“Yeah, fine,” I said, moving to the large armoire in the corner of the room. I’d noticed the suitcases were no longer on their stands, which meant the attendant had unpacked our things for us. Sure enough, our clothes hung neatly in the armoire or sat primly folded in the nearby chest of drawers. It was oddly endearing to see Grey’s boxer briefs stacked next to mine.
I pulled out pajama pants and a T-shirt before going to the bathroom and closing the door. It was cool in the mostly marble room. The sweet scent of gardenia filled the small space from the complimentary bath products in a dish by the sink. Maybe if I took a shower, I could buy myself a little time.
Once the water was warm enough, I stripped down and stepped into the glass enclosure and closed the door. I let the hot water beat down on the skin of my neck and shoulders for a long time. I thought about all of the times Grey had reached for me tonight and all of the times I’d felt the warm solid presence of his body against mine.
I thought about the kiss.
How the hell was I going to share a bed with the man without humping him in my sleep? Impossible.
When the sound of the bathroom door opening hit my ears, my eyes shot open.
“Sorry,” Grey said, averting his eyes. “I couldn’t wait any longer. I’ll just…” He stepped past the shower to the tiny toilet room and closed the door.
I stared after him. My dick was rock hard from imagining the two of us in bed together. Had he seen it? Would he care if he had? Should I have been embarrassed?
Just in case, I turned my back to the glass door so the most he’d see on his return trip was my bare ass. Hell, he’d already seen that before when he’d walked in on me by accident at his apartment.
Wait. Had it been an accident?
Yes, of course it had. Grey Blackwood might have been warming up to me as a human being, but he sure as hell didn’t want me as a man. And why would he? Not only was I inexperienced with men, thus unable to bring anything good to the sexual table, but I was also the bane of his existence. Hell, he’d probably want to lecture me the entire time he fucked me about various things I’d done wrong or ways I’d annoyed him.
Stop imagining angry sex. Fuck.
Now I was harder than before. Why didn’t the embarrassment negate the inappropriate wood? Maybe because getting hard in the shower was a completely normal occurrence. Barging in on someone while they’re showering wasn’t. He could have gone to any number of bathrooms in this place. Hell, this place had bathrooms in the double digits. Why did he insist on using this one?
“Sorry,” he mumbled again before shutting the bathroom door with a snick.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath. “Fucking fuck.”
My soapy hand went immediately to my dick, and I stroked it fast and rough. I just needed this over with. If I was going to sleep with the man without the nighttime humping, I needed to nut right the hell now.
While Grey Blackwood was just outside the door.
For the second time this week.
This was kind of becoming a habit.
“Argh,” I groaned when my release finally came. I spilled hot and hard against the shower wall and into my hand. As soon as I caught my breath, I finished washing myself and turned off the shower.
Thank fuck. Now maybe I could sleep with the sexiest man on the planet without performing the sex version of sleepwalking.
I made my way into the room and pulled back the thick duvet before I noticed he’d turned off most of the lights and changed into his own pajama bottoms. Only, his were sleep shorts made out of the softest-looking cotton on earth.
And it was obvious he wasn’t wearing anything under them.
I stared at the front of his shorts without realizing I was doing it. How big was his dick? What did it look like? Was he seriously unaffected by seeing a naked man in the shower? I wasn’t the hottest man in the world, but I wasn’t bad.
Was I?
Grey cleared his throat. I looked up at his face and caught him smirking at me. “Have a nice shower?”
And just like that, I was chubbing up again.
At this rate, I was going to sleepfuck him for sure.
13
Grey
“Being ruled by your emotions… can only lead to catastrophe.”
~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I wanted to fuck him. It was as simple as that. Apparently nothing had changed in fifteen years despite many, many, many hours of self-lecture about how, if given the chance, I would never, ever let Ellison York get close to me again.
Now, here we were.
“Get in the damned bed, Ellison,” I said before making my way to the steamy bathroom and searching for my toothbrush. I didn’t take kindly to strangers going through my things, and I was on edge from discovering the room stewards had unpacked my bags.
I could hear Ellison scrambling between the sheets while I opened a drawer in the vanity to discover my toiletries. I took plenty of time brushing my teeth and washing my face so Wild-Nerves McGee could settle down in there. You’d have thought being gay was somehow contagious the way he was trying to avoid even the idea of us sharing a bed.
While I didn’t for a minute imagine his intent was purposeful, Ellison had been tempting me all night. The way the thin cashmere sweater draped over his broad shoulders and toned chest, the way his slender fingers twitched between mine as he held my hand, and the way his eyes always searched me out regardless of how far away from me he was in the room. The way he smelled like all of the bath products in my guest room at home. He was seriously knocking me off-kilter.
I’d enjoyed holding his hand so much tonight that I’d finally used the excuse of drinking several glasses of water to keep from reaching for him yet again.
And then I’d had to pee while he was buck naked and wet in the shower.
This night, this weekend, was going to be impossible. If I wasn’t worried about being discovered and offending our hosts, I might have tried to arrange a clandestine hookup with the attractive red-haired man we’d met from San Francisco. From the looks he’d given me at dinner, I gathered one positive word from him might have taken care of my little pent-up problem.
But I wouldn’t do that to Ellison, no matter how fake our relationship was. Also? I didn’t want the redhead. I wanted the New Yorker who’d eaten half my salad and then finished my dessert.
I stared at myself in the mirror. “Welp, here we are. So much for fifteen years of being over Ellison fucking York.”
It hadn’t helped that several people had mistakenly assumed Ellison was dating Binnie’s niece instead of me. I’d gotten the feeling their relationship was one the guests at this house party had speculated about for years since Ellison and Cate were of similar age and both wealthy, successful, and attractive.
And it hadn’t helped that they appeared to be great friends with plenty of things in common. They’d spent part of the evening discussing risk-based capital requirements for merchant banking investments as it related to the law. Instead of falling asleep midsentence, they’d chatted excitedly about the various challenges to areas of legal practices surrounding the regulations.
While I was incredibly turned on by Ellison’s demonstration of intelligence and legal education, I was selfishly annoyed that he’d chosen to speak to someone else about such a thing when I’d been the one in the room with the most financial exposure to the risks inherent in the issue at hand.