Page 36 of From Coast to Coast

Do you want some company? I’ve got a housewarming gift.

Remy

Is it your dick?

Grayson

All right, I have two housewarming gifts.

I laugh out loud, the noise echoing in the relatively bare space of my apartment.Please come over,I respond to Grayson,I’m on the top floor, 5C.

Tossing my phone onto the couch, I go into the bathroom to do a quick inspection. My armpits don’t smell, and I haven’t eaten anything since I brushed my teeth this morning. My hair is kind of a mess, so I run a comb through it quickly, before messing it up with my hand. There is a fine line between bedhead and artfully styled. The rest of me looks okay, and I’m not about to put on anything fancier than the sweats I’m wearing when hopefully I’ll be naked soon enough.

That done, I do a quick kitchen cleanup and put the dishes I’ve left in the sink into the dishwasher. My mom always lights a candle when she has guests coming over, but I don’t have one. The best I can do is spray multi-purpose cleaner into the air and hope that the room really does smell pine fresh. I sit down on the couch to wait, fingers tapping idly on my knees. When there is a gentle knock on my door, I have a sudden, panicked thought aboutthe state of my pubic hair.When was the last time I fucking manscaped?

Resigned that it’s probably too late now—with Grayson waiting patiently at the door—I go to let him in. The low ceiling of the hallway makes him look massive, and he ducks a little bit when he walks through the doorway. There is nothing special about what he’s wearing: the same grey sweatpants I’ve seen on him a thousand times and a well-worn T-shirt that looks soft with age. It’s practically the uniform for hockey players on off days, yet he makes it look delicious somehow.

“What the fuck are you doing to me?” I wonder, accidentally out loud as I close the door behind him.

“What?” he asks politely. He’s carrying a large reusable shopping tote, which he sets gently on the floor near the kitchen table.

“You! You come over here looking like that, and your face is all scruffy, and I can’t remember if I shaved my junk when I showered yesterday. It’s a lot to deal with, that’s all I’m saying.”

He looks like he wants to laugh, but is pinching his lips together to keep it inside. His eyes travel down to the crotch of my pants before landing back on mine, alight with mischief.

“What’s in the bag?” I ask him.

“A razor,” he jokes, and I shove him back a step as he laughs. Bending over, he picks it up and hands it to me. “Housewarming gift.”

As I dig through the bag and pull out a plethora of goodies, he strolls around the small apartment. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, enjoying the way the light hits him as he pauses to look at the view out my window. He turns toface me when I let out a cackle as I pull a candle from the bag of gifts. Popping the lid off, I smell it.

“Right before you got here, I was thinking about how I wished I had a candle to light,” I tell him.

“So, you didn’t shave and you don’t have a candle.” He shakes his head in disappointment. “Are you sure you’re ready to be entertaining guests, Remy?”

Flipping him off, I get back to the seemingly endless housewarming gift. The last two items are a box of condoms and a giant bottle of lube. When I look up at him, he’s watching me and grinning. I wave the lube in the air, trying to feign confidence even though a small flutter of nerves were just birthed in my stomach.

“What shall we lube up first?” I ask, heart rate kicking up as I watch Grayson walk toward me and hold out his hand. I place the lube in his palm and he discards it on the kitchen table with all the rest of the stuff he brought.

“Nothing,” he says, making me frown. Just because I’m nervous doesn’t mean I don’twantto do anything.

We’re standing close, but I still close the distance a little further and even go so far as to put a hand high on his hip. His eyes are moving so rapidly over my face, he might be trying to memorize it.

“Gray,” I start, but he stops me by the simple expedient of putting his hand flat on my chest. I immediately look down, staring at his splayed fingers and big palm. He can probably feel how fast my heart is beating.

“Do you mind?” he asks.

“No,” I answer, and find myself walked gently backward until my back hits a wall.

Now, I know I’m well below the average height and weight for a professional hockey player. Even so, I’m not aneasy guy to push around. But Grayson isbig. With my back to the wall and him in front of me, I’m completely hemmed in. Physically, I could probably get him to back off if I really needed to, but it wouldn’t be easy. Resting my head back against the wall, I raise my chin until I can lock eyes with him. The position we’re in has me feeling a little afraid but a lot excited. I really want to see where this is going.

He slides his hand up to my neck, mimicking the exact way he touched me at the club when he kissed me. My nervous system is whizzing with excitement as he leans down. All I can think about is that damn scratchy chin of his.

At the last moment, he uses his thumb to push my jaw to the side and his mouth lands on my cheek and not my lips. I try to turn my head back, but he holds me in place as he kisses down to my throat. I’m about to complain about the change in trajectory when his cheek scratches against the sensitive skin of my neck, and my eyes practically roll into the back of my head.

“Do that again.” I gasp, sounding exactly as needy as I feel. I want to feel that sensation on every fucking inch of my body.

He laughs—the bastard actually laughs—and instead of dispensing with the kissing and rubbing his face all over me, he coasts his lips across the line of my jaw. I’m not sure exactly how long he spends kissing my neck, but it feels like a goddamn eternity before he lifts his head and kisses my actual lips. I groan, already too keyed up from the little we’ve done.

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