Chapter 13

13

If Isaac were my assistant, I’d give him a Christmas bonus. He’d deserve it for the extra time he carves out for Reece. Getting to use this room for a little longer doesn’t stop our countdown clock from ticking, but Reece does get to finish his story, then run an activity with the last of my Post-its.

I sit beside him cross-legged on the carpet, not caring if it’s gritty or grubby. All I do care about is this close-up view of Reece lighting up as these kids share with him. I almost take a photo. Instead, my phone stays in my pocket, and my throat tightens.

Snaps of him won’t cut it after Christmas, will they?

I’ll want the real deal for even longer.

It’s a theme I can’t dodge once the kids are gone and we stand outside a station entrance where Reece asks, “Want to head straight back to work? Or we could stop off in town. I could take some daytime photos for your gran if you wanted?”

I never wanted anything less, so I’m relieved when he makes another suggestion.

“I do still need to get a tree ornament for Mum. Help me choose one?”

We end up in the same tourist-trap pub for lunch first. This time, we share a table with American retirees here to see this city sparkle. They also get a ringside seat to watch Reece sorting through tiny drawings of Christmas wishes. Once he’s done eating, he makes multicoloured piles of paper and murmurs, “Sorry the kids used up so much of your stash.”

“I don’t mind.” I watch him create more piles and lean closer to hear him over Christmas music.

“It’s scary how quick they pick up on new traditions. Even if Christmas isn’t their celebration, every single one of them already knows that Santa has two lists: a naughty and a nice one.” He lifts his glass only to place it back on the table just as quickly. Maybe he should have taken a gulp to ease this hoarseness. “One of them asked me how to get off the naughty list. Because he won’t get presents like his classmates. That’s why I said the foundation would buy a few of their ideas for the toy library at the community centre.” He taps one of those stacks of paper. “Only now I don’t know which toys to pick and which ones to leave out.”

These little drawings take on new meaning. They’re more than Christmas wishes. They describe what it’s like to be on the outside, and I know that feeling.

“Let me see.” I shift my chair even closer and get busy categorising. Then I do a bit of ranking. Man, I do love organising, but there’s no denying there are more toys here than I can squeeze out of Rex’s dog-treat budget.

One of our tablemates pays attention.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?”

This tourist seems friendly enough, so I tell him. I also show him the foundation website on my phone, and, in the same way that a lock screen convinced a librarian of my credentials, an image of Reece manning a lifeboat on the homepage does the same for someone else new to Britain.

The next image has even more impact—Arthur and Rex might not look too alike on the surface, but sharing the same blood means they both have regal bearing.

“My employer, Lord Heligan, and his grandfather, his Grace, the Duke of Kara-Enys.”

“A real duke?”

“The realest, with his very own castle on a private island off the coast of Cornwall.” This tourist is so interested that an idea stirs. I test it by saying, “That’s where the foundation is based. We’ve been busy all week long planning fundraising events like parties and dinners. With the duke.”

“A dinner with a duke?” My new transatlantic friend pulls out a credit card. “How much for a ticket?”

A ripple effect spreads, more tourists crowding out table, and I glimpse Reece grinning. I bet he’s imagining Arthur’s horror at being invaded, so I clarify ASAP. “We’re only in the early planning stages, but the duke is always extremely grateful for any donations to his foundation.” I pick up a Post-it and get busy making work for a future PA. “He’ll absolutely send a personalised thank-you letter to anyone who donates to our toy fundraiser.”

Reece’s smile doesn’t widen exactly. It coalesces into something I don’t have a name for but have seen on him before.

Before?

He’s looked at me like this so often.

I saw the same smile last Friday in a hallway when I spun on marble flooring. His eyebrows rise again now, saying don’t stop without words, so I keep going, only this time, I spin around to find a chair to stand on, and his eyes twinkle. I see that as clearly here as I did under courtyard stars where he told me I could lead if I wanted, he was happy to follow. I trust he meant it as I lead again now with what feels like the whole of London staring.

“What am I bid for”—I squint at a sticky-note, and take a best guess—“one speedboat?”

Reece laughs, his grin a mirror of my lock screen, a look a complete stranger interpreted as love, and one that I…

Want to believe in.

My throat was tight earlier. Now I roar, “Who will start the bidding?” and Patrick was right. I can fly when I’m ready.

I fucking soar with Reece watching, and I couldn’t have guessed the foundation PayPal would swell this quickly or that a bidding war would break out, every last toy purchased.

I raise a final sticky-note wish in triumph before handing it over to the winner, but all I see is Reece, who offers me a hand down. I find his hand again outside the pub when I’m done collecting names and addresses.

He squeezes my fingers, oblivious to passing people. Then he straightens my scarf with fingers too slow for this fast-paced city. He tells me, “You’re amazing,” and I’m not done flying. Or leading.

I tug him in the wrong direction for purchasing gifts for Christmas.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

If I’ve got less than twenty-four hours left with him, I can’t waste a single one on shopping.

Kensington is quickest to get to.

I stride past tall, white-painted townhouses worth millions, but Reece matching me step for step is worth more than a whole row of them. Seeing his pride and admiration at what we made happen means I almost skip all the way there. I’d definitely twirl if I was done with soaring, and not only because my phone keeps buzzing with texts from Rex. I don’t need to read his wtf, Jack questions. I’ll explain where that new flood of cash came from later.

I’m pretty sure Reece and I are on the same page about what will happen when the front door closes between us and London.

I don’t need to hear him say so to know it. Two men who have spent years seeing and saying without thinking don’t need conversation, not after sending and receiving so many versions of wish and want to each other.

If I unlocked my phone right now, that’s exactly what I could show him—me wishing for more than a text-based friendship, and him wanting the same. Now we both want something involving a whole lot more touching, which Reece tests in the hallway once I get the front door of the townhouse open.

His mouth finds the shell of my ear as I fumble keying in the alarm code, and it will be his fault if police cars scream down this street at any minute. I have to think so hard to type in numbers I usually enter with no problem. His breath is as warm and distracting now as the first time he found these nerve endings. Now he does it all over again with one thick arm banding my chest, right here where Heligans watch from portraits and where I never expected to turn in a boss’s arms to kiss him stupid.

I don’t have mistletoe as an excuse, neither real nor painted. All I have is Reece, who shielded me on the Tube here as I scrolled through everything he shared with me.

So many texts spelled good things for us. None of them spelled danger, which is impossible to feel when his lips are this soft, even if his teeth are sharp when they find my earlobe again.

I love that graze and sting when it’s from him. Love his breath there so much that my vision shimmers like I’m underwater. Breathing isn’t easy when his arms tighten, but that’s okay. I’m not scared of drowning here on dry land. I’m only scared something will interrupt the bumping progress we make along the hallway, which only stops when I fight with his coat buttons.

As soon as it’s off, Reece crowds me, and I love it, even if it makes my fingers clumsy with my own buttons. I finally get them all unfastened and roar again in triumph.

“Yes!”

Reece laughs, and I love to hear it. I also love how he rumbles, “Upstairs, yeah?”

Past me might have backed off and made excuses. Present me takes off running, and Reece chases.

I almost break my neck on the first flight of steps.

Nearly concuss myself next by tripping.

That’s what comes from trying to undress, head upstairs, and kiss. My tie tries to choke me next. Reece won’t let it. It loosens, then flies, but that’s okay. I fly too along the upstairs landing, multitasking by shrugging out of my suit jacket and kicking off my shoes and trousers.

We still haven’t made it to the bedroom when Reece grabs my wrist to stop my progress. He kneels, his face pressed to the cotton jersey of my boxers. His staggering inhale is another reminder that we’re in this together, both of us affected enough to not care that we’re seminaked during a workday.

Reece mouths where I’ve been half-hard for what feels like forever, inhaling deeply again, then he sits back on his heels to trace the outline of my erection like we’ve got all the time in the world. He’s so unhurried. So intent.

On me.

I’ve never been more into someone paying me this much close attention. He touches where anticipation dampens my boxers, his tongue finds that translucent circle, and I almost buckle. For a second time, I’m braced by a thick forearm dusted with gold hairs that glint when the last of the afternoon light finds him, and he looks up.

He must also find a door handle. The one to his bedroom swings inward behind me, and I’ll have to revise what I thought about Reece and danger—he lurches up and so do I, tipped over his shoulder.

The world shifts like it does so often when I’m with him, and I can’t hold in this cackle, which only cuts off after he’s crossed the bedroom to dump me flat on my back on his mattress. Playfulness is usually his skill set. This is something different. His voice is rough, his palm over my dick possessive, and something melts at my core to hear and see him like this.

About me .

It’s another place where we meet in the middle—I’m just as territorial when his phone buzzes in a reminder that I’m down to my underwear and he isn’t. I kneel up in a hurry and get busy. Not by taking his call for him. We both ignore it as I get his clothes off, stripping him and then wriggling out of the last of my own until we’re equally naked.

He kneels on the bed to face me, his palms skimming my sides, my chest, my arse, which I like. What’s even better is how low his voice drops. “What do you want, Jack?”

“You.”

It’s been that simple since my first Christmas in London, and I don’t see that changing.

He doesn’t seem in a hurry to let me go either—Reece gathers me close, doing the same with our cocks with one big, warm hand, and that’s a new sensation.

“Good?” he asks, and I have to kiss him. It’s his turn to let out a surprised sound when I break off and push him. He falls back, then groans when I take a turn at crowding him exactly where I want him, which is underneath me.

I ring my fingers around both of us, like he did. That’s a handful and a half, but I’ve always liked a challenge, and this feeling of us together?

It’s everything.

I lean down to kiss him, then slide my hold up our combined lengths and can’t help groaning. Slipping my fist all the way down to where our pubes mesh means he joins in with getting noisy. Reece groans even harder when I kiss him again, and I didn’t expect him to suck on my tongue or how that only ramps up this hotness between us. It’s another new sensation flaming through me despite the room being on the cool side, which he must notice.

He finds my nipples, and pinches, and that’s another Reece-only feeling I’m not ready to say goodbye to, another connection I don’t want to stop now we started, only I don’t know how to verbalise any of that. My cock answers for me—we’re suddenly slicker, and I’m the reason.

My fist around us slides faster until he rolls us over. Reece is on top now, no hands between us, just his body weight keeping me where he wants me, and I’ve never been happier to have someone else make my decisions.

He ducks under the sheet, which I lift to see him kiss his way down my chest and my belly, then he sucks me, and that tears another new sound from me, because he doesn’t only have my dick in his mouth. The pad of a finger circles where he touched me our first time together, and it’s still a lot to process.

He looks up as if he heard me think that and then shoves back the sheets. I know he’s seen me flushed and mottled on a video I didn’t know was being recorded. Now I get to watch his own flush in daylight as he blows me.

Because of how much he wants inside me.

That’s what I assume after Reece pulls off my cock, which shines with his saliva. He uses more of it to wet a finger and says, “Whatever you want, Jack.”

I’ve never wanted anyone to push me like I want him to make this decision for me.

He won’t.

His voice is gritty. “You get to choose. You , Jack, not me.” This is rougher. “And not anyone else.” He grips his cock at the base. It’s thick. So are the fingers wrapped around it, and fuck knows what seeing that does to my face for him to let go in a hurry and roll away.

He only goes far enough to dig in a bedside drawer, and here’s proof Rex Heligan sometimes lives here—we’re spoiled for lube choice.

Reece states this plain and simply. “I’ll be happy with anything as long as it’s with you.” He proves it with lube and those thick fingers teasing where he opens. “Finding out what you like can be just like dancing. You can lead. I’ll follow.”

I fumbled the alarm code earlier. I don’t fumble the condom he tosses in my direction. I scramble upright, taking a turn to be the one who crowds him like he crowded me downstairs when I still had my coat on. Now there’s nothing between us, and Reece goes one step further. He gets himself ready, and something tightly wound inside me eases to see him being kind to himself. This patience is everything I needed to witness, and that I quickly help him out with, even if my hands shake.

I spill lube and this emerges breathlessly from me. “You’re so hot inside.”

He is hot, and so is him panting, “Keep going.” He’s tight until he relaxes, and this isn’t how I pictured my first time going. Now I wouldn’t change a single second of what is a culmination of years of wishing and hoping.

It also feels like a beginning.

Ours.

I only hesitate after he rolls the condom on me and then turns so I can notch the head of my cock to where gold hair has darkened in a slick swirl. He pushes back, taking over, and he was right, we can take it in turns to lead and follow, if only for a single white-hot moment before I get with the programme. Then we’re in sync until Reece buckles the same way I almost did twice with him to catch me.

I’ve got him now. I’m so deep inside Reece I can’t see how we’ll ever part ways, and his hand clamping on the back of my leg tells me that can’t be an option for us. Then we’re really fucking.

It’s as good as flying.

Better than dancing.

Intense, even when he buckles again, then sinks so only the mattress supports him as I keep going. All Reece does is groan. I can feel it, and pay attention to each sound and shudder. My hips flex, only slower now, and his fingers around my leg tighten.

“Jack.”

He can say my name with that edge of desperation forever if he wants. Or for as long as I’ll last inside him, and maybe he hears how close I’m coming to that conclusion.

He moves, pulling away to roll over. Then I’m back inside him, only now we’re face-to-face and kissing, and time does slow down, thank fuck.

London doesn’t exist outside this room.

There’s only Reece here for me, and I guess I must say so.

I’ve seen so many of his smiles aimed at other people. This one is all mine, and I’ll never get over seeing it from this close up. My hips stutter, a mirror across the room shows my brow creasing like his does so often, and I’m even closer to this ending.

No.

I don’t want that.

I’m not ready.

Reece reads me, and don’t ask how I end up on my back with his fingers circling slickly where they have once already. On me. In me. All I know is he asks, “Want to get off with me inside you?”

I nod, then close my eyes at what feels so much better when he does it to me. Reece’s dick is a step up—a whole lot to take—but he’s in no hurry. He talks the whole time at how good I feel to him. How he wanted… How he’d hoped… How much he needed…

Me.

“You ready?”

I only have one word left for him.

“Yes.”

His hips shift, and I’m gasping, but he’s got broad Trelawney shoulders, and that’s more than enough to cling to.

He fucks me slowly, then faster, and his hand on my dick breaks me wide open the same way me coming on his cock must leave him shattered.

His thrusts deepen, and this is the lowest groan yet from him as his movements stutter for a last time. So does my heart once our breathing settles and we share the same pillow.

Outside the bedroom window, light fades across a city that will glitter as soon as it gets darker. That’s when London is life to me, or when it was .

Reece smiles at me across our shared pillow, his warm gaze rewriting words I’ve told myself so often.

Yes, London can be life, but only with him to share it.