Chapter 15

To say Sage was elated they'd finished before the witches... would be an understatement. She was so thrilled she invited Carl and Grayson to a celebratory dinner.

"They'll be drowning in coffee!"

Her good mood was infectious, and soon they were all laughing over tiramisu and Grayson's knees were knocking against Carl's under the table. Each knock sent a small spark through his middle; at one point, it was so strong he held his breath. Something Grayson seemed to notice—he slipped his hand over Carl's knee and gave him a reassuring squeeze.

Carl glanced at him. Glared.

Grayson barely swallowed a cocky smirk.

When dinner was over and they returned to the ute, Carl rubbed clammy palms over his still-tingling knees and side-eyed Grayson.

He was feeling particularly shiveryand a whole lot of his body wanted more of those sparks, but there was a bit of brain flashing a warning sign. Grayson had become a friend, someone Carl loved talking to, going to the beach with, enjoying bike rides together. Could he keep that—even if long-distance—if they let this spiral out of control?

On the other hand, getting it out of their systems could be considered... mutual healing. They'd both been nursing hurt hearts for far too long. This infatuation with one another might be a step towards moving on, and who better to share this part of the journey with than someone they trusted?

A soft rumble hit Carl's ear. "Why're you biting your lip like that?"

Carl jumped in his seat. Red from the traffic light beamed over Grayson's face, those dark eyes trained on Carl's lips...

He swallowed and Grayson swept his gaze upwards. The air crackled. Nerves shot from his stomach to the base of his throat, and his voice came out gravelly. "Let's deal with these feelings."

"Yes." He said it simply and easily, and Carl's heart thundered.

"At your house?"

"Where there'll only be Carl."

Those words were butterflies in his belly; they made him restless and itchy.

Since they'd woken in a tangle of limbs, this feeling had been growing—and wildly out of control, at that. Every other shared look between them held curiosity and little zings of awareness. And after that kiss...

His whole body craved connection.

Grayson parked outside his house, on a not-particularly-dignified angle, and turned off the engine. In seconds he was out of the ute, coming around and opening Carl's door. Carl climbed out, breath hitching as Grayson cuffed a hand around his wrist and pulled him aside as he shut the door. Carl laughed nervously. "Why're you helping me out of the truck?"

Grayson's dark gaze hooked Carl deeply, his voice also rumbling with nerves. "Perhaps I'm afraid you'll run away?"

Carl took Grayson's wrist and pulled him until he folded forward. He brushed their lips together, a lingering, ticklish touch under a darkened sky. "Take me home."

"I thinkwe should do this with the lights on."

"To better see me," Grayson agreed, eliciting a light whack from Carl.

"No, I just can't do it under a creepy puppeteer."

A tut. "You and this picture."

Carl laughed, and they fell onto the bed in a limb-tangling embrace. He kissed the smirk quirking Grayson's lips and outlined his nose with the tip of a blunt finger. The room was cool from having a window cracked open an inch, and the fresh scent of nature seeped into the room. The moment they'd stepped inside Grayson's house, they'd been a flurry of movement down the hall, stripping off shoes and jackets and pants and all their outer layers. And now Grayson lay under him in soft boxers and a shirt so thin it might not be defined as a shirt at all. Carl could see everything through it.

He swallowed a satisfied smile and wrapped himself tighter around Grayson's heady warmth. His thighs practically burned against Carl's. Even where their toes pressed—and fought—was warm. Nothing, of course, was hotter than Grayson's black gaze boring into him.

Last night, he'd noticed this feeling. Carl had wondered how much had been in his head. But he wasn't imagining this, the mutual sparks. And tonight, they were burning brighter.

Carl inhaled the cooler breath of nature and then burrowed his face into the crook of Grayson's neck to breathe in the thick taste of musk and salt. Ridiculous, how good he smelled. Even more ridiculous how easy it felt, rubbing himself all over Grayson. Like... like they'd never not done this. Both extremely comfortable, and extremely exciting. Honestly, his heart was tripping on itself just with this.

Healing, absolutely.

They battled with their bright magenta toes, the slight shifts a pleasant pressure where their lengths rubbed.

Hot fingers slid between Carl's and squeezed.

Grayson rumbled his name at the shell of his ear and it sent a sharp thrill through him.

"Again."

"You're incredible, Carl."

He parted Carl's legs with his knee, tightened their fingers, and in a breathless second the room tipped and Carl's back hit the mattress. Delicious weight descended on him, and more murmurs of his name mushed against his lips as they kissed.

Carl had been prepared for hot and heavy, perhaps with a good dose of awkward, but he'd never thought such a moment, such a first, could be so intense and intimate and wondrously addictive...

Their kisses deepened, slickened. Their breaths became pants, and still Grayson found moments to pepper in his name. Carl. Carl. Carl.

Grayson insisted with passion that Carl know Grayson knew who he was with. Each time he uttered his name, it came with a chase of gravity. Carl could barely catch his breath. He was being seen, admired, wanted, desired. His heart grew and pounded, and he wanted so much to share this immeasurable gift. To give back. Give something so Grayson's heart would release all the guilt and responsibility it held. Would gallop so fast he'd never be able to rein it in again. Would feel whole again.

Carl untangled one hand, slipped it up the back of Grayson's neck and threaded his fingers through his hair. He pulled Grayson back an inch and looked into those dark eyes that had never stopped seeing Carl. His breath hitched. "You're beautiful."

Grayson's lips twitched cheekily; Carl lifted his head, quickly kissing his "I know" away. He dragged his fingers from Grayson's head, over his shoulder, to his chest. "I mean here too."

Grayson dipped his mouth and captured Carl's in a fierce kiss. He dragged his lips and teeth along Carl's jaw and bit down lightly on his neck. "I want more of you."

Carl tugged at Grayson's t-shirt and helped peel it off him. His own came off next. Their naked chests met and Carl gasped. "Have all of me."

Grayson shut his eyes and swallowed thickly. "I hope you mean it."

Of course, Carl did. He kissed him, and kissed him again. Grayson could feast on him any way he pleased. "Start already. Want to feel you for a long time."

Grayson steered a large hand under Carl's boxers, pulling them down over his hip. The fabric teased over his sensitive skin and Carl ached. Off too came the last scrap of material covering Grayson, and Carl caught his breath in a horrified chuckle. "You're not real. How are you perfect everywhere?"

Grayson started to preen and Carl snatched his face into a punishing kiss. "I should never have fed your ego."

They laughed softly, each puff against Carl's face a caress. Quiet. Gentle.

His heart had already been pounding, but with this, each pound echoed shivers throughout his entire body. More shivers raced over him at the touch of a small breeze when Grayson briefly pulled away to rummage in his side drawer.

Grayson lowered himself, all that warmth and muscle, onto Carl.

Carl breathed deeply, chest expanding against Grayson's, and slid his hands around firm hips, drawing him flush. "Say it again."

"Carl."

The rub of their hardened lengths had Carl's balls tightening. He shifted a leg and locked it around the back of Grayson's, canting his hips. "I'm yours."

Kisses suctioned onto Carl's throat as Grayson rocked against him and Carl made indecipherable sounds.

"You're even louder than you were getting our toes done."

Carl snatched a kiss. "I'm not shy about pleasure."

"I recall you blurting out you're into PDA."

"I wasn't trying to seduce you. I was on the phone!"

"Sure. If you say so."

Carl whacked him lightly on the back of the head and fell into another moan at Grayson's wicked swivel. He raised his head and snogged Grayson deeply. "You are so annoying."

Grayson laughed, the twinkle in his eye turning devilish, and suddenly cool wet fingers were dipping inside him.

A groan rumbled through the both of them, vibrating against their clashing lips. Grayson cuffed Carl's length, more lube coating him. Each stroke exploded in goosebumps and had him grabbing at Grayson's arms, shoulders, hair...

It'd been so long since he'd had this... Had he ever actually had this? Sex that felt so easy and natural, and so bloody intense...

He needed . . . needed . . .

Grayson understood. Read Carl like an open magazine. He rolled on a condom and bundled Carl up.

Dark eyes fused onto his as Grayson nudged inside him. Nerves leapt to life in brilliant bolts. He felt it race to his nipples, the end of his nose, his pinkie fingers.

More.

Carl trembled and mumbled incoherently, something about coming home faster—

Grayson pushed into him, stretching and stretching. He felt Grayson's pulse, the shivers that rattled him, the heavy gasp against his jaw when he'd fully seated himself. He rocked and groaned, and there was a quality to the groan that had Carl's heart skipping a beat. "Live here forever."

Carl cupped his face, pulled him close, and brushed a sigh along his lips.

Grayson moved in and out of him in a perfectly lazy rhythm that quickly had Carl on the brink and screwing up handfuls of the sheets. He flexed around Grayson and uttered a whine.

Grayson drew all the way out and surged back inside him. "Hear you, Carl."

He thrust with mounting speed and passion and Carl had never felt so understood and taken care of. Grayson's sweat-slickened abs rubbing against him was deliciously unbearable. "Gray..."

The shortened name moaned into his ear had Grayson pinning Carl's hands to the mattress. He threaded their fingers together and plunged into him, and—

Too much. Too good.

Every inch of his body came alive with sensation, from his fingers and toes to his ears and the backs of his knees.

Carl unravelled.

Grayson did too, their gasps mingling as he pushed deep inside a final time. Pulsing and spilling, Carl wrapped his arms around Grayson, clinging to him. And when finally, finally the waves ebbed, Carl closed his eyes against a firm shoulder.

That was . . . intense.

Grayson's weight sank atop him for a few moments before he pushed up on his elbows. "How're you doing?"

"You mean, do I have you out of my system yet?"

A shadow passed over Grayson's face. He quietly pulled out and turned his back as he dealt with things. "Let me grab you a cloth."

But Carl was already swinging off the bed. His body—and his mind—were thrumming and it was too much. "I've got it."

He grabbed his clothes and dashed to the bathroom, where he stared hard at his reflection and shook his head. Feelings that were supposed to have vanished, or at least dissipated, were bubbling—boiling—under the surface and... he couldn't breathe. He tapped the mirror. "All you know is how to get in trouble."

He redressed, frowning, and checked his phone. His stomach sank again and he clicked away the calendar reminder it was Pete's rehearsal dinner. These were the feelings he should have been confused about tonight. His childhood friend, his ex sweetheart, was getting married soon.

Right now, they'd be at the restaurant, possibly about to deliver speeches.

Shaky, guilty fingers prodded his phone and Carl's voice cracked when Jason answered. "Ah, Jase. Guess you're about to head to the rehearsal dinner?"

A floorboard creaked outside the bathroom and Carl screwed his eyes tight. "Look, I know this is... would you... keep me on the phone during the toasts? Secretly? I... I just want..."

"To torture yourself?"

Except, that wasn't quite it. He swallowed thickly. "To be there. From a distance."

A soft knock came at the bathroom door, and Grayson murmured from the other side, "What's going on, Carl. Talk to me."

Carl pressed the phone so hard against his ear, he could feel the beat of his racing pulse through it.

He shuffled to the door, caught and released his breath, and opened, flashing an upbeat smile.

Grayson stood in the hallway in his big fluffy dressing gown, holding two cups of steaming tea. He eyed Carl's smile suspiciously. "Shall we sit?"

Carl followed him back to the dining table, where they sat opposite one another and sipped. Grayson looked questioningly from Carl to the phone he held.

"I-I'm facing things," Carl stammered. And he was, yet... something inside him was yelling that he wasn't facing the right things.

He shoved the voice away. "It's my ex's rehearsal dinner. I've asked my brother to keep his phone on."

Grayson nodded slowly, shoulders slumping slightly. He stared at his tea. "You can hear everything?"

"There's a lot of background noise, but I can hear when Jason speaks." Carl's stomach twisted.

They sipped silently for some minutes, Carl swapping his phone from ear to ear. He could hear parts of conversations and general chatter, but he was only half focused. The other half of himself was viscerally aware of Grayson and the taut air of unspoken things between them. The goosebumps rumbling over his arms and prickling the back of his neck—

They were all due to him.

He swallowed thickly.

Grayson looked over at the same time, gaze hooking at Carl's throat before climbing up to his eyes. "You haven't got those feelings out of your system, have you?"

Carl swiped a nervous tongue over his bottom lip, crunched his face in concentration, as if Jason had said something worth paying attention to.

Grayson murmured, "What if... I don't want you to?"

The words slammed painfully into Carl's chest, sending it into a fluttering ruckus. He swallowed, and swallowed, and his voice was lost, trapped under the heart beating up his throat. "I... I..."

Almost simultaneously, another ruckus happened down the line. The crisp sound of piano keys. Whirling music. It blasted through the phone, close. So close, it could only be Jason playing. And if Jason was playing in front of everyone at the rehearsal dinner—

Carl stood abruptly.

The room was spinning. With every rippled note, the truth was emerging.

"Oh shit. Oh God." His fingers were a mess over the phone screen as he prodded and prodded to end the call, only to ring again. The phone was buzzing and buzzing, and Jason was not picking up.

"Come on, come on."

Grayson rose and rounded the table. "What happened? What's going on?"

Carl shook his phone, as if that could make his brother pick up. He looked desperately at Grayson, shaking. "I—I have to go home. Right now. They've figured out Jason isn't me. That means... that means everyone'll know. My ex. My mum—"

Grayson took Carl's shaking limbs into a cradling embrace.

"I can't run anymore, Grayson. I have to..."

Grayson rubbed his back warmly. "Deep breaths. I'll book tickets. I'll drive you to the airport."

Carl continued to tremble, and Grayson steered him through each step; returning to Jason's villa, finding his passport, purchasing the last seat on the next flight to Melbourne, packing his things, driving him to the airport.

"I'm afraid," Carl murmured into their farewell embrace.

A soft kiss landed atop his head. "I believe in you."