Grey's Awakening (7 page)
Sirus couldn’t move as he absorbed what had happened, the heat of the moment so intense he couldn’t walk away, even as he accepted he’d just done something incredibly intimate with a man he didn’t know very well at all.
With someone whom less than twenty-four hours ago he wasn’t even sure he liked.
Damn it
. Scrubbing his face, Sirus exhaled slowly and tried to figure out what the hell to do next.
*
Fucking A
. Grey had a naked man sitting on him, he’d just come in his jeans like a preteen discovering his cock, and, for the first time in his adult life, he didn’t have any clue what to say, how to behave, or have a plan of attack in place.
It’s not a big deal, Greyson, people have little moments like this all the time. Pull
your shit together and act like an adult.
Grey cleared his throat, and Sirus jolted on top of him, giving Grey his full attention.
Slate eyes pierced right through him, and once again made Grey’s breath catch. Stole the coherency of his thoughts too.
“Ah, if you could,” Grey’s focus dropped to his stomach and landed right on Sirus’s cock, “you know…” Fuck, his ass throbbed as he stared at Sirus’s prick, and Grey imagined Sirus rolling him over and filling his hole.
No, you don’t open yourself up for
anybody.
Grey tore his gaze off Sirus’s dick and took a deep breath, gathering himself again. When he felt back in control, he looked at Sirus and spoke in an even, cool tone.
“If you wouldn’t mind getting up, we could go back inside where it’s dry and warm.”
“Oh!” Sirus shot off Grey’s lap, and Grey tried not to notice the immediate sense of loss. Snatching his muddy clothes off the ground, Sirus looked at them, shook his head, and went ahead and left them hanging at his side. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem.” With Sirus’s weight gone, the clammy chill of the mud beneath Grey’s back sank in with penetrating cold. He got to his feet, shaking off the rain and muddy earth clinging to his back as best he could. “It’s late. Let’s just go inside.” He took a stiff step toward the porch.
“Wait!” Sirus snatched Grey’s wrist in a manacle hold, and Grey’s eyes fell closed, his heart plummeting to his stomach.
“Yes?” Grey spoke the word with command, but in his head, it was little more than a weak whisper. He didn’t feel any stability under his feet, and the sense of uncertainty took him back to his childhood, where he
so
did not need to be right now. Ever, really.
Please, I can’t deal with drama or overwrought emotions right now
. He forced himself to turn around and face Sirus with a calmness that belied the racing in his heart. “What is it?”
Sirus shifted his weight, and twisted his soaking clothes in his big hands. “What we just did,” his attention dropped for a second to the ground where they’d both just lain, “I need you to know I don’t do that kind of thing regularly, or casually.” Sirus took a step forward, his savage face earnest. “Which is not to say I’m declaring love here or anything, but I need you to tell me something you wouldn’t tell someone you weren’t intimate with. Give me something personal so I don’t feel like I just did what I did with an almost stranger.”
Grey searched Sirus’s face and demeanor, looking for even the slightest sign of deception. He found none. “Just one thing?”
Nodding, Sirus clutched his clothes to his belly. “Yes.” He didn’t look away, and he didn’t waver.
“And you’ll give me something in return?” Grey pushed, needing something more.
Sirus nodded again sharply. “Agreed.”
Oh, fuck, don’t do it
. “I haven’t shared a bed with anyone in three years, and I fucking hate sleeping alone.” Grey rushed through the confession that he could not believe came out of his mouth. “Now you.”
“It has been two years for me,” Sirus confessed, spilling his words in just as fast a tumble as Grey had done. “And I hate it just as much as you do. I don’t normally do this, and I don’t have any expectations,” he pulled Grey to him with one gentle tug, “but with what you just said, and what I did, you have to know I don’t want to sleep in that guest room tonight.”
Sirus’s body heat shimmered off him in tangible waves, making Grey realize how cold he was inside. How cold his bed was too.
No expectations
. Grey couldn’t stop thinking about that, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the stunning piece of man standing before him, someone his sister knew, and more importantly, trusted.
Against every rule he had ever set for himself, and every promise he made to himself three years ago, Grey said, “So don’t.” His blood rushed so fast he felt a little dizzy. He said the rest anyway. “Share the master bedroom with me.”
Grey’s request hung heavy in the air, standing between him and the man before him like a ghost in the dark night. Stunned disbelief didn’t even begin to describe the expression on Sirus’s face, and frissons of extreme discomfort crawled right under Grey’s skin, attaching doubt to his one act of selfish need.
Suddenly amazingly uncomfortable, Grey shrugged with indifference. “It was just a suggestion. Suit yourself.” He hardened the hint of vulnerability that had leaked out of him and schooled himself not to show he cared. “I’m going inside.”
“Were you serious?” The quiet of Sirus’s voice cut across the small amount of space between them, stroking the sliver of needy weakness before Grey could completely cauterize it. Sirus looked at Grey with that stormy gaze of his and tugged right at Grey’s long-buried need to be something more than a solo act. “Do you really want me to share your bed?” he added.
Grey opened his mouth and, “I can’t remember when I’ve ever wanted anything more,”
almost
came out. Panic swirled in his chest, suffocating him, and instead he coolly delivered, “Look, it’s late, and we’re both exhausted. I don’t know about you, but I’m about thirty seconds away from freezing my balls off. I plan to go inside, have a hot shower, and go to bed. We can double up, or we can go it alone. It’s up to you.” Grey looked right at Sirus and did not show so much as a shiver. “Either way, I’m not standing here and discussing it any further.”
Sirus penetrated Grey with a brief, intense stare that left Grey feeling touched from top to bottom. Then he leaned down, scooped up Grey’s shirt, and thrust it against Grey’s chest. Grey grabbed it before it could fall, and when he did, Sirus slid his hand down Grey’s stomach, past his cock, and cupped his balls through his jeans. Sirus’s face was only inches from Grey’s, and Grey was caught, trapped, and unable to breathe. “Can’t have these falling off,” Sirus answered, and flashed a fast, wicked smile. He squeezed Grey’s nuts and gave them a placating pat. Then, holy shit, he winked. “Let’s get you into a hot bath.” Sirus’s hand trailed over Grey’s thigh and around his hip as he moved up the steps, setting Grey’s body to roaring with renewed life. “Coming?” he called out, and kept right on going, the view of his tight, oh-so-enticing bare ass luring Grey with every step he took.
Lord knew, Grey acknowledged, that he should walk right to his car and drive straight down the mountain. His legs wouldn’t obey. Against his better judgment, he followed.
Aside from wanting to get warm, Grey had spent the walk from outside to the bathroom reminding himself that in his business life he dealt with billionaires on a regular basis—and did it without ever breaking a sweat. He reasoned if he could do that, then he could certainly deal with a simple sexual attraction to one good-looking man. He knew the pitfalls to avoid, he knew how much to share, and most importantly, he knew in two weeks time he would walk away refreshed, reenergized, and ready to get back to work. Of course, success depended on Grey being completely open about his position and feelings, and Sirus agreeing to a brief affair.
With that realization, Grey belatedly figured he probably should have planned something more neutral to that kind of discussion than a damned romantic lantern and candlelit bath.
Fuck.
Just then, Sirus ran his hands up Grey’s arms and curled them around his shoulders.
His head dipped down and he spoke right at Grey’s ear. “Your body just went from comfortable and relaxed to tighter than the strings on a guitar in less than five seconds.”
Sirus kneaded his fingers into Grey’s muscles and began to give him a massage. “I’m not looking for a marriage proposal just because I don’t normally accept blowjobs and invitations to share a bath and bed from men I hardly know. It is unusual for me, but you don’t have to worry that I’m going to think we’re a couple or anything.”
“It wasn’t that.” Grey scrambled, his mind racing for cover. He hated that Sirus picked up on the tension in his body, and worse, that he’d so easily pinpointed why it had happened. People did not read Greyson Cole. Business associates and ex-boyfriends alike told him his poker face had no match. “I was thinking about outside.” Jesus, Grey could still feel the thickness and heat of Sirus’s cock taking over his mouth. His dick twitched a little bit as he recalled the man’s tight, scorching ass clenching around his buried fingers too. “You pulled away before you came. Is there something I need to know about you?”
“I’m clean,” Sirus said. He ran his hands down Grey’s chest and settled their upper bodies into one another more comfortably. “You didn’t know that, though, and I didn’t want to presume something you might not have wanted.”
Grey closed his eyes, trembling as he imagined warm spits of Sirus’s cum coating his tongue and throat. Christ, how he missed blowjobs. “I wanted.” He reached up and fiddled with Sirus’s fingers where they rested on his chest. “But thank you for being clearheaded enough in the moment to think for both of us. Normally I know more about my sexual partners, and we’ve been tested together so we each know the other is clean.”
Even then, Grey always wore a condom when he had sex, but he hadn’t brought any condoms with him on this trip. Hadn’t needed any in a very long time. “This is a unique circumstance, and I guess we need to discuss our histories and expectations a little bit so we can decide how best to proceed.”
Sirus nuzzled his lips against Grey’s temple and squeezed him with his legs. “You’re very precise in everything you say. That’s cute.”
Grumbling, Grey felt his face heat. “Being smart and well thought out is not cute.
It’s…” He looked around the softly lit bathroom, searching for the right word. “It’s…”
“Smart?” Sirus helped, chuckling.
Discomfort heated Grey’s already warm cheeks to a blaze. “Okay, fine.” He did not allow people to laugh at him when he was trying to be serious. Bracing his hand on the lip of the tub, he rose to his feet. “Maybe you think your health is a joke, but I don’t.”
Sirus snaked his arms around Grey’s knees and held him firmly in place. “Get back down here.” He looked up at Grey as he tugged, and like a man without his own will, Grey lowered himself to his knees between Sirus’s thighs. Sirus touched Grey’s face, held it, but then curled his hands into fists and let them drop into the bathwater. His slate eyes hardened to granite, and Grey’s heart lurched and raced.
“What?” The steam and candlelight in the room pillowed Grey’s voice, softening the anxiety twisting in his gut. “Is there something wrong after all?”
“No. I’m good,” Sirus said, washing relief over Grey in a flooding torrent. Christ, he couldn’t believe how much he already cared that nothing bad ever befell this man. “I take my personal safety and health very seriously,” Sirus continued, clearly unaware of the turmoil going on inside Grey. “As seriously as I’m sure you do. Even though I always used protection with the last man I was with—all of the men I’ve been with, of which there have been four—I have in the last two years been tested numerous times for every goddamned thing in the book, since my last relationship ended in part because the man was married.”
Grey’s jaw dropped right into the water.
*
Crap crap crap
. Sirus stared at Grey’s obvious shock—possibly horror—and wondered what in the hell had made him share that information about Paul. The stupidest thing in the world a guy can do is talk about his former lover to his current one. Of course, Grey wasn’t really Sirus’s lover, at least, not in the
relationship
sense.
Not quite
in the literal sense yet either
, he thought with dry humor. Now, maybe Grey never would become a lover. Damn it, Sirus had screwed this up nicely, and so very quickly too. Had to be a new record for him.
“Forget I said that.” Sirus rubbed his hand over his chest, knowing the goddamned tattoo was still there. Kelsie had counseled him to think hard before getting it, but he’d believed so deeply in Paul he hadn’t listened. “We’re not going to be doing anything for long enough that we need to know specifics about each other’s pasts. You wanted to know if I’m safe, and my point was just to assure you I am. Many times over.”
Grey shifted, the motion awkward in the space available, and drew his knees up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them. “Did you know the guy was married?” he asked, it seemed cautiously. “I don’t know you very well, but I only ask because with what little I do know, you don’t strike me as the kind of man who would engage in that kind of behavior.”
Sirus’s hackles rose and a rumble vibrated in his throat. “What kind of behavior is that?”
“The kind where innocent people get hurt,” Grey answered, his voice calm in a way that nothing inside Sirus was. “Like that man’s wife.”
Grey’s generous thought constricted Sirus’s chest. “You’re right,” Sirus admitted.
God, he did not want this man thinking he condoned adultery. “I didn’t know Paul was married when we met, but by the time I did find out I was in so deep I couldn’t make myself walk away. Paul promised me the marriage had not been an intimate one for a very long time, and he said he was in the process of separating and ultimately divorcing.
