Chapter Text
The day passed in a haze of sensuality.
Hob adamantly refused to clothe himself, and Dream didn’t seem bothered by that in the slightest. In fact, he took full advantage of the situation. The bed, the sofa, the tub, the shower, and nearly every available bit of horizontal surface in the room provided them with their playground, and by the time evening rolled around and the room had been thoroughly debauched, Hob was wrung dry and spectacularly sore.
His last conscious act was to drape himself limply over Dream in the bed and hurtle gratefully into healing sleep.
Dream was still there in the morning - a fact which brought a rush of warmth to Hob’s heart and a broad smile to his face - and after an all-too-brief bit of luxuriating in a morning embrace, they headed downstairs to join the others at breakfast.
Matthew looked wordlessly between the two of them, then nodded with a knowing look in his eye at Dream before turning his attention back to the plate of marmalade toast in front of him.
Hob could feel himself reddening.
Dream, on the other hand, merely reached for one of the water glasses and said, “Did the three of you have a pleasant time exploring the rest of Las Vegas yesterday, brother?”
“Oh, yes.” Destruction beamed, working steadily through his plate of bacon and eggs as he talked. “In fact, I think we managed to visit every place of any notoriety in the area. Though the Flamingo Hotel ended up being something of a disappointment.”
Matthew gave a short ca*wk of laughter. “That’s only because you were hoping for it to be one big museum dedicated to Vegas mob culture.”
Driving away from the glittering neon oasis after breakfast, Hob expected to have mixed feelings - after all, he’d elected to spend most of his first trip to Las Vegas in a hotel room. But he found that he regretted absolutely nothing… except a feeling which struck him with something akin to a physical blow as they crossed the border into California: their trip would be over in less than a week.
Five days, to be exact.
He glanced over at Dream, sitting next to him with one arm draped on the passenger door and a hand lazily trailing up and down the side of Hob’s thigh. His face was tilted toward the sun, but he was otherwise slouched in his seat.
Relaxed. Comfortable. So much more so than when they had started the trip.
“I wonder what we will see in the Mojave National Preserve?” He glanced at Hob, a small smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
And as Hob launched into a description of the hiking opportunities and various attractions he’d found in his search of things to do in the area, his thoughts turned to what would come after they’d reached the end of Route 66.
After their journey came to an end.
Dream had made a staggering improvement since the beginning of the trip. He had lost that terrible haunted look he’d worn when they’d first set out, and he had gradually abandoned the antagonism with which he’d spoken to Destruction at the start. The trip had been a complete success on that score, which (Hob reminded himself) had been the real point.
And yet…
What would happen now…?
Specifically, what would happen to them? To this new and wonderful stage in their relationship which was still so fresh? When Dream went back to his home, to his work, and to his family, would there be any room for Hob?
And what of Hob’s own responsibilities?
In a few short weeks, he would be relocating to New Jersey for his visiting professorship. That would mean a whirlwind of preparation both before and after the move, during which time he would be fighting for spare moments amidst all the tasks at hand and all the people needing his time and attention. How could he wedge out space for himself and Dream in the midst of all that?
Somehow he got them out of the car and posing in front of the World’s Tallest Thermometer, which proclaimed the temperature to be an extremely American-sounding 101 degrees, though he didn’t need to do the maths to feel how bloody f*cking hot it was.
“And we’re supposed to go hiking in this?” Matthew said once they had piled back into the car. “Without any convenient Grill & Chills nearby?”
“Perhaps we will just have to drive from place to place?” Dream settled back into his seat. “And make sure that Hob has several bottles of water, of course.”
Hob managed a small smile at that, though he couldn’t derail his train of thought. Things had progressed so far between himself and Dream, had developed so wonderfully and brought the two of them to a place they’d both wanted to be for far too long - what would happen to them once the road trip was over and they no longer had such easy proximity to one another?
“I think I might need one of those bottles right now, actually,” he murmured. His mouth had gone quite dry, and he was certain that it had nothing to do with the heat.
…
Despite the blistering heat, the Mojave National Preserve was spectacular.
Hob rented a 4x4 and bought several boxed lunches, both of which they picked up from their clean but otherwise unimpressive hotel in Barstow, and they spent the entire day tooling around the desert. They plodded through the Teutonia Peak Trail to admire the Joshua trees, stumbled up the Kelso Dunes to listen to the sands sing in the wind, and sat among the dilapidated buildings of the Kelso ghost town.
“Not as spooky as I had hoped,” Matthew observed. “Though I guess I’m used to for-real spookiness these days.”
They drove off-road to explore the underground lava tube and scaled the cliffs of the Barber Peak Loop Trail before heading back to Barstow exhausted and sandy and probably a bit sunburnt. (Well, Hob was definitely all three of those things.)
They ate a relaxed dinner at a restaurant that served passable Tex-Mex food and very large margaritas, and while Hob briefly considered taking a dip in the hotel pool, one look at how crowded it was convinced him that a shower and clean sheets would do just fine.
The cool shower water worked wonders on his sun-reddened skin, but the time he needed to spend letting the spray draw the heat from his burns gave his mind more than ample opportunity to parade all his earlier concerns before him.
What if the only reason he and Dream had been able to reach this newest stage in their relationship was the easy proximity they had to one another during the trip? And, if that were true, what would prevent them from simply drifting apart once that proximity was no longer possible? With Dream returning to his realm and Hob poised for a transatlantic relocation, what chance did they really have for the sort of effortless access to one another they’d enjoyed for the past several weeks?
His growing discomfort under the cold spray told Hob that the sunburn had cooled all it was going to, and that there was no point in remaining in the shower. That, and his increasingly upsetting thoughts, led him to turn off the water, briskly towel himself off, and head back into the bedroom.
Dream was waiting for him.
“It seems we have no more wine in the cool box.” He sat on the edge of the bed, proferring a bottle of water. “But you very likely have more need of this anyway.”
“I think I might need both, to be honest.”
Hob reached out for the water bottle, uncapping it and taking a long drink as he sat down on the bed next to Dream. And the thought of how easy it was to do so now, compared to how difficult it might become later, made him immediately long for the wine instead.
“You have gotten very comfortable with me.” Dream indicated to Hob’s toweled waist with a small smile. “But if we are to go out looking for wine, you might want to put some clothing on.”
Hob couldn’t fight off the slightly pained smile that crossed his face at the reminder of just how close the pair of them had become over the past two months. And although the idea of simply spending the entire evening in there with Dream and disdaining any clothing whatsoever was deeply appealing, the idea of doing so without wine - particularly when the end of the road trip loomed so near - was enough to force Hob to his feet and over to his travel bag.
“I’ll have you know that it’s a bit of a wrench putting my clothes on around you now,” he said over his shoulder as he dressed.
“I cannot say that I mind overmuch.” Dream was behind him suddenly, wrapping arms around Hob’s waist and pressing his nose against the back of Hob’s neck, where he breathed in deeply. His hands skated lightly over the curls on Hob’s bare chest. “But if you must dress, so be it.”
Hob tipped his head back against the wonderful sensation of Dream’s face against the back of his neck, desperately wanting this to go on forever and beginning to hope wildly that his earlier fears were not true.
“I’m only staying dressed for as long as it takes to find wine,” he breathed.
…
There wasn’t much to explore in Barstow.
It seemed a very typical American small town, only in a desert and backed by some spectacular mountain views, which Hob attempted to appreciate as he navigated them to the nearest offie. The shop had what amounted to a good-enough selection, and he chose two bottles, thought better of it, and returned to the car with four bottles of pinot noir.
What Barstow did have was a spectacular sunset.
They sat together in the car park of the hotel, neither of them moving from the car as they watched the sky stain itself in a brilliant wash of purples and reds and oranges.
“I can’t think of many reasons I’d willingly delay an evening of drinking wine in bed with you,” murmured Hob against Dream’s shoulder as the sun sank colorfully below the horizon. “But a view like this is one of them.”
Dream hummed in response to that and slid an arm around Hob’s waist.
“Perhaps there will be a view to rival this when we get our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean together.” A small huff. “Perhaps we will even swim in it?”
Hob had a thoroughly engaging, if momentary, mental flash of the pair of them bathing in the sea beneath a sunset every bit as spectacular as this one. Unfortunately, it only served to drive home just how little time was left before they would have to resume the ordinary course of their lives.
If ‘ordinary’ was even a word that could be used to describe anything the two of them did at all.
“I wish we could keep doing this forever.”
The words slipped out before he had time to bite them back, and he waited in the silence that followed for everything to come crashing down around them.
Dream shifted slightly and looked at Hob for a moment, before leaning his forehead gently against the side of Hob’s.
“Forever is a long time.” He reached for Hob’s hand, entwined their fingers together. “But I take your meaning.”
Hob nodded slowly, squeezing Dream’s hand. There was so much to say, so much to worry and agonize over, but there was also this promising evening ahead of them. And so, pushing aside his worries and tamping down on his anxieties, he watched the sun set with Dream’s hand in his own.
And then the wine and the bed beckoned, and the evening was as close to perfect as it could be.
Under the circ*mstances.
…
They wended their way toward Los Angeles, and Hob tried not to let his uneasiness show with every passing mile.
The Bottle Tree Ranch was exactly that - a ranch with rusted poles stuck in the ground and a variety of glass bottles sticking out from the sides of the poles like demented, dangerous Christmas trees.
After ten minutes of aimlessly wandering through the ranch, Dream turned to his brother with a raised eyebrow. “Well? Are you inspired to create one of your own?”
“I might be.” Destruction was eyeing the collective monstrosity with what appeared to be a critical artist’s eye, and Hob had a sudden suspicion that he was taking Dream’s suggestion seriously. “I’m sure I could make a few improvements here and there.”
Hob looked over at Dream incredulously, and Dream looked back at him with the barest hint of a smirk.
“So.” Hob gave the uninspiring display one last look and chuckled. “Pasadena?”
“Not without seeing the world’s first McDonald’s,” Matthew said from Dream’s shoulder. “Can’t miss that sort of capitalistic paradise.”
…
They skipped the Route 66 Museum in Victorville in favor of heading straight into San Bernardino for the Original McDonald’s Museum.
Which, just as it said on the tin, was actually a museum.
“They don’t serve food here?” Matthew squawked. “That is absolute bullsh*t.”
“Shouldn’t it have been the height of capitalism to put a McDonald’s in the museum?” Destruction frowned. “Or at least next door to it?”
Virgil sat looking at the pictures of food ranged along the walls, a crestfallen look on his face, thumping his tail and whining. Hob might not have been able to verbally communicate with the dog, but he certainly understood him at that moment.
“Capitalism or not,” Hob sighed, “it’s probably time to find some lunch.”
Which they found in Monrovia’s Old Town after a drive of forty-five minutes. (Hob reflected that one of the minor results of the trip had been to permanently change his definition of what constituted ‘a long drive.’) After lunch and a bit of a walk around the Old Town, which mainly amounted to a large number of antique and thrift shops, they piled back into the car to make for their final destination of the day in Pasadena.
…
Pasadena was much greener and more lush than many of their previous stops.
“Smell that?” Matthew said to Virgil. “We’re getting close to the Pacific Ocean.”
They spent a bit of time walking around the heart of Old Pasadena, admiring the sprawling art-deco buildings and giant palm trees, before wandering through the gorgeous Chinese garden at the Pacific Asia Museum.
Four nights left.
Hob tried to banish the thought, tried to appreciate the beautiful ponds and twisting bridges in the garden instead. Tried to focus on everything lovely and novel that there was to see in Pasadena rather than dwell on what he might end up losing in a few brief days.
It didn’t work.
He’d booked them into the palatial Langham Huntington that night (after checking that the room did in fact have a bathtub capable of fitting two people at once) and the thrilling thought that he might be able to fulfill Dream’s wish to have his hair attended to was balanced out by the sobering realization that this might be the last opportunity he had to do it.
They had a leisurely dinner on the terrace of one of the hotel’s fine dining restaurants, and feeling decadent (and perhaps a bit desperate), Hob bought several bottles of very expensive wine and an entire lemon almond cake.
Which, of course, he managed to get Dream to try a few nibbles of. Mostly by offering him bites from Hob’s own fork.
“So you two aren’t playing at subtlety anymore, right?” Matthew looked up from pecking at a small slice of the cake.
Destruction laughed over a large forkful of his own slice. “Were they ever?”
Hob could feel himself reddening, and not from the wine.
Dream frowned. “Were we not?”
“Jeez, Boss.” Matthew rolled his eyes and co*cked his head to the side. “If I ever played poker against you, I’d clean up.”
“I did very well at the casino.” Dream shot Matthew a glower that barely reached his eyes. “If you must know.”
“You don’t need to bluff a slot machine.” Matthew fluffed his feathers. “Nobody in this family seems to do subtlety that well.”
Destruction frowned at Matthew, then seemed to consider for a moment. He shrugged his acquiescence, then went back to his lemon cake.
Dream reached for his wineglass. “Then I suppose we will no longer attempt to be subtle.” He glanced at Hob. “Shall we retire to what I assume is our shared bedroom once we finish here? Without subtlety, but with much wine?”
And through the feverish blush that he knew had risen through his entire face, Hob felt himself nodding in agreement.
“I’ll, uh…” He smiled wanly at the rest of them. “I’ll just… get the check.”
…
“So now everybody knows what we’re heading off to do.” The blush hadn’t yet left Hob’s face, and he tried to banish it with an attempt at a grin. “Guess that saves trying to explain things in the morning.”
Hob shut the door behind him, and Dream turned and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“And what, pray tell, are we heading off to do, Hob? I merely said we would retire to our shared bedroom.”
Hob countered with a raised eyebrow of his own, and they stared at each other in silence for a few moments.
“Oh, very well.” Dream slid out of his jacket. “Pour us some more wine then.”
The tension broken, Hob chuckled and filled two glasses for them. “I didn’t think we were being that obvious, but I guess we were.” He paused, handing Dream one of the glasses. “It’s kind of a relief, isn’t it?”
A slow smile spread across Dream’s face, and he looked at Hob over the rim of his wine glass “Which part?”
“Not to have to pretend or try to be subtle anymore.” A hint of a frown momentarily marred Hob’s smile. “Which apparently wasn’t working anyway, but at least we don’t have to make the effort. We can just embrace it.”
Embrace what, exactly? They still hadn’t answered that, and they were running out of time.
Hob shoved the thought aside.
They ended up in the bathtub, Dream sitting between Hob’s legs and leaning back comfortably against him, glass of wine held loosely between slender fingers. And Hob could still hardly believe it, hardly believe that they got to do this at all.
Hardly believe that there might be an expiration date on it.
He shoved that thought aside as well. The ‘aside’ was getting crowded.
“I could make a habit out of this,” he said softly as he poured a slow stream of water over Dream’s head to soak his hair in preparation for a lengthy - and hopefully sensual - shampoo.
Dream hummed in response to that, slow and languorous. “I do wish you would.”
Hob smiled, poured out a dollop of shampoo in his hand, and began to massage it into Dream’s thick hair. “Well, as often as you give me the opportunity…”
“But of course…” Dream murmured, in a way that very much suggested that Hob’s ministrations had already done their work. He tilted his head back ever-so-slightly, and his whole body relaxed in the foamy water.
Which meant, on the one hand, that Hob wasn’t likely to get a straight answer. And if he were honest with himself, he wasn’t quite ready to push for one anyway.
Not right then.
…
They entangled themselves in the cool sheets of the bed, French doors cracked open to let in the warm evening breeze, hands and wine-sweetened mouths sliding over each other in the darkness of the room.
Hob wrapped legs around Dream’s waist and arms around shoulders and pulled Dream into him deeper and deeper. He wondered against his will how many more times they might be able to do this. How many more times they would take pleasure in each other.
How many more times they could love each other so viscerally and physically.
Dream looked at Hob in breathless exhilaration, fingers tangled in the sweaty strands of Hob’s hair, moving inside of him as if he thought of nothing else, wanted nothing else.
Hob held onto him tightly, and tighter still, and he didn’t want to think of what happened after this moment. Didn’t want to think anything at all.
He closed his eyes and let himself feel all of it.
Dream gasped out his release in the crook of Hob’s neck, shuddering and shaking with every pulse, until he collapsed nerveless in Hob’s arms.
“Perhaps…” he said after a moment. “We might have… considered… saving the bath for last?”
Hob made a brief noise of satisfaction, his heart thudding fast against his ribs and his breathing still rapid and shallow. He tightened his arms around Dream - well, as much as he could with his limbs spaghetti-limp - and breathed in the scent of him deeply, trying to hold onto every bit of him for as long as he could.
How long that might be, he didn’t want to consider at that moment.
They lapsed into silence.
Finally, Dream raised his head and looked at Hob. His eyes glimmered faintly in the darkness of the room, and Hob knew it wasn’t a trick of the light.
“Your mind is very far away, beloved.” He leaned his forehead gently against Hob’s. “Though you are at least an hour from sleep.”
Hob found a smile somewhere and plastered it on his face, hoping that it would mask the deep fear he’d begun to have ever since crossing the border into California - the fear of losing the precious closeness he’d managed to achieve with Dream over the course of their journey.
Hoping, but not truly believing.
“I love you,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. “So much.”
“And is this not proof of that?” Dream’s lips grazed softly over Hob’s own. “But something troubles you and has for a few days.”
Hob relaxed his eyelids, but kept them closed. A weary smile stole across his features. Of course he hadn’t been able to hide anything from Dream.
“I’m just worried,” he murmured, turning his head and burying his face in the juncture of Dream’s neck and shoulder, where it seemed to fit so perfectly.
Dream shifted and settled against the mattress, pulling Hob against him and placing a kiss atop his sweat-matted hair. “Tell me.”
Hob slid his sweaty arms around Dream’s smooth body and embraced him as tightly as he could. As though he could fight the pull, the force of everything that was coming with the sheer strength of his own body.
“It feels like I’ve got everything I ever wanted,” he said, his voice muffled somewhat by Dream’s shoulder. “Which means I’ve got everything to lose.”
“This is not the first time you have felt that way.” Dream ran gentle fingers through Hob’s hair. “Your fortunes have risen and fallen many times over the centuries.”
“Not like this.”
Hob shook his head, refusing to lift his face from where it rested. He continued to breathe in the scent arising from Dream’s skin, continued to press his tightly-closed eyes against the reassuring firmness of Dream’s shoulder.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t think I’d ever seek death. But I never knew until now just what it would feel like to love you. And I don’t think I ever want to know what it would feel like to lose that love.”
“Why should we lose this love?” Dream murmured lazily into Hob’s hair. “When we have taken such pains to get here at all?”
“Because it’s easy to maintain it, to build it and nurture it and enjoy it, when we see each other all day and every day.” Hob tightened his arms around Dream and turned his head slightly, pressing his cheek against Dream’s chest. “But this holiday’s going to end in four days.”
He opened his eyes, but did not focus on anything in the room.
“I’m going to go back to London for a few days of frantic packing and preparing before I head back to America for my visiting position, which is going to mean another round of frantic preparation.” The words poured out of him, his fears made audible. “And you’re going to go back to the Dreaming, and I don’t even want to think about how busy you’re going to be, and how are we going to manage that?”
Dream shifted slightly so that he could look at Hob. After a moment, he pressed a kiss to Hob’s mouth and then the tip of his nose and his forehead.
“You have done this before.” He said the words softly. “You have had other loves. You have had wives and long-term partners, and all the while, you have always had other commitments that demanded your time and attention.”
He brushed another kiss to Hob’s lips. “Why should this be any different?”
A pang jolted Hob’s heart at that, and he turned his head so that he could look Dream in the eyes.
“Because this time it’s you,” he said simply, trying to keep the fear and unease out of his voice. “Because I’ve wanted this for hundreds of years, and because this is the first time there’s ever been the possibility of a relationship that actually lasts forever, and -”
He blew out a long sigh and buried his face in Dream’s chest once again, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“Oh, beloved…”
His breath was warm against the top of Hob’s tangled hair, his lips brushing against the damp strands with every word.
“I am yours, and you are mine.” His voice had taken on a lulling, almost hypnotic quality, and Hob felt the power of his words seep into his brain, soothing away his worries. “We have both wanted this for so long. It shall work because we shall work to make it so.”
“All right.” Hob did not move his face from where it lay, breathing in the reassuring scent of Dream and hoping that he could take as much reassurance in Dream’s words. “But if we go back to that once-every-hundred-years sh*t, I’m going to be very angry.”
Dream snorted gently into Hob’s hair. “Oh, of that I have no doubt and I would fully expect you to make your most severe displeasure known.”
“Good.” He pressed a kiss to Dream’s chest. “Just keep that in mind and we won’t have any problems.”
God, he hoped that was true.
…
“‘All I wanna do… is have some fun!’” Matthew sang tunelessly as they entered Los Angeles city limits. “’I got a feeling… I'm not the only one’”
From the backseat, Destruction grinned and joined in.
“’All I wanna do… is have some fun!’” they both crooned, and Virgil howled joyfully along. “’Until the su-uu-un comes up over Santa Monica-aa-aa Boulevard!’”
“I hate that bloody tune,” grumbled Hob as they turned onto the aforementioned boulevard. “There was a time when you couldn’t change the station without hearing it.”
“Aww, lighten up, Prof.” Matthew was on his shoulder suddenly. “Because… ’if it makes US ha-aa-appy…!’”
Destruction leaped in without hesitation. “’It can’t be that ba-aa-aa-aad!’”
Hob tried to scowl, but with Dream’s hand on his thigh, Destruction laughing from the backseat, and Matthew warbling in his ear, it was impossible not to smile.
“I’m going to turn on the radio and find the dance club mix station,” he warned them. “And then the whole ride from here on out is going to be one giant pounding bass track.”
“Just a bunch of ’untz-untz-untz!’ until we get to Malibu, huh?” Matthew said. “Only without any club drugs to make it bearable?”
“Where would we even find club drugs?” Dream mused. “At this time of day, I wonder?”
“It’s Los Angeles,” Destruction replied with a chuckle. That seemed to be enough of a response for him.
“So I guess you’ll have to give the a capella a rest, won’t you?” Hob gave Matthew a sidelong look, followed by a glance at Destruction in the rearview mirror. “‘Cos I’m not driving into the parts of Los Angeles where they sell club drugs before noon.”
Matthew and Destruction began to debate where in Los Angeles that might actually be, and Dream shook his head though a small smile lingered on his lips, and Hob realized with a sudden, aching ferocity how much he was going to miss this.
The easy camaraderie. The banter that came with weeks spent together.
Only three nights left.
…
They stood on the Santa Monica Pier, breathing in the salty air of the Pacific Ocean. Before them, a simple white signpost proclaimed it to be the “End of the Trail” - the spot at which Route 66 had ended simply because the ocean stood in its way.
“We really did it,” Hob marveled as he looked out over the glittering expanse of water. “We took the Great American Road Trip.”
Of course, the real achievement was that Dream had come back from the brink of utter despair. And that he and Hob had finally managed to come together after so many centuries. The fact that they’d driven the full length of America’s most famous highway was merely the icing on a rather grandiose cake.
He rested his head against Dream’s shoulder.
A passing couple asked Hob to take a picture of them in front of the Route 66 sign, and offered to do the same in return. After they had gone their separate ways, Hob pulled up the picture on his mobile as Dream, Destruction, and Matthew - and a very excited Virgil - gathered around to look at it.
“Look at all of us,” Matthew said from Dream’s shoulder. “Bunch of grinning schmucks.”
“Eloquently stated, as always,” Dream murmured, but he was smiling too.
They all were (as much as a bird could smile anyway). They stood under the Route 66 sign, the California sun bearing down on them and the Pacific Ocean just faintly visible amongst the crowd of tourists. Hob had an arm around Dream’s waist, and Dream was smiling that small smile Hob had come to cherish so much. Matthew perched on Dream’s shoulder, and Destruction knelt down next to them, grinning and holding Virgil in his brawny arms.
“This one’s going in a frame on the wall of my flat in New Brunswick,” Hob smiled. “As soon as I have a flat in New Brunswick.”
“And then we shall have to see how you have framed it on the wall of your flat in New Brunswick,” Dream murmured. “Once you have a flat in New Brunswick, of course.”
“We’ll throw you a housewarming party,” laughed Destruction. “Once you’re settled in, we’ll all drop by and help you break the place in. I’ll even bake you a lasagna.”
“Or Hob will acquire one from a nearby restaurant,” Dream said smoothly, and Matthew let out a ca*wk! of laughter.
“Had too much experience with your brother’s cooking, huh, Boss?” laughed Matthew, and Destruction lifted his chin indignantly.
“I’m getting better,” he said rather defensively. “But I still think it comes out better without the ricotta cheese.”
As Destruction and Matthew settled comfortably into an argument about the composition of a proper lasagna, Hob slipped his arm around Dream’s waist and smiled.
“I’d like you to come and see my flat.” He leaned his head against Dream’s shoulder again. “Once I have it, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” Dream’s lips ghosted over the shell of Hob’s ear. “After all, I have to help you break the place in. Properly.”
Hob shivered happily at the touch and the insinuation, and turned his head smoothly to bring his lips to Dream’s.
Maybe things would turn out all right after all.
