Chapter 32
Cathy rinsed the bowls and set them on the drying rack.
“I’ll make up the couch,” she said, reaching for a dish towel. She didn’t look at either of them. “Unless he’s staying in your room.”
“My room,” Dustin said without thinking and without shame.
Cathy dried her hands. “Alright.”
She hung the towel on the oven handle, then looked at Greg, who sat very still at the table with his hands folded on top of it.
“Goodnight, Gregory.”
“Goodnight, ma’am.”
“It’s Cathy.”
“Goodnight, Cathy,” Greg corrected quickly.
He did not point out that his name was not Gregory.
Cathy studied him for a moment, nodded once, and left the kitchen.
Dustin rose slowly.
He was tired. Not just physically, though the sling pulled at his shoulder and the road rash under his shirt throbbed whenever he moved. He’d laughed so hard at dinner that something had cracked open in him, and now all the tension holding him together was draining out.
He’d said Greg would sleep in his room, but not because he wanted to get physical.
That was strange.
Usually, when he got someone into his bed, he knew exactly what he wanted and how to get there. Flirt, escalate, make them feel good, make himself feel something, sleep, leave or be left.
Tonight, he just wanted Greg nearby.
He didn’t know what to call that.
He didn’t go looking for a word.
“Come on,” he said.
Greg followed him upstairs.
Dustin’s room was at the end of the hall, frozen almost exactly the way he’d left it two years ago. Band posters he no longer cared about covered the walls. The bookshelf was mostly gear catalogues. The bed wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t large either.
He sat on the edge and pulled his shirt off one-handed. The sling made everything a production. Beneath the shirt, the road rash was a dark, angry constellation across his ribs.
Greg hovered in the doorway.
“You can come in,” Dustin said. “You’re not a vampire. You don’t need an invitation.”
“I know I’m not a vampire.”
Greg stepped inside, looking around with the unfiltered curiosity he applied to everything. His gaze moved over the posters, the bookshelf, the desk by the window. He picked up the small climbing hold on Dustin’s nightstand and examined it like an artifact.
“That’s for rock climbing,” Dustin said.
“Why is it in your bedroom?”
“I used to train grip strength in here.” Dustin paused. “That’s not a euphemism.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
Of course he hadn’t.
Greg set the climbing hold down and turned back to him. The curiosity was still there, but underneath it sat something anxious and tender.
Anxiety that wasn’t only about himself anymore.
Dustin looked away first and pulled open a drawer. He found a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring, then tossed them onto the bed.
“Here.”
Greg looked at the clothes, then down at his button-down and slacks.
“You can’t get in my bed dressed like that,” Dustin said. “You look like you’re about to ask me to sign something.”
Greg picked up the T-shirt, examined it, then unbuttoned his shirt and folded his clothes in a way that was very Greg.
When he pulled Dustin’s shirt over his head, it hung off his shoulders.
“It’s very large.”
“You’re very small.”
“I’m average height for a reaper.”
“Sure you are.”
Greg changed into the sweatpants and had to roll the waistband twice. Then he stood there in Dustin’s borrowed clothes, bare feet on the worn carpet.
He looked like somebody’s boyfriend.
He looked like somebody Dustin wanted to pull into his arms.
Instead, Dustin nodded at the bed. “Get in.”
They arranged themselves. Dustin had to lie on his good side because of his shoulder, and Greg lay rigidly beside him, flat on his back with his hands on his chest like a tomb effigy.
“Relax,” Dustin said.
“I am relaxed.”
“You look embalmed.”
Greg huffed and made an effort.
It wasn’t successful, but it was an effort, and Dustin appreciated it.
He turned off the lamp.
Dark settled over the room. The house creaked softly around them, old wood adjusting to the night. Normal sounds. Nostalgic sounds.
Dustin closed his eyes.
Then Greg’s hand found his chest.
Bare skin. Careful fingertips. Seeking.
Dustin opened his eyes.
In the dark, Greg had turned toward him. Dustin couldn’t make out his face, but he understood the touch.
Greg was feeling his heartbeat.
“Greg?”
“I’m sorry.” Greg didn’t move his hand. “I just needed to— Can I?”
“Yeah,” Dustin said. “You can.”
Greg’s thumb moved slowly across his sternum.
It was barely anything, but Dustin felt it everywhere.
He’d had people touch him with hunger. With skill. With enough alcohol in their system to finally be honest about what they wanted. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him like they were trying to memorize him.
Greg’s hand slid up to his collarbone. To the side of his neck. His fingers were cool and careful around the road rash, then tracing Dustin’s jaw, and then Greg was close—breath warm, air shifting between them—and kissing him.
Slow.
So slow Dustin could catalogue every sensation separately. The warmth of Greg’s mouth. The catch of breath through his nose. The hand on Dustin’s jaw, holding him there.
This was nothing like the kisses Dustin had pressed on Greg in motel rooms.
This was Greg kissing him like he was savoring the experience.
And Dustin, who always set the pace, who always knew the next move, just let it happen.
A sound slipped out of him.
Small. Involuntary.
Greg responded by kissing him deeper. His hand moved from Dustin’s jaw to the back of his neck, fingers sliding into his hair. There was a sureness in the grip that hadn’t been there before.
This reaper’s hands shook when Dustin looked at him too long. He couldn’t hold a burger without causing disaster. But now his hand in Dustin’s hair was steady, and something about that put a crack right down the center of Dustin’s chest.
He’d told himself he didn’t want anything tonight.
Stupid.
What he wanted was so big it didn’t have a shape. It wasn’t sex, or not only sex. It was Greg pressed against him in the dark. This thing between them that Dustin couldn’t steer or name or outrun.
Greg kissed the corner of his mouth. His jaw. Just below his ear, feather-light.
Dustin’s breath caught.
Fuck.
He was losing the high ground.
He rolled Greg onto his back, carefully because of his shoulder, but less carefully than Greg expected. Greg made a startled sound, and Dustin swallowed it with his mouth.
This, he knew how to do.
He kissed his way down Greg’s throat, finding the places he remembered from last time. The hollow behind his ear. The dip at the base of his throat. The spots that made Greg’s breath stutter.
“Dustin—”
Greg’s hand was in his hair again, but the sureness had given way to something more familiar. Fingers curling, uncertain, following instead of leading.
Better.
Dustin moved lower. Down Greg’s chest. His stomach. He could feel the tension in him, the fine tremor of his breathing, the way Greg’s muscles tightened under his mouth. His fingers twitched with every kiss until, at last, they went still in Dustin’s hair, not pulling.
Just holding on.
When Dustin reached the waistband of Greg’s pants, he paused.
He could barely see Greg’s face in the dark, but he could hear him breathing—shallow, fast, already half-wrecked.
“Can I take these off?”
“Yes.” Barely a sound. Then, bewildered, “Where are you— What are you—”
“Trust me.”
Dustin pulled the fabric down.
Then he lowered his mouth.
The sound Greg made—
Christ.
It was like his brain short-circuited and left only a body that didn’t know what to do with the sensation. His back arched off the bed, both hands flying to Dustin’s hair, gripping hard as his hips jerked.
Dustin pinned him down with his good arm. His bad one hurt anyway, but he didn’t care.
Greg’s voice climbed. Small, wrecked sounds, higher and more desperate with every breath. Something smug and warm unfurled in Dustin’s chest because yes, okay, he was going to ruin this reaper. He was going to make this so good.
“Dustin—”
“Mm.”
“Dustin, something—”
Dustin hummed without lifting his head.
Greg’s hips jerked again.
“Dustin, please—”
Now that was a sound he wanted more of.
He doubled down.
“Dustin.”
That one sounded sharp.
Dustin lifted his head. “What?”
“It burns.”
“...What?”
“It burns, it—” Greg’s voice was strangled. “What is happening?”
Oh.
Oh, no.
“Shit. Greg, I’m sorry. It’s the chili. There’s still spice in my mouth. I forgot.”
“The chili.”
“I’m sorry.”
A long pause in the dark. Greg was breathing like he’d run up a flight of stairs.
“Why is it doing this to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Dustin said again, trying not to laugh because he really was sorry, but still.
Greg made a sound that was half laugh and half something else.
“Dustin.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you go on, please?”
Dustin did laugh then. “You sure?”
“No. But please go on.”
“Okay.”
Dustin lowered his mouth again. Slower this time. He’d already gotten this wrong once, and he wasn’t going to get it wrong twice.
Greg’s hands returned to his hair, gentler now. Trembling a little.
Fuck.
Dustin relaxed his throat, took him deep, and held him there.
It didn’t take long for Greg to come apart. He tumbled over the edge with a long, shaky breath, fingers tightening once in Dustin’s hair. His whole body went still.
Then loose.
Dustin’s name fell from his lips, soft and almost questioning.
Dustin stayed where he was for a moment, forehead resting against Greg’s hip, while Greg tried to remember how to breathe.
“Hey,” Dustin said eventually. “You okay?”
A pause.
“I don’t know.”
Dustin lifted his head.
“I’m not hurt,” Greg said. “I just don’t know what that was.”
“Which part?”
“Any of it.”
Dustin huffed a laugh and let his forehead drop back against Greg’s hip.
“Does your mouth still burn?” Greg asked.
“Not really.”
“Mine does.” A pause. “I mean, not my mouth.”
Dustin swallowed another laugh. “Okay. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get milk.”
“...Milk.”
“It’ll help. Trust me.”
Greg went very still. “You’re going to put milk on me?”
“It neutralizes the chili.”
“Your mother is downstairs.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Greg exhaled audibly. “This is undignified.”
“Much of mortal life is.”
“Noted.”
Dustin slipped into the hall.
He came back with a glass of milk, a small mixing bowl, a dish towel, and a half-formed plan.
Greg eyed him warily. “What’s the bowl for?”
“Application.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“You’re about to.”
Dustin sat on the edge of the bed, poured milk into the bowl, and dipped the towel.
In the dim light, the whole thing looked deeply stupid.
That wasn’t going to stop him.
“This is going to be cold,” he warned.
“Just do it.”
Dustin did.
Greg made a high-pitched sound, and Dustin started laughing so hard he almost spilled milk on the sheets.
“Cold,” Greg said, with feeling.
“I told you.”
“I didn’t think it would be this cold.”
“But is it helping?”
A pause.
Then, grudgingly, “Yes.”
“See?”
“I suppose.”
Dustin held the towel in place. The laughter in him softened into something quieter, warmer, more dangerous.
He couldn’t believe how utterly ridiculous this reaper was.
Or how much he’d needed exactly this in his life.