Page 9 of Drift

No more Night-walker, she’d stepped through to daylight, and the day-walkers were about to get one hell of a twisted wakeup call when it came to who really owned the streets.

Chapter 3

WAKEUP CALL

Jan stirred beneath the bedcovers, at first stretching into the cool dark morning, then grumbling as he shivered and curled back into the swamping of the soft white duvet. He’d caught a tan over the weekend with the unusual warm weather, but now that winter bite was back, and he really wasn’t looking forward to tomorrow, not with the brand-spanking-new offer at work on the table. It helped he spooned up behind Gray, and a smile crept up as he reached to his hip and lazily traced over the naked offer of tanned muscle before a kiss went to Gray’s shoulder.

Yeah. Jack was right.

Who you got to hold in the aftermath was all that mattered.

Eyes closed, breathing steady, Jan traced his fingertips over Gray’s bare hip, the toned muscle, all to rest at his side. The hardness to his cock brushed into Gray’s thigh as he shifted again, but this kind of hold wasn’t ever about sex.

Not yet, anyway.

He buried a smirk, then hid his head in Gray’s shoulder.

Despite the diverse levels of sex and damn tough mind play around them, here, under the covers, vulnerable equality played so artfully. And that’s what Gray unconsciously offered: naked vulnerability. It wasn’t the offer of a tough soul, because Graywalked such a damn unique path on that score, but feeling his bare skin exposed under fingertip, Jack’s too, it focused life on the now and chased old nightmares away, keeping Jan owning his own because of this shared naked exposure.

Silence played around the bedroom and dark grounds outside. That Monday morning feeling and the preparation needed for tomorrow niggled more at Jan, but the blues it came with stayed on the outskirts of the bed as if knowing the alarm would put it on Gray’s hit list for unsettling life beneath the covers.

Then as coolness seeped into his skin from behind, he risked a look over his shoulder.

Space danced in the moonlight and kept the bedsheet company. No sound of shower water hitting tile came from the bathroom. No light trickled under the rim of the door to call out Jack’s need to order life. There was just this… quiet.

And no Jack gave life a cold shower with how after two years, there was still… no Martin. After Light and Martin going poison here in the bedroom, Jack…?

“My head, my body. My fucking heart behind it all.”

Giving a long, slow exhale, Jan turned back into Gray and hid in his shoulder. A moment later, a brush of thumb came at the back of his hand, and Jan eased up.

Caught in the moonlight trickling through the half-open blinds, Gray’s eyes were open, focused on the windows, yet along with the faint traces of a smile, they seemed too lost in time to be focused on life outside. To most it would have seemed a trick of the moonlight, but the pure blueness carried a darker shade, leaving only black alive in them. It made him dangerous territory to be caught sleeping next to. He’d been awake for awhile by how sleep decided to stay grudgingly at the edge of the bed along with Monday morning and his blues, and Jan kissed at his neck, nibbled lightly at his ear, then rested in close.

Yeah.

No Martin.

It was there in Gray’s stillness. Yet his private smile kicked Jan’s arse over how it said don’t linger on the hurt, only what was yet to come. Maybe it was just his naturalMartin will be backreaction to Jack’s confidence over the years, his fight to get Martin back with changes in meds, regression sessions with Halliday, any new therapy that might have triggered him, but Jan suspected more that it was Martin’s determination to hold Jack off that said he was still around to Gray. That he’d be back whenhethought it was best, not Jack. Hence Gray’s smile of a morning, all the complex cat-and-mouse play between Martin and Jack that told them both Martin was still very much… here.

Gray shivered, and it wasn’t lost just whose soul walked over his grave. After a moment, he eased onto his back, and he slipped an arm around Jan before a touch ghosted his spine.

The black in Gray’s eyes faded to a lighter shade, and he offered a wink. “Morning, abstract.” His light touch of fingertip brushed Jan’s cheek, tracing the shadow and silver light that must have made an abstract mosaic of his own features, just like it did with Gray’s. But then this kind of moment belonged to Gray: the contented quiet over playing with both the light and shadow that ghosted someone.

Jan kissed at the offer of shadow on Gray’s cheek, at the sliver of moonlight exposing his neck. The kiss brought back memories of the Christmas before last, where Gray had dressed all Bram Stoker’s Dracula: suit and stove pipe hat in true GaryOldman style. He’dnibbledat Jan’s neck as they’d stood in the shadows of his Welsh manor, and how easily the police—or Jan as the only one—had been corrupted back then. He’d opted for dressing as a Victorian copper for Jack’s murder mystery night.

Jan hid a grin. The look on Jack’s face when he’d found out just who the killer was…. They’d made it a promise to spend any Christmas after that in Wales with murder-mystery solely in mind, and with festive season kicking off in just over a month… that’s all he had to wait.

“Time,” Jan said to Gray gently. “We need to start playing with it and get ready for work.”

“Hmm,” mumbled Gray. He pulled Jan in closer for a moment as he eased to his side a little, then stroked a light trail down Jan’s cock. “Fuck time.” He gripped around it. “Fuck Monday. Fuck mornings. Fuck work.”

Jan groaned, then shivered as the pressure between his thighs didn’t ease. “Not… not Jack here.” He buried a grin in the bite to Gray’s shoulder blade. “Ease down on the rough touch there, boy.”

Gray laughed softly. “Martin rubbed off on you a little too much over the whole… personal space thing you have going on there.”

Jan lifted his head and stroked along Gray’s jaw. Gray eased his hold on his cock, but only made it worse by stroking just as gently along it.

“Didn’t say a word about wanting personal space.” Jan kissed at Gray’s jaw. “Just that I like it… gentle—” He smirked. “—or seeing you trying to be.”

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