Page 18 of Sugar

“Yeah, count me in as long as someone can pick me up. I’m not driving right now. Okay. Okay. Babe, I have to go now. Go drama all over your husband and leave me alone! I love you so fucking much. Yeah, I’ll call you later. Bye.” Juno dropped the phone on the table and pressed his face into his palms, groaning loudly. “He’s a lot.”

Piper rose and took three strides, and then he was behind Juno’s chair. He reached around him and tipped his head back, leaning down to kiss him. It was chaste this time, lips pressing and warm, and he hoped Juno could feel all the affection he was holding for him.

“So. You call your friends babe?”

Juno snorted. “I call him that. He’s very needy when it comes to affection. It, uh…it was kind of a foster kid thing. Some people go the opposite way. They have a really hard time accepting affection and pet names, shit like that. But some people are like us.”

“Like the way you go pink in the cheeks when I call you sugar?” Piper murmured, running a finger over Juno’s freckles.

Color rose high in his cheeks. “Yeah.” His eyes were less green today, Piper noticed. They were almost a honey-hazel. “I really like that.” Juno’s tone was soft, but it lacked the heat from before, and Piper let the moment go. There would be time enough for that later.

He let Juno go and took a step toward the other chair, sighing with relief as he sat. His gaze moved back to the box on the table. “Is that?—”

“Oh. It’s a genetic kit thingie.” Juno flipped the lid right side up. “I’ve been on the fence about it. If none of my relatives have taken it, it’s not going to help me find anyone. And some of them could be on there, but they might not want to hear from me.” He bit his lip and met Piper’s gaze, but he didn’t hold it. “I want to see if any of them are like me.”

“You mean your condition?” Piper asked.

Juno rubbed at his eye. “Yeah. Everything I read said that even siblings who both have it could have wildly different experiences, so it’s not like I can look to them to see what my future’s going to be like. But…I don’t know. At least it’ll be something?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Piper asked.

Juno shrugged. “Rejection.”

“Which means you’ll end up exactly where you are right now, right? No answers? So what’s the best thing that could happen?”

Juno squeezed his eyes shut. “Family who gets me. Family who gives a shit.” Juno stopped and laughed. “You should have been a therapist. You sound like mine.”

Piper reached over and snagged Juno’s hand, kissing his palm. “Hopefully, she’s not into you as much as I am.”

Juno wrinkled his nose. “No, honey. She’s absolutely not.”

Piper went warm, and he reached for Juno, drawing him to his feet. Holding him close with one arm, he reached past him and seized the little DNA kit with the other. “I have a plan.”

“Mm?” Juno blinked up at him, doe-eyed and precious. “Tell me your plan.”

Piper had to kiss him first before speaking. “I cuddle you.”

“Liking this plan already.”

“You spit into your little tube…”

“Less romantic,” Juno said with his nose wrinkled.

Piper grinned and kissed it. “…while you put on your baking show.”

“You’re winning me over again.”

“Then I make you come, we wash up, and I take you out for something really decadent to eat.”

Juno closed his eyes, like his blink was aborted halfway through, and he pressed his face into the center of Piper’s chest. “I’m starting to feel spoiled.”

“Good.” And it was good. Piper had no idea how long this was going to last, so he intended on making sure Juno enjoyed every second he allowed Piper to stick around.

CHAPTER SIX

Juno was a pretty vanilla guy. He had a couple of kinks—like being praised and being doted on, though he wasn’t sure he could really call those kinks. He thought maybe if he’d grown up differently, he might have liked sex rougher, but as he was now, he didn’t.

He liked it exactly the way Piper gave it to him: Slow. Hot. Tender.

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