Chapter Thirty-Four #3
“I can help you with feelings.” Reece slipped his hands under Grayson’s shirt, pushing the fabric up as he slid them over
his bare stomach, his oversized pupils glittering with each catch of light. “Or I can make you feel so good that you lose
yourself in the way your body feels.”
Grayson’s heart skipped with excitement.
“That would be option two, then?” Reece said slyly, tracing warm hands over Grayson’s skin.
“Fuck.” Grayson dipped his head, kissing Reece’s neck but breathing a little too hard to do it with skill. “You gonna read
what I want like an open book?”
“Damn right I am,” Reece said unapologetically, his hands never pausing their exploration. “Going to find every word and every
touch that makes these emotions rise.”
Grayson reached for the waistband of Reece’s jeans. “What if I pick option three?” In one move he popped open the button,
flicked the zipper down, and bent his head, shoving Reece’s clothes out of the way so he could get his mouth on him.
Reece drew a sharp breath. “Evan.” His hands scrambled for Grayson’s shoulders. “Shit.”
His back arched and his hips lifted, and Grayson used the movement to get more of his cock in his mouth.
“Fuck.” Reece sounded desperate and already wrecked. “Fuck, Evan, wait—”
Grayson glanced up, and what he could see of Reece’s face was as dazed as if he was high. “I just started—”
“You don’t understand.” Reece was panting like they’d already gone three rounds, his fingers twisting Grayson’s T-shirt. “Making me feel good makes
you feel good.”
“Well, yeah.” Grayson kissed his stomach. Reece groaned loudly. “And?”
“And? And the instant you put your mouth on my dick, it fries my empath brain.” Reece tugged at his shoulders. “Roll over.”
“But—”
“Now, Evan.” Reece tugged on him again. “And get your damn pants off.”
Reece’s tugs were gentle, because even worked up as he was, an empath was gonna handle someone else with infinite care. And
obviously even if he had used force, Reece wasn’t physically manhandling Grayson anywhere, but he obediently let himself be rolled over and onto his
back. “I still don’t understand,” he said, toeing off his shoes and letting them fall to the floor as Reece kicked off his
own sneakers.
“I feel all of it, all at once.” Reece had already shucked his jeans and was now yanking his hoodie and shirt over his head. “Do you know what it’s
like feeling your mouth on me while I’m also feeling that you’re into it?”
“Oh.” Grayson sat partway up, getting his own shirt off. “But this can’t be the first time—”
“It’s different with you.” Reece was stretching for the nightstand. “The way you feel about me—it’s different. Better. So much better, Jesus Christ, I am going to have to work my way up to that.”
Grayson felt himself relax. He slid his jeans over his hips. “So it’s a good thing?”
“Mind-blowing. Literally.” Reece was scrambling for the nightstand. “If I’m going to last more than ten seconds tonight, you’re going to have to be more selfish.”
A laugh escaped Grayson, and he’d forgotten this pleasure too, forgotten laughter like this existed, born of a moment of joy
so deep that your body physically responded.
Reece was crawling over him now, and it was even better like this, no clothes in the way. He kissed Grayson’s chest, right
over his heart, and then kissed his lips. “How many times did you tell me you were too big for me?”
“Fuck,” Grayson muttered, a bolt of want crashing through him. “Not enough times, apparently. It never got through your pretty
head.”
Reece smiled against his mouth. “It only made me want you more.”
“Bad Decisions Bear.” Grayson had to reach for him, had to bury his hands in that thick hair, had to pull him more deeply
into the kiss.
They kissed until Grayson was dizzy, until the kiss had turned clumsy and messy. Then Reece broke away and sat up. The windows
were behind him now, making Reece a silhouette against the city lights as he braced one hand on Grayson’s chest and reached
back with the other.
A moment later, his hand closed around Grayson’s cock, slick and slippery. He swore as Reece stroked him, his head tipping
back on the pillows. “I might be closer than I’d realized too,” Grayson said, panting.
“Don’t worry.” Reece flexed his fingers against Grayson’s chest meaningfully. “I can tell exactly how close you are. And exactly how far I can push. That’s why you’re going to let me drive, and you’re just going to come along for the ride.”
Grayson groaned, the sound turning deep and ragged as Reece kept stroking. “You always got to be the one behind the wheel.”
Reece laughed, which somehow didn’t disrupt his coordination or slow the hand still on Grayson’s dick. “Didn’t you ever read
that study theorizing that empaths are just modern-day incubi? That paper was the best thing that ever happened to my love
life.” Then he added, wry and fond, “At least, until some cowboy secret agent turned up and started calling me Care Bear.”
That sent a flash of something through Grayson, fiery and sweet and overwhelming. And before he could even try to name that
feeling, Reece was shifting on top of him, legs moving to either side of his hips, aligning their bodies in a way that had
fresh anticipation and need and desire lighting Grayson up.
He reached for Reece, wrapping hands around his hips to still him. “Be careful with yourself,” he said warningly, “and go
slow—”
“Don’t backseat drive.”
And then their bodies were joining together, and Grayson was seeing stars. His hands tightened on Reece as he buried his forehead
on Grayson’s chest. They stayed like that for a moment, their breaths and maybe even their heartbeats in sync.
Grayson’s whisper was thick and dazed. “You feel so good.”
“Hell yeah I do.” Reece sounded nearly drunk. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this good in my whole life.”
Grayson slid his hands from his hips around to his back, holding him tighter. “You okay?”
“I want to stay like this forever.” Reece hadn’t even seemed to comprehend that he’d been asked a question. “Lost in you.
Part of you.”
He pushed up, hands braced on Grayson’s chest again, and the pleasure was overwhelming, the feel of Reece on him. Reece set a pace that was slow and tight and perfect and quite possibly paranormally engineered to make Grayson lose his mind.
“If you’re reading my emotions,” Grayson finally said hoarsely. “you gotta know I’m about to throw you over and drive you right through this bed.”
“There you go again,” Reece said raggedly. “Threatening me with a good time.”
“Now you’re just asking for it.”
Grayson wrapped an arm around Reece and flipped them as one, rolling Reece onto his back on the bed with himself between his
legs. A breathy fuck yes left Reece as he reached for Grayson, sliding hands over his shoulders, his hair, his jaw, like he never wanted to stop touching.
His arm was still under Reece, and he used it to tilt him, shifting them both so he could slide in deeper, at a better angle.
“Still good?”
The next snap of his hips drew a full-body shiver from Reece. “Baby,” he slurred, “I have never been better. And that’s the
damn truth.”
Grayson broke into a smile. He could just make out Reece’s features again, the big eyes now hazy with pleasure, the lower
lip caught in his teeth. Looking at him made Grayson’s heart stutter and fuck, maybe he should have worked up to this himself,
to having sex and happiness at the same time.
Reece’s fingers tightened on his shoulders. “You wanted to drive. Drive.”
Time lost all meaning, stretching and constricting simultaneously, so that it lasted forever while all too soon Grayson was
barreling toward that cliff. Reece was grabbing for his biceps, urging him down into a sloppy and awkward kiss that was barely
possible with their height difference and nearly folded Reece in half.
“Do it,” he said against Grayson’s mouth. “Come on.”
Because Reece was going to come with him, because of him, because that empathy was drinking in his feelings and Grayson’s pleasure was his pleasure—
That tumble of thoughts pushed him over the edge. He fumbled for Reece’s hand as he came, hearing the audible gasp as he linked
their fingers, and felt Reece’s shuddering under him as he fell apart too.
In the afterglow, he rested on top of Reece, their still-joined hands cradled on the pillow next to Reece’s head. He wasn’t
ready to move, but he aligned their palms together, fingers still entwined, and ran his thumb along the side of Reece’s hand
in a light caress, hoping that empathy could pick up all the affection he couldn’t yet put into words. He heard Reece swallow.
Then lips brushed his hair. Message received, then.
There was so much still to come, so much still to deal with, so much still to process, for both of them. But for this moment,
they were safe here, together. And Grayson’s heart—once so shattered he hadn’t wanted to feel anymore, so broken he’d chosen
the path of the Dead Man—finally had a reason to heal.
“Care Bear?” he heard himself whisper.
“What, baby?”
“Is this feeling what I think it is?”
Reece squeezed his hand. “Yeah,” he whispered back. “And I love you too.”