Broken was an ugly word for people that Cooper wouldn’t use, but it wasn’t exactly breaking news that he and Park had met at a strange time in both of their lives. Cooper, still reeling from an attack that had deeply changed him both physically and mentally. Park, having just given up his whole life as a professor to root around in his own childhood trauma, only working for the Trust as a favor to Cola in return for telling him the truth about his father’s death and locating the mother who had abandoned him.
No, neither Cooper nor Park had been two people at their emotional prime, though it had definitely presented differently. That didn’t make it a wrong relationship. For both of them, the last year and a half had been as much about feeling safe enough to heal as it had been about falling in love. An opportunity neither had taken for granted. It had been Cooper’s joy and privilege to see Park open to him slowly, softly. To catch more and more frequent glimpses of the sweet, vulnerable man behind the blank mask and call him his.
In turn, Cooper was trying too. God, was he trying. With the therapy and the communicating and the thinking before he spoke and the apologizing after he did... But that didn’t change the fact that one of them was shedding walls to reveal literal fluffy goodness and the other was shedding walls to reveal...well. The person Cooper had always been, he supposed. Three percent less of a dick? Five on a good day? And not one single degree warmer, even at his best. Even before the attack. He’d known Neil long before then, after all.
What’s that expression? You have a heart only a mother could love, Neil would always say to him and laugh.
Cooper had laughed right along with him. Why not? He could see the truth in it, under the sting. It wasn’t like Neil meant to hurt him, anyway. That was just how things were between them, with Cooper saying all sorts of harsh shit to him in return. Both giving as good as they got. It had probably looked pretty toxic from the outside, but honestly, their relationship had been mostly uneventful. And yet, for some reason he didn’t fully understand, Cooper’s whole being cringed at the thought of having to explain that to Park. It felt impossible to say without exposing the particular way being with Neil had made him feel bad. Not badly, but bad.
Only people who don’t know the real you think you’re hot-tempered. But we both know you’re cold inside. So cold it burns. Born empty.
Okay, so maybe Neil had fucked him up a little after all.
But it wasn’t Park’s job to fix him. Nor was it his duty to wait around, possibly hindering his own growth, while Cooper floundered about taking two steps forward, one step back. Lashing out when uncomfortable. Progressing, sure. But not fast enough. Cooper didn’t believe anyone should have to stick out a relationship while their partner got their shit together.
Not that they were going to break up. This was no longer a question of if they were going make it or not. Nothing short of Park saying I don’t want to be with you anymore could make Cooper leave him. Nor was he over-concerned that Park would have some massive change of heart either. Cooper knew they were in it for the long haul like he knew the world was round or Mother’s closing monologue of Psycho. But as someone who cared about Park, as his friend, he wanted better for him than that cold man with the hair-trigger temper that had turned Neil bitter and put the shadows in his eyes.
Cooper didn’t just want to make it. He wanted them to thrive. He wanted Park to feel the sort of nurtured, safe, joyful, happy that he’d given up on as an abandoned child.
Cooper would get it back for him if it was the last thing he did. That was his own personal vow that had nothing to do with human matrimony rituals and everything to do with the man Cooper wanted to be for himself, for Park, for their lives together.
He took one last deep breath of night air, feeling energized, purposeful and focused in a way he hadn’t in a while. Up in the sky, only the brightest stars outshone the moonlight, but were no less beautiful for their loneliness.
He hurried inside, giving the floor vase still in its box a fond little pat, and found Park standing at the kitchen counter, just opening the mail.
“Oh, I just—” Park started, quickly shoving what appeared to be an old sea captain’s brass telescope back in the box.
Cooper threw his arms around him, hugging him from behind. Park jerked, clearly surprised, and tried to turn around, but Cooper squeezed his arms tighter to stop him and Park stilled, accepting it. He obviously couldn’t reciprocate like this so he just continued to stand there, staring straight ahead while Cooper buried his face in the divot between Park’s lower shoulder blades and breathed in and out. Memorizing the smell of him. The exact level of heat his body radiated.
Eventually Cooper let go, and Park looked over his shoulder. “That’s the third hug of the day, you know,” he said, curiosity burning in his expression. “My diary entry tonight is going to be rife with exclamation marks and hearts.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a hug,” Cooper said seriously. “Maybe I was just patting you down for any more smuggled antiquities.” He eyed the box that the telescope had disappeared into pointedly, and Park went slightly pink.
“That’s my December purchase,” he said hastily. “But the auction was last week and—well, nautical spyglasses don’t pop up that often. Not in such good condition, anyway. Especially not Victorian, so—”
Cooper felt such a bolt of fondness it knocked his breath out of his chest. “Settle down, Long John Silver, I’m not here to seize your booty. Tonight,” he added after a small pause, and Park’s eyes widened fractionally. “I was just thinking about something and realized I could think about it even better while holding you.”
“Ah,” Park said after a moment, then crossed his arms and adopted a casual stance against the counter, as if he could reclaim some of his dignity after that embarrassing break in character. “Thinking about what?”
“Oh, nothing new. Just how I’m going to love the ever-living fuck out of you for as long as you let me,” Cooper said.
Park blinked, a tiny, pleased smile sneaking into the corners of his lips. “Really?” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of Cooper’s nose. “I had no idea I was with such a poet.”
“Mmm, what can I say? You inspire me.” Cooper pretended to give him a critical once-over. “Have you considered full-time muse work? You’d look very fetching lounging in nothing but a sheet.”
“You’re ridiculous. Remind me again why I missed you so much while I was away,” Park murmured, and pulled Cooper close, touching his lips to his.
It was a sweet touch more than any kind of passionate claiming, and still it made Cooper’s knees buckle. Park held him up as he continued to press soft, tender kisses to the edges of his lips. His hands running up Cooper’s sides, to the back of his neck, and tracing down the back of his arms—
Cooper flinched and hissed when Park’s hand passed over his elbow.
“What?” Park asked, concerned, already easing Cooper’s sleeve up to look. A brutal bruise had ripened around the bone from when Neil had slammed him onto his back. Park traced the edges of the dark bloom without touching, face suddenly impassive.
“It’s fine,” Cooper said quickly, reluctant to start talking about Neil again and see worry in Park’s eyes. Or worse, pity. “I’m not that delicate.”
Park must have heard the plea for what it was because all he said was, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fight hand to hand before.”
“Yeah, well, murder investigations call for a lot less fisticuffs than Sam Spade led me to believe.”
“You’re better than I thought.”
Cooper snorted. “Thank you to the peanut gallery for that not-at-all-condescending compliment. I do have almost a decade more field experience than you, professor.”
“Why is it that you always seem to forget I was an infamous pack enforcer, feared around the continent?” Park asked thoughtfully.
“Oh, please. You’re not so tough.
” He poked Park in the belly lightly, and Park seized his wrist, twisted him around, switching their positions, and had him bent over the kitchen counter before Cooper could even register what was happening.
“You lock your knees when you’re tense. That’s why it’s so easy to overbalance you,” Park murmured behind his ear.
“Hey!” Cooper said a little breathlessly, Park’s weight at least partially on his back, pinning him down while his arms acted as a cushion between Cooper and the granite. “Is this foreplay or the start of a training montage?” He arched his spine suggestively. “‘Cause if you want, I’ll let you teach me how to bend my knees properly, either way.”
Park huffed a laugh. The puff of breath on the back of Cooper’s neck made him arch again, instinctively this time, the tickle of arousal unfurling lazily in his belly. Park dragged his hands possessively over Cooper’s chest, rubbing his nipples, up to his sensitive throat and then back down his torso, tracing down the grooves of his hips.
Cooper widened his stance welcomingly and felt something hard—something unexpectedly hard—in Park’s pocket, like he’d bundled up thick cloth. Curious, Cooper reached back for it and Park abruptly jerked away to standing.
“What’s wrong? What is that, a matching captain’s compass?” Cooper asked.
“No. It’s nothing,” Park said, blank-faced.
Cooper took a step forward and, surprisingly, Park took a step back. Cooper raised his eyebrow, took another step forward, and again Park stepped away. “Are you trying to tango with me?”
“I’m more of a foxtrot sort of guy.” Park’s hand rested defensively over his pocket. “Tell you what, if you’re so curious, why don’t you put these legendary ten years of experience in the field to use and come take it from me?”
A surprised laugh escaped Cooper. “Is that a challenge?
“For me? Not at all. Not even if I was blindfolded. With one hand behind my back.”
Cooper snorted, but couldn’t deny the flicker of excitement and interest as well. Park’s cockiness awoke...something in him. Competitiveness, perhaps. Or something even more primal. He felt energized at the prospect of tussling with Park. All the pent-up frustration, adrenaline, anger, buzzing under his skin and begging to be used. Released. This was precisely what he needed right now, and Park clearly knew it.
Cooper shouldn’t have been surprised. Park knew him. People were rarely that complicated. But even less often were they generous.
Park could have decided to be jealous. Or that he wanted to keep talking about Cooper’s relationship with Neil. He could have requested details. Could have felt angry for him. Sorry for him. He could have wanted to be tender and soft and gentle with Cooper, which would have only made him feel more fragile, fractured, hurt.
Instead Park was offering controlled, consensual roughness, and Cooper was grateful more than he knew how to put into words. That was okay. There were other ways to show appreciation.
“You talk big,” Cooper said.
“I am big.” Park winked. “It’s the pictures that got small.”
“Prove it.”
Park moved quickly. Too quickly for Cooper to do much of anything, even if he’d wanted to. He found himself bent backward on the countertop, Park standing between his legs. Hands gripped the backs of his knees and tugged him forward so he bumped firmly against Park, once, twice.
Cooper groaned and Park leaned over him, trapping his body to the marble. “Easy,” he murmured, and kissed the vulnerable spot under his jaw.
With effort, Cooper put a hand to Park’s chest. “Stop.”
Park did and started to back away, but Cooper gripped his shirt and held him there. “That wasn’t fair. I believe you said something about being blindfolded with one hand behind your back.”
Park’s eyes darkened.
“Unless you’ve changed your mind, of course.”
Park stood, pulling out of Cooper’s hold, breathing a bit heavily, as if stopping himself from touching was the first time he’d needed to expend any effort. “Living room. Five minutes. Bring your choice of blindfold.”
“And my dueling pistol?” Cooper asked, amused, standing.
“I was thinking a good ol’ fashioned crossing of swords.” Park squeezing himself through his pants, deliberately crude.
Cooper felt his own breath catch and he had to swallow a sudden excess of spit. “All right. Five minutes,” he said roughly, and stalked out of the kitchen, hurrying upstairs.
They’d bought a blindfold from a sex shop a few months ago, but after a couple unsuccessful attempts, Cooper had decided it wasn’t his thing. It wasn’t that he was upset or turned off by it, per se, just that he kept compulsively pulling it down to see what was going on.
“I’m sorry! I can’t help it,” Cooper had said when Park got exasperated with him just wearing it over his eyebrows like a bandanna and said he drew the line at Rambo role-play. “I like looking at you.”
An understatement if ever there was one. Still, they hadn’t bothered trying the blindfold again, and Cooper found it shoved in the back of a drawer upstairs behind other, more successful items. He grabbed it now and, because luck favored the prepared, tucked lube into his pocket as well.
Back downstairs in the living room, Park had pushed the coffee table to the side and was perched casually on the couch arm. His expression was slightly more unsure than before, as if wavering on the edge of some decision, and the moment Cooper walked into the room he examined him very intensely.
“Are you sure this is going to be okay for you?” Park asked, which was about as close to him bringing up Cooper’s PTSD without an explicit invitation as he got.
“Yes,” Cooper said quickly. “Are you?” He stepped between Park’s legs, twirling the blindfold from his finger teasingly.
“You do the honors.” Park gestured, and Cooper carefully fitted the blindfold over his head and eyes and then gently readjusted where it was pulling, taking the opportunity to run his hands through Park’s thick hair.
“Okay?” Cooper checked, and in response Park leaned forward, pecking him unerringly on the lips.
“Hey!” Cooper protested. “Can you see?”
“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,” Park said, smirking. “And the ears. And the nose.”
“What does love smell like then?” Cooper said, taking a step back with one last reassuring squeeze to Park’s thigh.
“At the moment, a bit like catnip, unfortunately,” Park said, but smiled fondly, looking much more relaxed now.
He followed Cooper’s movement without the least bit of hesitation, and belatedly Cooper remembered a conversation he and Park had once had about how wolves didn’t primarily rely on their sight the way most humans did. The blindfold wasn’t going to slow Park down any more than sticking a clothespin on his nose would slow down Cooper, and from the amused quirk to his lips, Park had always known it.
That being said, Cooper took a long, uninhibited look and couldn’t regret the turn things had taken. Blindfolded and barefoot, with his shirt untucked and the first couple of buttons undone and his hair in disarray from Cooper’s fingers, Park should have looked utterly vulnerable, but he didn’t. There was a predatory sort of stillness to him as he easily tracked Cooper. The juxtaposition of it was, well, erotic, for some reason. Like the blindfold had done nothing but highlight certain qualities Park usually kept hidden.
Cooper had the sudden sensation of being on the edge of another exhilarating fall. You’ll have this forever, he thought suddenly. This moment. This memory. No matter what happened in the future, no one could take away the fact that imperfect Cooper Dayton had found his own perfect love. He’d never felt more stupidly lucky in his whole life.
Cooper darted forward without a word, hoping for the element of surprise, but Park caught his arm as easily as if it were choreographed and pulled Coop
er over, causing him to stumble into Park’s chest with a grunt.
He felt Park’s mouth drag along the side of his neck before nipping him lightly. “Got you,” he murmured, more vibration against the skin than actual speech.
Cooper sucked in a breath and tugged away, Park letting go of him immediately. “That was just a test,” Cooper warned him.
Park nodded solemnly. “Did I pass?”
Cooper lunged for him again, this time twisting and ducking in anticipation, and made it close enough to touch Park’s leg before he was grabbed around the waist and felt the ground fall away. He just had enough time to register being in the air before he landed, bouncing harmlessly on the couch face up.
Park stood over him, still blindfolded, and cocked his head. He stroked two fingers up Cooper’s neck, over his chin, and tapped it against his lips, which parted obediently, and then he dipped briefly in and out of his mouth. “Got you.”
Cooper scrambled up to standing, torn between arousal and something with a darker edge. This time he genuinely tried—circling Park, dodging his reach, darting forward and back. Sight wasn’t the advantage he’d hoped for, but there were other things he did have on his side. One, he was very twisty. Two, Park would never hurt him or let him hurt himself. Three, he had a pretty good idea based on the last two attempts what Park was going to try to do.
He lasted twice as long before Park caught him around the waist and tugged him close. But having anticipated this, Cooper was already shooting his hand up between them to grab the back of Park’s neck.
“Got you,” Cooper said.
Park went strangely motionless, not even breathing, the wolf of him docile and submissive to the dominating touch at his nape. Cooper knew instinctively he could claim his prize—the mystery item that had started all this—and Park still wouldn’t move or protest.
Instead, Cooper leaned in and nudged Park’s nose with his own. “Kiss?” he asked softly.
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