his fingers on the handle of the drawer.
“H, please—”
“I thought I told you to be—”
“Red!”
The drawer is opened half an inch but Henry lets go of it immediately, turning back to his boyfriend. He’s still kneeling on the floor, hands tied behind his back and unmoving, but his eyes are wide in alarm and he keeps opening and closing his mouth without making any sound.
Henry immediately drops to his knees in front of him, cupping his face. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here, you’re alright love, I promise.”
Alex nods, a bit frantic, and closes his eyes.
“Can you take a deep breath for me?” Henry asks softly, running his thumbs along Alex’s cheekbones. “Good,” he says when Alex takes a breath through his nose and lets it out slowly. “That’s good, darling, one more?”
Alex keeps breathing steadily for a couple more minutes and Henry rests their foreheads together, giving him time.
“I’m okay,” Alex says eventually, voice low but steady. “I’m good, I promise.”
“What went wrong, love?” Henry asks quietly, anxiety curling around him and weighing on his stomach at the thought of having hurt Alex in any way.
To his surprise, Alex lets out a little laugh. “Nothing, actually.”
Henry frowns. “But… you safeworded. Something was obviously wrong.”
Alex stays silent for a few moments. He seems to hesitate before speaking. “I just… didn’t want you to open that drawer. Didn’t mean to freak you out, but it kinda seemed like the only way to stop you.”
Henry’s brain comes to a halt. He pulls his forehead away from Alex’s to look him in the eyes; the corner of Alex’s mouth tugs up slightly, tentatively, and his eyes are no longer filled with urgency. Mostly, he just looks nervous.
“You didn’t want me to…” Henry says slowly, “open your drawer.”
“Uh-huh.”
“For some reason important enough that you needed to use your safe word.”
“Yep.”
“Even though nothing was wrong otherwise.”
“Pretty much.”
Henry is still very much lost, confused, and a little worried. “I’m going to need a bit more information than that, Alex.”
Alex’s swallows and looks away with a nervous laugh. “It’s a surprise?”
Henry would have a much easier time believing him if he didn’t pose it as a question, or if he could look Henry in the eye. “You panicked, Alex,” he whispers, because there’s also that. “I thought I’d hurt you—”
“No, baby,” Alex interrupts before he can even finish his sentence. “I promise, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
His eyes are staring intently into Henry’s now, and Henry slowly lets out a breath. He believes him; Alex would tell him if something was truly wrong. But there’s still something uncomfortable twisting in his stomach, and Alex must notice it.
“Hey,” he says, smiling slightly. “Can you untie me, please?”
“Oh, shit, of course. Sorry.” Henry hurries to untie the knot behind Alex’s back with deft fingers, holding his wrists in his hands and massaging them gently. “Alright?”
“Yeah,” Alex says with a smile. He stands up and finds his boxers a few feet away on top of his discarded clothes and pulls them on again.
Henry stands up too, unsure of what else to do, but Alex is still smiling, so that has to be a good sign. He motions Henry to sit on the bed and sits down next to him, lacing their hands together.
Then he reaches for the drawer in the nightstand, and Henry speaks without consciously making the decision to. “Alex, you don’t have to show me—”
“I know,” Alex says, glancing at him. “But I know you and your brain, and you’re not gonna stop thinking about this until you know what it is.”
Henry doesn’t try to deny it – it is true, and Alex knows it. Alex must see the hesitant look still lingering on Henry’s face because his face softens, and he squeezes his hand. “Hey. I want to show you, okay? It’s not exactly how I planned to do this, but I want to.”
Henry nods, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders.
Alex watches him for another second or two before finally opening the drawer and taking something out. In his hand is a tiny velvet box that Henry has never seen before but knows exactly what it is.
A startled gasp leaves his lips. “Alex…” he trails off.
Alex’s smile is soft and private. “I went to pick it up today. I got home a little after seven, and was gonna put it away but couldn’t stop looking at it.” He chuckles, and Henry manages a small smile even with his heartbeat loud in his ears. “I guess I was staring at it and imagining giving it to you and didn’t hear you come home early. Next thing I know, I heard your footsteps on the stairs and that drawer was the closest place to hide it before you saw it. And then we went out to dinner and I didn’t get a chance to move it.”
He says it all with his eyes fixed on the box in his hand, but looks up at Henry when he’s finished. Henry smiles shakily, apologetically. “I’m sorry I ruined the surprise,” he says in a whisper; he thinks his voice might break if he speaks any louder.
Alex shakes his head. “It’s fine, baby. You wouldn’t have had to wait that much, anyway.”
And that… that makes Henry’s heart squeeze almost painfully in his chest. Alex was going to propose. Soon, apparently. It hits him with such force that he’s glad he’s not standing, or else his knees would give out.
“When…” he starts and clears his throat when his voice cracks slightly. “When were you planning to…”
“To give it to you?” Alex asks softly when Henry doesn’t finish. He nods. “In two days. We’re flying to London tomorrow and I was gonna take you to the V&A the night after that. I called Gavin ahead and everything.”
Henry doesn’t know what to say. He feels like there’s nothing he could say that would match the feeling blooming in his chest, expanding and climbing up his throat. It stays there, making it hard for him to think properly. Impossibly, he thinks he might cry.
“Now I’m really sorry I ruined the surprise,” he attempts to joke, smiling when Alex laughs and shows him a blinding grin.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I can still do it,” he says, and Henry tilts his head in confusion. “I can still drag you out of the palace at two am and give you this ring like none of this happened. You just have to pretend to be surprised.”
Henry should say yes – he wants to say yes. He’d be lying if he said he never thought of proposing to Alex or have Alex propose to him at the V&A, just the two of them in that special place that has meant so much to Henry ever since he can remember. He loves Alex so much for thinking of it too. But…
But. There’s a part of him that just doesn’t want to wait.
“You could,” he says quietly. “But you could also not.”
Something sudden flashes in Alex’s eyes. His smile falters before it kicks back up forcibly. “No, yeah, sure, I can… I can do something else, it’s—”
“Alex,” Henry hurries to interrupt, smiling fondly at the man by his side. “You could ask me now. If you wanted to.”
“Oh.” Alex lets out a shuddering breath. “Oh.”
“No pressure,” Henry says with a teasing smile, and Alex laughs breathlessly.
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, doesn’t move. Then he raises Henry’s hand – the one he’s still holding – and kisses his knuckles gently before letting go.
He sinks down on one knee in front of Henry, holding the velvet box in his hands, and all the oxygen in the world promptly leaves Henry’s lungs.
“I don’t have a speech prepared,” Alex blurts out with a nervous smile and wide eyes, and Henry feels a disbelieving, somewhat hysterical laugh escape him.
“I don’t need a speech, love,” he whispers. “I just need you.”
Alex closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, chocolate brown with a familiar glint, Henry can see his whole future right in front of him.
“Hen, you are, and always will be, the fucking love of my life,” Alex starts. “I’ll never love anybody in the world like I love you. I love you when you’re grumpy in the morning and want to stay in bed for five more minutes, and I cave every time even though I know it’s always more than five minutes. I love you when you taste like Earl Grey and when you taste like chili, even if that’s rare because your white ass can’t handle some spice.”
“I’m getting better,” Henry protests quietly, and Alex’s smile grows.
“You are, sweetheart, and I love you for it too. I love you when you can’t cook and when you insist on trying anyway because you want to learn. I love you when you decide to bake, not because you’re good at it – even though you are – but because you love it, and I love that smile you always have on your face when you’re doing something you love.”
He pauses; he doesn’t seem hesitant, just… insanely in love. It’s a good look on him.
“I love you when you go off about the latest thing you learned while doing research for your book, and I love you when you pull me away from my desk and force me to take a break – you think I don’t know you’re seducing me into a healthy sleep schedule with cuddles, but I’m on to you.”
“It works,” Henry says wetly, and he’s crying now, isn’t he? It was inevitable that he would.
“It works because it’s you,” Alex says softly, “and I love every part of you so much it makes me want to explode sometimes. So…” He opens the little box in his hands to reveal a simple white gold ring with three little stones that look a lot like diamonds. “Will you make me the happiest man on earth, and your grandmother the most furious woman on the planet, and marry the shit out of me?”
Henry doesn’t think he could give him a proper response even if he tried to. The words have barely left Alex’s lips when Henry cups his face and pulls him into a kiss that takes his breath away all over again, whispering, “yes, yes, yes,” against Alex’s – his fiancé’s – lips over and over again until he can’t stand the sound of his own voice.
Alex kisses him back fiercely and like he never plans on letting go, and it’s a promise that makes Henry melt into him and kiss him harder, hands tight in Alex’s curls. Alex’s hands fit around his waist and pull him down until he lands on the floor in Alex’s lap, laughing deliriously into Alex’s mouth – it’s almost impossible to kiss when they’re laughing so much, salty tears rolling down their cheeks, but Henry absolutely refuses to let go.
It’s Alex who breaks the kiss eventually, smiling so impossibly wide Henry fears his face will get stuck like that. Not that it would be a problem, of course; it’s a good look on him.
“Can I put it on you?”
Henry is nodding as soon as the words have left Alex’s mouth, extending his left hand and using the right one to wipe his and Alex’s tears away. Then there’s something cold and new sliding along his finger, and he looks down to see the ring hugging him comfortably. A perfect fit.
“Do you like it?” Alex asks nervously, as if the answer could be anything other than yes.
“I love it,” Henry reassures firmly, refusing to cry again. “God, I love you—”
He can’t finish his sentence before he’s getting pulled in again, sinking into another kiss that makes his head spin and his heart soar, hands roaming on Alex’s skin.
It doesn’t take much for Henry to realize Alex is getting hard again, feeling him under his body, and grinds down on him experimentally. He grins at the surprised gasp it earns him.
“Alex,” he breathes out, because he needs to make sure this is okay, “Can we— are you—”
“Yes,” Alex says instantly. “Yes to everything you’re about to say. But…” He bites his lip in contemplation and Henry waits patiently. “Just us, yeah? No rules?”
“Just us,” Henry agrees without a second thought, and sinks into the kiss Alex drags him into.
It’s slow and deep like it has been so many times before, and the hunger and desperation with which Alex bites Henry’s bottom lip and palms at his back is not new either. So why does it feel so different now? Like Henry might actually die if he can’t get his hands on Alex fast enough, if he has to part from him for even a second. It’s dizzying and electrifying and so fucking good he could start crying again.
Alex’s hands tug on his shirt, starting to undo the buttons. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he whispers heatedly, helping Henry slide the shirt off his shoulders and throwing it somewhere that isn’t near them, and Henry couldn’t care less about.
Alex tugs on his trousers next, pops the button and pulls the zipper down, but it quickly becomes clear to the both of them he can’t take them off from his angle. With much difficulty, Henry pulls himself up to his feet and pushes them down his thighs, but stops from taking them off entirely when Alex reaches up to do it himself. Henry lifts one foot to help, and then the other, kicking his trousers and boxers away, and Alex is on his knees looking up at him with such reverence it makes Henry pause, his heart stuttering in his chest.
He reaches out instinctively, cupping the side of Alex’s face with his left hand and stroking his cheek – if the way Alex leans into it and his eyes immediately flutter closed is any indication, the cold metal of the ring against his heated skin is a good feeling. It’s a fucking sight, Alex’s face so open, all his emotions in display while he’s at Henry’s mercy.
But they’re not doing that anymore.
“Come on, love,” Henry says softly, letting his hand fall to extend it, palm up. Alex eyes it for a second before he takes and pulls himself up, not an inch of hesitation in him.
Henry sits down on the bed again as Alex takes his boxers off again and pulls Alex into his lap this time, feeling a shiver go down his spine when their bare skin meets in so many places: Henry’s hips and Alex’s knees; their chests brushing together; Alex’s hands on the nape of his neck and Henry’s hands roaming Alex’s back, through his shoulder blades and down to the bottom of his spine, cupping Alex’s ass in his palms and hearing a sharp inhale in his ear.
“God, Hen, please,” Alex begs and kisses him again, and Henry shudders at Alex’s raspy voice.
“I got you, darling.” It’s like an unspoken promise between them.
He pushes Alex onto his back until his head hits the pillow, wild curls on white linen sheets. He looks angelic, even with his parted lips and dark eyes that promise nothing but trouble.
“What do you want, love?” Henry whispers against the underside of his jaw with a brush of lips. “Will you tell me what you want? I want to make you feel so good.”
“You already do, H, you always—” he cuts himself off when Henry gently pulls a patch of skin between his lips, smoothing the sting with his tongue. “You always make me feel amazing.”
Henry hides a smile in the skin behind his ear; he never gets tired of hearing it.
“Tell me, then?” he asks again, bracing his arms on either side of Alex’s head to look down at his eager expression. “What do you want now?”
Alex’s response comes less than a second later. “Fuck me. Please.”
Henry kisses him again – he can’t seem to stop. He leans down to press their mouths together and Alex opens under him, running his tongue against Henry’s in the most tantalizing and delicious way that makes it much harder to pull away.
Five seconds or five minutes or five hours could have flown by before they pulled away and Henry wouldn’t have noticed. He reaches blindly for the lube in Alex’s drawer and pops it open with a click, slicking up three of his fingers before throwing the bottle on the mattress next to them.
The first touch of Henry’s cold fingers against Alex’s hole makes Alex tremble underneath him. Henry presses an apologetic kiss at the base of his throat and presses in with one knuckle, immediately feeling Alex push down against it.
“Please, baby, I can take it, I can—” The words are punched out of him with a gasp when Henry pushes his entire finger in with one smooth movement, pulling back agonizingly slow before repeating the action.
“I know you can,” Henry whispers with light kisses on Alex’s cheeks and his temples. “Just let me do this.”
Alex whimpers and gives the tiniest of nods. Henry wants to marry him so bad it hurts.
He pushes in with two fingers and Alex groans at the stretch, tipping his head back and exposing his neck. His hands have an iron-grip on the sheets, his knuckles white and practically vibrating. Henry gives him a minute to adjust before moving his fingers slowly inside him, peppering Alex’s neck with open mouthed kisses and soft bites.
It doesn’t take long for Alex to start begging again, asking Henry to fuck him already. “I’m ready, I promise—”
“Just one more, love,” Henry insists and presses in with three fingers, easily sliding up to the third knuckle. Alex sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, but it doesn’t stop the little moans from escaping him anyway, a melody to Henry’s ears.
Less than two minutes later Alex opens his mouth again, no doubt to urge Henry on, but before he can say anything Henry curves his fingers upwards. He presses relentlessly against that little bundle of nerves inside Alex that make his mouth fall open in a loud moan, his hips moving in tandem with Henry’s hand. Not for the first time, it occurs to Henry that he’s the only one who gets to see Alex like this, and he has to close his eyes at the wave of emotion that tries to overtake him.
“Baby.” Suddenly there are hands on his face, holding his jawline; Henry doesn’t realize he’d closed his eyes until he opens them again. Alex stares back at him with flushed skin and kiss-bitten lips. “I’m ready. Please, Hen.”
He swallows and leans in for another quick kiss. “Yeah.” He doesn’t think he could draw this out even longer even if he wanted.
He pulls his fingers out slowly and kisses Alex’s neck again when he winces slightly, apologizing silently through the touch. He searches the sheets and grabs the discarded bottle of lube to slick himself up, groaning at the stimulation; he hadn’t touched himself all night, but he feels like this could be over embarrassingly fast.
Henry throws the lube to the side and wipes his hand on the sheets before positioning himself above Alex again, staring down at pink, parted lips and long eyelashes he’s had a thousand different dreams about. He lines himself up, but doesn’t push in just yet.
“I love you.”
He murmurs the words, but they echo in the quiet room like he’s shouted them. Alex gasps quietly – at their proximity or Henry’s words, Henry doesn’t know – and reaches for Henry with shaky hands.
“I love you too.” His fingers tangle in Henry’s hair at the base of his skull and stay there, sure and grounding. “So fucking much.”
Henry meets him in a kiss again and pushes in. It’s slow and deliberate, and he doesn’t rush but he also doesn’t stop until he’s bottomed out, hips flushed against Alex’s ass and a quiet moan escaping his lips. Alex’s legs come up around his waist, strong thighs on his hips and ankles crossing at the small of Henry’s back, not pulling him closer but keeping him there. He looks like he’s holding his breath.
“Breathe, love,” Henry murmurs against his lips. Alex exhales shakily and Henry swallows it with another kiss, pressing Alex down on the mattress.
“You can move,” Alex whispers against the corner of his mouth. “Please, baby, please.”
Henry is helpless to do much else other than comply, pulling back slowly and thrusting back in faster, increasing his pace as Alex’s moans increase in volume. He gets lost in the feeling of it all, Alex’s body so close and ready, open underneath him. It’s not new, and it certainly isn’t rare, but it feels like a first time all over again.
Alex’s hand in his hair scratches his scalp with short fingernails and Henry groans at the feeling. His right hand makes its way down Alex’s body to his waist and under his thigh, pulling it higher and closer to Henry’s body.
The change of angle makes Alex moan shamelessly, and he throws his head back onto the pillow again, filling the room with breathy noises and needy whimpers. Henry takes the opportunity to dive into his neck again, pressing his lips, scraping his teeth and sucking a hickey into the place where Alex’s neck meets his shoulder, relentlessly until the skin is dark and red under his mouth.
“Baby, I— amor, please.” Alex’s words escape him like he can’t keep them in anymore. Henry knows by the way Spanish mixes with English that he’s so far gone he wouldn’t be able to answer the simplest of questions. “Please, mi amor, te amo, eres lo mejor de mi vida, I need you—”
“I know,” Henry whispers, because he doesn’t know what else to say and there’s a knot forming in his throat. He catches Alex’s lips in his again, and it’s less of a kiss and more breathing into each other’s mouths, but none of them makes any attempt to move away.
Henry releases the sheets from the iron grip of his hand next to Alex’s head. His now free hand finds Alex’s blindly, and he laces their fingers together before pressing their joint hands down on the mattress once more.
Alex turns his head to look at their hands and up at Henry again, his eyes shining with unshed tears. He pulls Henry into the softest kiss of the night, gasps and moans into his mouth as Henry continues to move slow and deep, reaching all the places inside him that make him see stars. Henry is no less affected, pulling Alex’s lower lip between his teeth to stop a noise from tumbling out.
Alex clenches around him and squeezes his hand. “Hen, I’m gonna—” he cuts himself off with a strangled gasp, “I’m not gonna last.”
Henry moans against his lips – at Alex’s words, or the feeling of him around Henry, or a combination of both, he doesn’t know – and presses his body even closer to Alex’s, trapping him against the mattress.
“Please, love,” he whispers, and he’s begging too, isn’t he? He’s just not sure what for.
A tear rolls down Alex’s face, and another soon follows. Henry cranes his neck and presses his lips to them, kissing them away as they flow down his temples.
“Let go for me, darling,” he whispers against Alex’s skin with kisses on his temples, his cheeks, his nose and every inch of his forehead. “You’re so good, Alex, so fucking perfect—”
“Henry—”
“Come for me, love,” Henry coaxes with a sharp roll of his hips, and Alex falls apart.
It’s beautiful; there’s really no other way to describe it. Alex’s mouth falls open in a silent scream and he spills between them with twitching hips, squeezing the life out of Henry’s hand and tightening his grip on the blond hair. Henry takes him in his hand and strokes him through his orgasm, feeling Alex melt into the bed like he’s floating, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.
Henry pulls his hand away before Alex gets oversensitive, and brown, half lidded eyes blink slowly at him.
“Alex,” Henry says in a whisper, his control starting to slip away as his thrusts become erratic and desperation clouds his judgement. “Love, I—”
“I know, baby,” Alex says quietly, words slightly slurred. The hand in Henry’s hair falls down to the side of his face, cradling his jaw and thumbing over his cheekbone. “It’s okay, you can come for me. I love you.”
Henry’s breath hitches around a gasp, his head falling forward.
Then Alex tugs on his hand, squeezing until he loosens his grip. Henry thinks he’ll let go at first, but Alex is nothing if not full of surprises. He brings Henry’s left hand to his lips and presses soft kisses to each of his knuckles, delicately covering every inch of his skin.
When he kisses the ring, his eyes are bright and fixed on Henry, full of love and adoration.
It’s what pushes Henry over the edge. He comes inside Alex with a long moan and a breathy laugh, and Alex works him through it with soft whispers in his ear and a gentle hand on his skin. It goes on, and on, and on until Henry hides his face in the crook of Alex’s neck and bites back a sob, shivering with the force of his orgasm.
He stays there for a minute or two or ten, he’s not sure. His brain is light and he feels weightless, like he ascended to another plane of existence and there’s nothing left for him to do but close his eyes and let himself go.
Alex’s voice brings him back, soft lips on his shoulder.
“You with me, baby?” he asks quietly. His hands are still on Henry’s hair, gently brushing over the base of his skull and the nape of his neck.
Henry lifts his head slowly to look at him, smiling softly. “Hi.”
Alex’s smile is tender and blinding. “Hey.”
“I love you,” Henry murmurs, because he wants to shout it from the rooftops, and he can’t. He rests his chin on Alex’s chest and peers up at him instead.
Alex pulls him into a soft kiss, barely a brush of lips. “I love you, baby. Forever.” It’s a promise Henry doesn’t mind repeating over and over again.
“I’m not sorry you ruined the surprise,” Alex murmurs between them after a few moments. “I think I liked this outcome more.”
Henry laughs quietly, nudging his nose against his fiancé’s. “Me too.”
All too soon, he realizes Alex’s legs are still wrapped around his waist and they’re sticky. “We should get cleaned up, love.”
Alex hums thoughtfully, unbothered. “We can shower tomorrow. There are tissues in my nightstand; I don’t really feel like getting up.”
“You’re a bad influence on me,” Henry mumbles as he reaches for the tissues, trying and failing to hide a smile.
He cleans them up gently, leaving apologetic kisses on Alex’s forehead when he shivers at the feeling. It feels as intimate as what they were doing not even half an hour ago, if not more; Henry’s hands are careful and Alex’s eyes are trusting, and their lips meet briefly again because they just can’t seem to stop.
They get ready to sleep and don’t bother with clothes – it’s a warm night anyway – and lie down on their sides, Alex’s back flush against Henry’s chest. They lace their fingers together and press them on Alex’s chest, right above his heart, and Henry buries his nose so deep in Alex’s curls he’s practically breathing them.
“I can’t wait to marry you,” Alex says sleepily into the quiet room, squeezing Henry’s hand in a weak grasp.
Henry kisses the back of his neck. Alex kisses the ring on his finger. They’re both asleep in a matter of minutes.