Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Remy
I deserve an Oscar for that performance. I’ve never thought myself a particularly good liar, but apparently I’m better than I gave myself credit for. I was able to convince Grayson I was happy for him—happy that he was leaving and that I was only bummed to be losing out on a good lay.
What a goddamn joke.
I want to excuse myself, go stand outside and scream until my throat bleeds. I want Grayson to stay and the strength of that feeling is frightening and unexpected in its intensity. He’s not my boyfriend or my husband—I have absolutely no claim on him or his choices. Knowing that doesn’t change how I feel though, and right now I feel like something is being taken away from me before I’ve even had a chance to appreciate it.
You’re running on borrowed time, Remy, you need to make the most of it.
Plastering a fake-ass smile on my face, I put the last dish away and wipe my palms on my pants. Turning, I see Grayson leaning casually against the wall, watching me. He looks so good—so big and handsome and welcoming. He also looks sad, but the expression is gone almost as soon as I clock it, replaced by a grin that doesn’t quite reach his pretty blue eyes. I decide, right here and now, that he’s going to have to pry me out of his bed with a crowbar if he wants me to leave. I’m spending the fucking night.
Walking right up to him, I snag the front of his shirt and give a little tug. Obligingly, he bends down and kisses me, soft and tender, like he’s saying goodbye already.
“You want some company tonight?” I ask. He raises his eyebrows at me.
“I’ll be heartbroken if you leave,” he answers with quiet honesty.
Because losing contact with him feels like shooting myself in my own foot, I wrap an arm around his waist and plaster myself to his side. Is the hallway really big enough for us to walk abreast? No. Do I give a flying fuck? Also, no. Grayson doesn’t say anything or push me away, and I tell myself it’s not wishful thinking that his sigh sounds a little regretful.
Before things start going the same way as before, I pull him to a stop right inside his bedroom. I have no idea what I want, except that I want it to last all night. I want to forget that tomorrow might be the last time I see Grayson without a hockey puck between us and we’re wearing different jerseys.
He watches me, calm and unbothered. Reading something in my expression, he shifts out of my grip just enough to free both his hands. Sliding them up inside my shirt, he waits until I raise my arms before he pulls it all the way off. Instead of moving straight to my pants like I expect him to, he uses his fingertips to trace over my collarbones.
I want to close my eyes and just enjoy how it feels to be touched, but my dick has decided I’m not so sad about Grayson leaving that I can’t get a boner. All of a sudden, I need to come as quickly as possible—banish the bad mood with an epic orgasm. I reach for his pants but he angles his body away and mutters a soft not yet .
It takes him so long to undress me, my knees are starting to hurt from keeping them locked for so long. I’m ridiculously turned on, dick leaking steadily and hands trembling with the need to fucking touch him, but every time I try, he pushes me gently away. I’m naked and he’s still fully clothed.
“What shall we do,” he mutters softly, fingers dancing along the inside of my thigh. He didn’t ask it as a question, but I’m damn sure going to answer anyway.
“Fuck. We should probably fuck.”
He looks up, eyes blazing with an unreadable expression. “We’ll get to that,” is all he says before he walks my naked ass backward until I reach the bed.
He gives me enough of a push that the request is clear. I sit down and scoot myself back until I’m lying in the center of the bed. With my hands folded casually across my abdomen, I watch as he finally starts pulling off his clothes. It’s not a striptease by any means, but there’s something erotic about it nonetheless. I get an uninterrupted view of the way his stomach flexes when he turns, the arch of his spine when he bends over, and the movement of muscle when he raises his arms. I get to see all of him, top to bottom, with not a stitch of clothing in my way .
“You know”—I get his attention, blue eyes meeting mine as he tugs his socks off—“you’re really beautiful.”
I’m expecting him to deflect, maybe blush a little bit if I’m lucky. What I’m not expecting is for him to laugh.
“No, I’m not,” he says, still chuckling as he crawls over me and kisses the center of my chest. I push him away, frowning.
“Yes, you are.” This is a hill I will fucking die on if I have to.
“Nah. Handsome, at best. I’m too big and hairy to be beautiful.” He traces a finger from the hollow of my throat down to my pelvis, stopping just before he reaches my dick. “You, on the other hand…”
“You are big and hairy, that’s true. But for the record, I like it and I think you’re beautiful. So shut the hell up and stop arguing with me.”
He grins. “You sound annoyed.”
“I am annoyed. You need to learn to accept compliments.”
He murmurs something about making it up to me, but the words are lost somewhere between his lips and my skin as he sucks a nipple into his mouth. Gasping, I arch upward and grip his hair. It’s a little ridiculous how good this feels. It’s not as though this is the first time anyone has touched my chest, but everything with Grayson feels so new and raw.
“Put your hands on the bed and keep them there,” he says, while giving my other nipple some attention. Without even thinking about it, I put my hands on the bed so quickly they make a little thump . Grayson chuckles, the motherfucker. “Don’t move,” he reminds me.
Slowly, he works his way down my body. The contrast between the soft, cool touch of his lips and the rough scratch of his stubble has me losing my mind. Every inch of skin he touches feels like he lit it on fire.
“Stay still,” he reminds me, when my hips jerk upward at the burn of stubble against my inner thigh. I curse under my breath, clenching my fingers in the sheet.
By the time he’s adequately tasted every inch of skin he can reach with me on my back, he finally moves to where my dick is lying heavy and leaking on my stomach. He gives me one long lick, like he’s eating an ice cream cone, and my eyes practically roll to the back of my head. He hums as he puts his mouth around me, sucking gently. As though he knows what I’m about to do, he places a hand flat on my stomach to keep me from thrusting upward.
The blowjob is slow, almost languid, as though he has no interest in trying to get to the finish line but is happy to linger here at the start. I’m panting and feeling distinctly hot when his fingers slide into my crease and start massaging my hole. By the time he slips a lubed finger inside me, my own fingers are so twisted up in the bedsheet that I’ve lost all feeling in my hands.
Because apparently it’s the name of the game tonight, Grayson takes his sweet time stretching me. He avoids my prostate like the plague until a second digit joins the first; then, he starts rubbing on my gland in earnest while he deepthroats my cock. I’m seconds away from coming when he pulls off completely, lapping gently at the precum that’s steadily leaking out of me. He’s obviously trying to kill me.
My orgasm ebbs and somehow he’s able to read that, because this is the moment he chooses to repeat the process. My dick is bumping the back of his throat and he swallows around me, fingers moving rapidly across my prostate and sending electric shocks through my nervous system. I’m honestly not sure which is better—the fullness or the way it feels to have his mouth on me. I’m there, right fucking there, when he pulls off again. This time, he completely removes his fingers as well, and the sound that comes out of my mouth is little more than a whimper. If I thought I could manage it, I’d put a foot on his chest and shove him off the bed. He laughs, a low, sexy rumble, as though he knows exactly which route my thoughts have taken.
When I’d thought to myself that I wanted to spend all night with him, I hadn’t meant on foreplay .
“Doing all right?” he asks, a sly little lilt to his voice. I manage to lift my head up just enough to glare at him. He’s lying alongside me, arm thrown casually over my midsection and a pleased grin on his stupid, smug face.
“You are aware that the whole point of having sex is to actually come, right?”
His grin widens. “Oh, you’ll come.” Leaning down, he kisses the side of my hip. The tickle of stubble across my overly sensitive skin has me biting back a moan. “But not until I say you can.”
With that, he pushes up onto all fours and crawls up to me. Hoping that he’s forgotten his early order to keep my hands on the bed, I reach up and cup his face to yank him down for a kiss. I kiss the hell out of him—taking things from zero to blistering and rocking my hips upward to rub my dick against his.
I rut against him, pressure flaring low in my pelvis. He pushes back from me, breaking our kiss, and I curse.
“Gray, fucking hell, what is?—"
He cuts me off with another kiss, his lips still pulled up into a smile as he does it .
“You don’t enjoy edging?” he asks, peppering small kisses to my body as he moves steadily down the bed.
“Is that what you’re doing?” I lift my head again, heart rate slowly descending back to normal. He smiles another lopsided grin and I drop my head back to the mattress, groaning. “Holy hell. How much more do I have to endure before you take pity on a man?”
“Poor baby,” he murmurs, head lowered so he can lick at the crease of my groin.
“I hope you aren’t expecting me to be an active participant for the rest of the proceedings. I lost all motor control forty-five minutes ago.”
He laughs, sitting up and cupping the back of my knees to pull my legs up and apart. I notice he already has a condom on, which goes to show just how blissed out I was. Distantly, I wonder if I’ll be expected to move from my boneless sprawl and how I’ll manage it. My muscles have been edged to uselessness.
But Grayson comes to me, lowering himself carefully onto me until we are chest to chest. I put my hands on his shoulders, noting how tense he is. I’d thought I was taking all of his weight, but apparently not.
“Christ, you are big,” I mutter, thumbs kneading gently into his muscles. He makes me feel small which I like far more than I would have guessed. It should feel emasculating to be the smaller, weaker partner. Maybe a little bit frightening.
But it’s not. Being with Grayson is easy and safe. Addicting. Instead of feeling like I’ve fulfilled my sexual exploration, each time I’m with Grayson I want more. I want a lot more than I have any right to ask for.
“Too big?” he asks, already lifting himself off of me and glancing down between us as though trying to ascertain that my rib cage hasn’t been crushed.
Instead of answering, I keep him from moving too far away by holding his hips down and distracting him with my mouth on his chest. Sighing, he lowers back down enough that I don’t have to strain my neck to kiss him. Chest hair against my lips is yet another thing I’m surprised to find is sexy. My erection, which had started to flag a bit during our brief intermission, perks back up.
Grayson pushes my legs back with his knees as he plants himself more firmly on the bed. Taking the hint, I bring my knees back, not really sure where this is going, but willing to trust in whatever he has in mind.
The first press of his cock through my entrance has me gasping in surprise. Grayson, misinterpreting this as pain, freezes. I latch my hands onto his hips before he can go shooting off the bed in alarm.
“Sorry, sorry,” I say, wanting to reassure him. “I was just surprised. I didn’t realize we’d be able to do this.”
“I thought you wanted to do this?” he asks, looking properly confused. The scrunch in his dark brows is adorable.
“No, I mean…I didn’t realize we could have sex like this.” His puzzlement slowly morphs into delight, eyes lighting up as he figures out what I mean. I flush a little bit, embarrassed. One would think—given my one-track mind where Grayson is concerned—that I might have taken the time to educate myself on all the ways two men can bang.
“You didn’t think this was possible for two guys,” he clarifies. I nod. “It’s possible. You just have to hold your legs a little differently than you’re probably used to.”
He reaches a hand down to trail his fingertips along the underside of my thigh. My mind is a little bit blown right now. I’ve always thought this was logistically impossible and yet here we are, two guys about to have good old-fashioned missionary.
“Well, carry on, then,” I instruct, excited.
He goes slowly—pushing inside a tiny bit at a time, fully aware I want him but making me wait for it. Edging me, even now. The second his pelvis meets my ass, I groan. Even though we just did this, I can’t get over how it feels to have him inside me.
“How do I—can you go deeper?”
I don’t even know what it is I want, exactly, I just know I want more. More Grayson, more time, more of this. More, more, more.
He gives a few gentle thrusts as he kisses my neck, making sure I’m good and stretched. Satisfied that he’s not going to hurt me, he gives one final nip to the underside of my jaw and sits up. Grayson pulls out before gripping my hips and sliding me across the bed toward him. Desire zings down my spine at the way he just manhandled me like it was nothing. Christ, that is so sexy.
I’m still on my back, but my lower body is raised and resting in his lap where he’s kneeling between my legs. A little perplexed, I stare at my feet. Grayson situates himself back onto all fours, hands planted near my shoulders, and all of a sudden, I understand. With most of my weight on my upper back and shoulders, my ass is pointing upward; he’ll be able to drive down into me.
I can still see my feet, which throws me off for some reason, so I tuck them around Grayson as he reaches to guide himself back inside. It’s one smooth glide and he’s bottomed out. The second he starts moving—hips lifting and driving slowly into me, pushing me deeper into the mattress—I light up inside. Oh my god, yes. Fucking yes.
“Holy shit. This feels so fucking good,” I tell him, and am rewarded with more forceful thrusts and Grayson grunting in my ear. He’s looped one arm around the back of my neck, pillowing my head, and has his face tucked into my neck. I can feel his stubble and his arm hair and his dick wrecking my insides all at once. I’m going to blow my load in fucking seconds.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” I groan, my hands scrambling to find some part of him that I can hold on to.
I last longer than seconds, but not by much. Everything is sensory overload, from the way he’s nailing my prostate to the way the room smells like Grayson and sex. I hold out as long as I can, but eventually paint my stomach and chest with cum, my load exploding out of me as Grayson continues to fuck me.
He moves faster after that, thrusting harder and deeper inside of me each time. I’m pretty sure I’m still talking—mumbling incoherent praise about how insanely good I feel—but the brain-to-mouth disconnect is gone. All I can do is bury a hand in Grayson’s hair, hook the other around the back of his thigh, and hold on for dear life.
I know he’s wearing a condom, but when he comes, all I visualize is his load filling me up; dripping out when he pulls away. Fuck, but I want that. I want him to own me.
I can tell he wants to collapse on top of me, but I also know that if he does that while we’re in this position, it will probably break my back. Grayson, ever aware of how much bigger he is than everyone else, slides his arm carefully from under my head and pushes himself back to a kneeling position. He looks a little wild: hair a sweaty mess, pupils blown wide, and chest flushed with exertion. I smile up at him and he returns it, smoothing his palms lovingly down my thighs.
It hurts when he slides out of me and lowers my hips back to the bed, but it’s the kind of hurt that makes me want more. I want to take a power nap and do it all over again.
Grayson leaves the bed, standing next to the mattress and running a hand through his hair as he pulls a packet of wipes out of the bedside table.
“Oh, thank god,” I sigh, closing my eyes and stretching my arms out. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to move too far.”
“Just stay there,” he replies, smiling. “I’ll be right back.”
I sit up as he steps into the bathroom to get rid of the condom, and reach for the wipes. I’m sweaty enough to warrant a full shower, but since I plan on having an all-night fuck-fest, there’s no need to waste the water. Grayson is quick with the condom disposal and walking back toward me less than a minute later. I really want to ask him if he’d be okay to do without it next time, but wrangle the words back. That is not the sort of thing casual partners should ask for.
When he reaches the side of the bed, he puts a hand on the top of my head and threads his fingers through my hair. I like the way it feels, and I really like the look in his eyes as he does it: fond and a little bit proprietary. He’s looking at me like he owns me.
“Gray?”
“Mm?” He drops his hand and crawls back up beside me, lying down on his back.
“How do you feel about a quick nap—maybe some electrolytes—and then we do that again?”
He laughs, and I curse myself for not being snuggled up to him in a way that I’d have been able to feel the rumble in his chest.
“You read my mind,” he answers, shifting a little bit until his head is on a pillow. I stay sitting up, watching him. Would it be weird to tuck myself in beside him? Fucking is one thing, but cuddling is another. The last time we did this, I left long before this particular conundrum occurred. Grayson stares at me, a heavy, sated look in the steady blue of his eyes. I really love the color of his eyes.
“Are you going to sleep sitting up?” he asks, and then casually lays an arm across the bed in wordless invitation.
I throw myself down beside him so hastily, my cheeks burn. Smooth, Remy. Very smooth.
It’s easy to let go of the embarrassment when his arm curls around me and pulls my face down to lie where his shoulder meets his chest. I’m feeling small again, curled up beside him. I smile wide enough that he can feel it against his skin.
“What?”
“I was just thinking about how you make me feel sort of small and…helpless? That’s not the exact right word. I just mean I’m not used to being the smaller half of a pair, that’s all.”
He breathes through several long exhalations before he responds. “I can see how that might be weird for you.”
“No, actually. It’s not weird at all.” I shrug, nestling a little closer to him. Fuck it—he’ll be in Colorado soon, anyway. “I wasn’t saying I didn’t like it. I was just commenting on the fact that it’s a new phenomenon for me.”
“Oh,” he breathes; a lot of relief packed into that one word. “Are you going to keep up the experiment after I go? ”
“What? Like finger my own ass? Probably. Want me to send you videos?”
“I wasn’t angling for homemade porn, but yeah, if you’re offering,” he says on a laugh, squeezing me a bit. “I meant with other guys, though.”
I scrunch up my nose in distaste. The thing I’ve come to realize, the more time I spend with Grayson, is that I’m not into guys. Not even in the slightest. I’ve watched a little porn, perused the apps, and danced with strangers at a gay club. I’ve checked out every single guy that has passed me on the street since I’ve been here, searching for attraction. Nothing. I haven’t found a single guy who stirs anything up.
Except for Grayson.
“No, I don’t think so,” I answer him carefully, grateful that my head being pillowed on his chest means he can’t see my face. Something tells me we’re about to have the sort of conversation that would be better to have with clothes on. “We had a deal, right, Gray? For as long as we’re doing this, it’s only you and I.”
I throw the reminder out casually, even though my stomach has erupted in nerves. I have absolutely no idea where we stand and now the ground is even shakier with his impending departure. The thought of Grayson flying to Colorado and finding some cute, rock-climbing boyfriend makes me sick to my stomach. He’s fucking mine.
Except, Remy, he’s really not.
“Yeah, but it’s not fair for me to hold you to that when we’ll be living thousands of miles apart,” he murmurs.
“It wouldn’t be fair to you, either.”
He snorts. “Before you got here, I’d spent the last two years fucking my hand. I don’t think we have to worry about me. Abstinence suits me, apparently. Besides, I’ll be working hard and trying to prove myself to my new team. I won’t have time for dating.”
Thank god for that.
“Same.” I snuggle closer to him, letting my eyes drift closed. I’m so tired and warm. Content.
“You can, though. Date, or whatever.” His voice is little more than a soft rumble.
“Maybe.” I sigh. “But not guys.”
“Oh.” There’s something in his tone that has my eyes popping wide and the sleepiness receding. “So, you got what you wanted out of this, then? Scratched the itch?”
He doesn’t sound mad, but there is a definite note of sadness that he’s trying hard to play off. I lift my head up enough that I can see his eyes, and turn his face gently toward mine with the tips of my fingers. Alex always tells me I’m an oversharer—well, I’m about to overshare the shit out of this conversation.
“I don’t want to date any other guys—that’s true. But not because I’ve satisfied my curiosity. I know you and I are good friends, and this thing between us is casual and all, but you are the only man I could do this with. I don’t…I just don’t like anyone else like this. I told you before that I just want you. I meant it then and I mean it now.”
I stop to think, trying to order my thoughts before letting them loose. Grayson is watching me, infinitely patient with his steady blue eyes on mine, and his fingertips rubbing gently up and down my forearm.
“I’ve always thought of myself as straight, but that’s evidently not the case. But I’m not gay, and I don’t think I’m bi, either. I’m…I have no idea what I am. Grayson-sexual, I guess. ”
He smiles a little at that. I touch it with the pad of my thumb, tracing gently around his bottom lip.
“So, if I were staying, we would…” He trails off, letting me fill in the blanks of that damning sentence. It wouldn’t be fair for me to unload all of my feelings on him right before he leaves, but nor is it fair of me to lie. Deflection it is, then.
“Probably keep this up until we decided we’d had enough, I guess.”
It’s the wrong thing to say, judging by the flash of disappointment in Grayson’s eyes before they shutter and he looks away.