Chapter 9

Peter’s hopes that he would no longer be distracted at work were crushed after they walked into the office.

He couldn’t stop noticing how good Justin looked in the clothes he’d had to borrow from Peter’s closet. It had little to do with how good Justin actually looked, and everything to do with the fact that Justin was wearing his shirt and tie. It was hardly the first time Justin had worn his clothes—far from it—but it was the first time Peter had been aware of where the satisfaction stemmed from. He’d always liked seeing Justin in his clothes; it seemed he’d just been in denial about the real reason he’d liked it.

Damn it, this was bad.

To Peter’s credit, he managed to keep his hands off his associate for the first three hours. It wasn’t easy, when Justin looked positively delicious and kept blushing every time their eyes met. Those flustered looks slowly but surely eroded Peter’s self-control, and soon enough, he found himself shoving Justin onto his desk, crushing their mouths together, and all but climbing on top of him. He needed to get inside him again.

Afterward, both of them had to change their clothes.

But hopefully he’d gotten it out of his system now.

***

He hadn’t.

He couldn’t even keep his hands off Justin in the file room. They were supposed to be searching for an important document needed for a very important case, but they ended up making out like horny teenagers instead. Peter wasn’t proud of himself, but he dragged his associate into the nearest restroom and they jerked each other off, kissing desperately and moaning into each other’s mouths.

It was fucking horrible. Horrible and more than a little mortifying. He was Peter Hayes, the managing partner of the best law firm in the country. He was nearly forty. He wasn’t supposed to act like—like a besotted youngster who’d just discovered what his dick was for. This wasn’t supposed to happen to him.

And yet it was happening.

Again, and again, and again.

***

The firm didn’t work on Christmas.

That meant Justin had to leave for his own apartment and spend Christmas with his brat of a brother while Peter would spend it in his silent, empty penthouse, pretending that it was just another day of the year and he was perfectly happy to be alone.

“Fuck that,” Peter said, tightening his arm around Justin when he moved to get up. “Stay. Stay with me.”

Justin went very still in his arms. “You want me to spend Christmas with you?” he said softly.

Scoffing, Peter buried his face against his nape. “It’s just a day.” His neck felt hot. “There’s nothing special about it.”

Justin hummed, taking Peter’s hand and entwining their fingers idly. “Riven is waiting for me back home, though.”

“Do you really want to spend Christmas with a sulky brat who resents you for having the nerve to leave Bumfuck, Iowa and achieve your dreams instead of babysitting him and being a nobody?”

Justin sighed. “You know it’s more complicated than that… And I do have a responsibility to him.”

“You have a responsibility to me ,” Peter said.

Turning around, Justin smiled, threading his fingers through Peter’s hair. “You? And what kind of responsibility is that, mmm?”

Peter stared at him hungrily. Justin looked so lovely with his soft, dreamy gaze, flushed and fucked out, lips still swollen from Peter’s kisses.

Fuck, he wanted to devour him.

It was ludicrous. They’d fucked how many times over the past few days? Four? Five? It had to get boring by now. It had to. But it didn’t. Peter was hopelessly addicted to touching the boy. He couldn’t seem to get enough, no matter how many times he’d kissed him or fucked him. “I’m still not sick of this,” he said roughly. “You have to help me get over this.”

Justin’s smile faded a little.

“Why?” he said after a moment, his expression hesitant. “We aren’t hurting anyone, right?”

Peter stared at him. The mere idea of not getting over this was as foreign as it was tempting.

He tried to remember why they had to stop. It was surprisingly hard with Justin’s warm, naked body in his arms.

“We are hurting our careers,” Peter said at last. “We’re being reckless and stupid. You make me stupid and distracted. I want to fuck you all the time instead of doing my job. It’s a disaster. I can’t have a personal associate who makes my brain relocate to my dick.”

“I don’t see a problem,” Justin said with a small smirk. “We’re still getting things done.”

“Yes, because even when we’re slacking off, we’re better than most other lawyers, but at some point it won’t be good enough. And people are starting to notice.” Peter leaned in and kissed the pulse at the base of Justin’s throat, breathing him in. “Even Turner said yesterday that I seemed distracted, and he’s shit at noticing things like that.”

“What are you suggesting?” Justin said, threading his fingers through Peter’s hair.

“In all honesty, I should probably replace you with another associate. Someone who won’t distract me so much.”

Justin’s fingers stilled. “Will you?” he said.

Peter lifted his head and looked him in the eyes. “I should. That would be the smart thing to do, for both of our careers. Yours will be harmed more than mine if— when people find out. You’ll lose your credibility as a lawyer if people find out that you’re sucking the managing partner’s cock.”

“That would suck,” Justin said quietly. “People are going to think we’ve been fucking all along, that I’m not here on merit.”

“Exactly,” Peter said grimly.

They looked at each other, and Peter could see the defeat in Justin’s eyes. They were dim, and sad, and so very lost.

Peter hated it, hated seeing him upset. It was strange. Peter would be the first to admit that he had always been a self-centered bastard. He couldn’t say he’d ever cared about another person’s happiness.

But he cared about this one’s. He wanted Justin happy. He wanted him to stay here, in his arms, in his bed, in his home.

He wanted him to stay—and never leave.

Peter’s breath caught in his throat as the realization crashed into him with the brutal force of a hurricane. It should have been frightening, and it was. And it wasn’t. It was a relief too. All the uncertainty of the past few days was gone, turning into a clear goal. He knew what he wanted.

And Peter Hayes always got what he wanted, damn it.

“There has to be another solution,” Peter said, his mind racing as he considered and discarded possibilities. “We’re fixers. We are the best at fixing our clients’ problems. We can fix this one.”

A wrinkle appeared between Justin’s brows. “I don’t know how you would fix something like that.” He looked at Peter with... what was that soft feeling in his eyes? “But if there’s anyone who can find a solution, it’s you.”

The expression on Justin’s face—the faith —made him feel powerful and powerless at the same time. Peter wanted—needed—to prove him right. To fix this impossible situation. Find a loophole that would allow them to be together without it ruining their careers.

A loophole.

Peter straightened up, his heart starting to beat faster.

“Workplace relationships aren’t always frowned upon,” he said. “There are exceptions.”

“Yes, married couples.” Justin flushed. “Which we most definitely aren’t.”

Shaking the sudden image of Justin with Peter’s ring on his finger from his mind, Peter cleared his throat. “You’re forgetting something. There’s also a soulmate bond.”

“What?” Justin said, blinking.

“We can claim that we’ve discovered that we’re soulmates thanks to the spell. That way it isn’t our fault—and it will make it clear that it’s a new development, so no one will think that you sucked my cock to get promoted to my personal associate.”

A tick or two of silence ensued. Justin’s expression was somewhere between astonished, horrified, and amused. “You want us to pretend that we’re soulmates?” he said, chuckling. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t fake something like that!”

“Why not? People don’t have to verify and register a soulmate bond. As long as we claim that we are, no one will doubt it. That way, our professional reputations will be mostly unharmed—and we can carry on.”

“Carry on fucking.”

Peter nodded.

Justin gave him a pinched look. “You’re unbelievable. You don’t feel uneasy about lying about something so monumental? What if—what if you meet your real soulmate?”

Peter scoffed. “You know I don’t believe that bullshit. Besides, I practically know where my ‘soulmate’ is, and I have no intention of meeting them.”

“You—you have a soulmate?” Justin blinked a few times, looking... Peter was excellent at reading people, but right now he couldn’t possibly be right. Surely Justin wasn’t crushed . But he looked crushed.

“You didn’t say anything,” Justin said faintly. “You acted normal since the spell was cast.”

“Well,” Peter said. “I started feeling the anxiety only last weekend.”

Justin narrowed his eyes. “That’s why you had me research how many people work in this building.”

Peter brushed his hand against Justin’s cheek, unable to resist the impulse to touch him. He wanted to touch him even when he wasn’t fucking him.

“Smart boy,” he said, in a tone aiming for sardonic and landing much nearer fond.

A deep wrinkle appeared between Justin’s brows. “And you stopped feeling antsy on Monday? What about at night? Surely—” He cut himself off. “Peter,” he breathed out, looking at Peter with wide, bright eyes. “I felt this terrible pull all weekend and stopped feeling antsy on Monday too.”

They stared at each other.

“That would be ridiculous,” Peter said roughly. But now that he thought about it, the antsy feeling had disappeared shortly before Justin’s arrival at the office. “It’s likely a coincidence.”

“If it’s a coincidence, that would be a hell of a one,” Justin said. His lips parted, something like uncertainty flashing in his eyes. “You said you knew how to find your soulmate?”

“Yes. I have a list of people who could be my soulmate. It’s somewhere on my phone.”

“Let’s look at it, then.”

Peter studied him. “Why? It doesn’t matter to me.”

Justin dropped his gaze. “We should look at the list. Maybe there are—maybe there are people more suitable for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter said with a scoff.

Justin blinked slowly at him before a small, fragile smile curled his lips. “So it wouldn’t be so terrible if I was your soulmate?”

Peter hesitated. That felt like a trick question. If he said that it would be terrible, he would hurt Justin—and the mere idea was intolerable—but saying no felt... too risky. He would make himself vulnerable, and he’d never liked that. He hadn’t gotten to the top by allowing himself to be vulnerable.

But this was Justin.

Over the past two years they’d worked together, Justin had seen him at his worst. He’d seen Peter angry and snappish, he’d seen him stressed and exhausted to the bone as they worked on difficult cases. He’d seen him drunk on an occasion or two, drowning in guilt after winning cases for corporations against good people who needed the win more. (People said he didn’t have a conscience. If only it were true.)

This was Justin.

“I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing,” Peter said stiffly, looking Justin in the eyes. His face felt hot. “You would be... a tolerable choice as far as soulmates go.”

“Tolerable?” Justin choked out indignantly, but his eyes were smiling. This was Justin. He knew how to read him, how to read between the subtlest lines as far as Peter was concerned.

“Decent,” Peter said.

Brushing his fingers through Peter’s hair, Justin smiled. “Not good enough. Try again.”

Peter looked at that lovely, hopeful little smile and felt something in his chest squeeze. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling, but it felt like his heart was too big for his chest. “If I have to have something as trite as a soulmate, you’re the only person who doesn’t feel wrong.”

Justin’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. “ Peter .” Leaning in, he kissed him gently.

They’d shared many kisses over the past few days. They’d all felt good. But this one felt achingly lovely— loving .

It made Peter’s heart do that disgusting squeezing thing again. He kissed back, trying to pour the excess of emotion into Justin’s mouth. It didn’t really work. He still felt too much. But he wouldn’t trade it for the world. Nothing could possibly feel better.

“I love you,” Justin said against his mouth.

Well.

He’d been wrong about nothing could possibly feeling better.

This did.

“I’ve loved you forever,” Justin murmured, pressing their foreheads together and gently cradling Peter’s face with his hands. “But I thought I had no chance with you. I thought—I thought you couldn’t possibly love me back.” He smiled wetly. “I’m so happy I was wrong.”

“You’re making quite the assumption here, Danvers,” Peter said, clearing his throat a little.

Justin laughed against his face. “Remember what I told you about calling me by my last name? It’s a tell. So if I’m reading it right... my assumption is correct, Mr. Hayes.”

“Possibly,” Peter admitted, smiling. “Or I would have fired you ages ago for being a mouthy little shit and showing me no respect.”

“Oh, I respect you plenty,” Justin said, slipping his hand down Peter’s chest and cupping his half-hard cock through his underwear. “Let me show it to you?”

Peter chuckled. “Go ahead, dear.”

“Soulmate,” Justin said, settling between his legs.

“No offense, but I’m never calling you that.”

Putting his chin on Peter’s thigh, Justin smiled at him teasingly. “Shall we bet on that?”

Looking into those green eyes shining with happiness, Peter had a sudden thought that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep them so bright. Fuck. This boy had him wrapped around his little finger, didn’t he? And Peter didn’t even mind. Because Justin was right, damn him.

Peter loved him.

It didn’t feel like a new thought—or a new feeling. Perhaps he’d simply been blind. The thought was disconcerting and more than a little humbling. Had it not been for that dodgy, messed up Christmas spell, would they ever have figured it out? It was ironic that Justin’s desire to go look for his soulmate—who happened to be Peter—had made Peter realize that he’d already thought of his associate as his , regardless of any bullshit spell.

“No,” Peter said softly. “I wouldn’t bet on that. By the way, I do.”

Justin blinked, looking endearingly confused. “What?”

“I do love you,” Peter said.

Grinning, Justin jumped into his lap and kissed him hard.

“What about my blowjob?” Peter said with a laugh.

“Don’t ruin the moment, you dick,” Justin said, pressing their foreheads together. “God, I love you. I can’t believe this is real.”

There was so much wonder in Justin’s voice it made Peter’s heart clench. He knew Justin had a hard childhood. Unlike Peter, Justin had had to fight tooth and nail to get where he was now, and he’d always done it alone.

He would never be alone again.

Peter wrapped his arms around the younger man and, nuzzling his cheek, kissed his soft lips. They felt like home. “It’s real. Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

The End