Chapter One #2
Which was probably why the corners of his mouth were turned down as he watched me carefully. He knew I was in a bad mood. And then, out of the blue, he said, “Hey, you’re not scared of flying, are you?”
“What? No.” I gave him a sideways look to see if he was kidding, but he was still regarding me too intently for my liking, so I pointed to the clown salt and pepper shakers and said, “I should get these for my mom. They’re antique, so she’ll be obligated to like them, but she’ll never ever use them. ”
“She’d write you out of the will for that.”
“I’ll get them for Bax instead then. He and Mak will love them.
” My brother, Bax, and his wife, Mak, actually would get a kick out of the ugly clowns, so I considered buying them for a moment, then decided against it.
I honestly didn’t want to ever see the clowns again in my life, even if it was only on the few occasions a year that I stayed at Bax and Mak’s place.
And there was that pang again. The Christmas pang I’d told myself I wasn’t going to feel.
Even if I bought the clowns, I wouldn’t get to see my mother’s horrified expression when Bax opened them.
I wouldn’t see Bax’s grin. I wouldn’t get to see anyone, except whatever poor sucker was DoorDashing on Christmas Day.
I wouldn’t even have Marty’s dumb dog to keep me company.
Not that I needed company, I reminded myself.
I was fine being alone. It was just one day, and the cultural significance of it was entirely arbitrary.
Case in point: my parents were having a second Christmas celebration with me once they were home and my internship was done.
The actual date didn’t matter. It wasn’t that I was going to miss Christmas, not really, just that it would be slightly delayed in my case.
Of course, I was going to have to dodge some awkward questions from my parents about why I wasn’t bringing Trey to what my mother insisted on calling Talbot-Smithmas.
It was charmingly playful of her, which I didn’t entirely trust. The point was, asking Trey to second Christmas would mean explaining why I hadn’t been with my family on December twenty-fifth, and I hadn’t quite figured out how to explain that small detail away.
I probably wasn’t going to be one of those attorneys who impressed the judge with my sharp, quick rhetoric, was I?
Not even after all those years of debate clubs.
No, that was the sort of lawyer Trey would be—which was just another reminder that this internship, stupid as it was, would be so much better for him than for me.
“Scout?” he asked me, his voice low and calm as always, and somehow more effective than an army of torturers would be when it came to getting through my defenses. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I still need to pack,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, but it was a handy diversion.
“Okay,” he said. “Want to stop for donuts on the way back?”
“No,” I lied, rolling my eyes.
We stopped for donuts.
When we got back to Alpha Tau, there was a game of flag football happening on the front lawn.
It was mostly our guys, but there were a few from other houses along Fraternity Row.
The day was cold, and even though the guys were dressed warmly, they were still moving restlessly to keep from getting cold between plays.
The frost-bitten grass, where they hadn’t already trod it into mud, crunched under their shoes.
Trey set the donut boxes down on the front steps. “What’s everyone doing out here? It’s freezing.”
Charlie was red-faced with the cold. His cheeks almost matched his hair. He jogged over to the steps and grabbed a donut. “Dalton just got here.”
Marty hadn’t seen his boyfriend in a couple of weeks, and I had no doubt he was making up for lost time. But still.
“Marty’s supposed to put a sock on his bedroom doorknob,” I said, “not the front door of the entire house.”
Charlie shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t really know how all of us hanging out in the living room turned into flag football,” he said. “But here we are. You guys wanna join?”
“Absolutely not,” I said and pushed my way inside the house.
Marty might have been loud and enthusiastic about everything in his life—sex included, presumably—but the Alpha Tau house was old, venerable, and predated drywall.
The doors and walls were solid. If I could hardly hear Casey’s awful taste in music when I was walking past his room, I very much doubted Marty and Dalton could raise that much of a racket.
But just in case, I sped up a little when I passed the door and headed for the steps that led to the third floor. Trey, laughing quietly, followed me up.
The room I shared with Trey was quiet and sunlit.
It was also perfectly neat, because Trey was even pickier than I was in that regard.
A discarded towel or a wrinkled comforter?
Not on his watch. Trey also hadn’t packed for his trip home, but I knew from experience that he was one of those people who could have everything folded and zipped away in ten minutes flat.
Watching Trey pack so competently was a turn-on, honestly. Not that I’d ever admit that.
The house was old, but the bedrooms had all been remodeled at least sometime this century.
Our room was painted light gray with green and white accents, and the furnishings were modern.
The bedroom gave off more of an airy Hamptons vibe than you might expect from the Gothic Revival exterior of the house and the Night at the Museum feel of the downstairs.
Trey sat on the edge of the bed. Technically it was our two twins pushed together, but I’d gotten back from class one day a few months ago to find out he’d bought a mattress topper that eliminated the problem of the dip in the middle—a chasm, if you slid into it—and new fitted sheets, and now it was just our bed. “Hey,” he said. “C’mere.”
I wasn’t sure what he was angling for. “I should have gotten those clowns,” I said.
“You shouldn’t have.” He raised his eyebrows. “Come here.” I caught the gleam in his eye.
Oh. Now I knew what he was angling for. I didn’t hate the idea. Still, I made a show of taking my coat off and hanging it up properly on a hanger so that it wouldn’t crease. And then I straightened the papers on my desk before eventually meandering over to where he was waiting.
Trey just laughed softly and tugged at my belt loops so I was standing in the vee of his legs. He cupped the front of my jeans and massaged my dick, which had failed to get the memo about acting casual and was a steel bar right now. “Want me to blow you?”
“I mean. Obviously.”
He laughed again and said, “Get on the bed.”
I didn’t dawdle this time. I lost my shoes, socks, pants, and underwear as quickly as I could without tripping myself.
Then I got on the bed, propping myself up against the pillows.
Trey knelt between my legs and ran a fingertip over my erection, making me shiver.
Then he shot me a wicked grin and took my dick in his mouth.
It didn’t matter that we’d done this a thousand times.
Every single time Trey closed his lips around the head of my dick, I felt a jolt of thrilled shock because I still couldn’t believe this was happening.
My body knew by now exactly what to do—relax and let Trey take charge—but my brain still had no idea why the hell, out of everyone he could have, Trey wanted me.
I closed my eyes and tilted my chin up, letting out a moan as Trey’s tongue delved into the slit at the end of my dick and his hand cupped my balls.
How was he so good at this? Not that I was a slouch by any means, but there was something about the way Trey did this that turned my spine to jelly and made my entire body tingle—and he’d barely started.
I sucked in a breath, curled my fingers into the comforter, and let the hot, wet sensations of Trey’s tongue and mouth overwhelm me.
It never took very long.
By the time he was deepthroating me, I was so close to the edge that I was already falling. I came hard and fast, with a cry that made me thankful for those thick walls and solid doors, and Trey shimmied up the bed beside me and kissed me.
It had to be true love because I didn’t even care that his mouth tasted like jizz.
“What’s that smile for?” he asked me.
“I don’t smile.”
“Liar.” He kissed me again, and then a wrinkle appeared on his brow as my smile faded for real. “You okay?”
And I almost told him about how I wasn’t going to Vienna and was instead spending Christmas alone in this big empty house.
Almost. But at the last minute I held back.
I’d just had sex. I was too emotionally raw for a conversation that would require me to admit that I might be lonely.
So instead I shoved down the thought of how much the next month would suck without him and said, “Yeah.”
“I’ll miss you too,” he murmured, proving he could read my mind. He nudged his chin against mine. “But I’ll bet Vienna’s beautiful.”
Okay, so maybe he couldn’t read my mind after all.
“Yeah,” I said and forced a smile. “I’m sure it will be.”