Page 44 of Handy

“Sooooo, what did you want to talk about?” He puts the flowers into the makeshift vase and carefully smooths out any petals that were crushed when he kissed me.

I don’t know where to start. Maybe I should have spent more time figuring out exactly what I wanted to say and less time worrying about flowers. I run my tongue over my bottom lip and the lingering taste of Ledger’s mouth gives me the courage I need to just start babbling and hope for the best.

“I was like this even before Riley died. On the rare occasion I tell people about him, I always notice this flash of pitying understanding, like they’re thinking ‘ah, sothat’swhy you’re such an antisocial, scowling asshole.’ But the truth is, this is just my face and even when I was young and nothing bad had ever happened to me, I was still a moody dickhead.” I chuckle and look up to see Ledger leaning against the cabinet opposite me with an arched eyebrow and an expression like he’s trying to hold back laughter of his own. “I never did figure out what he saw in me, and after…” I shake my head, my chest tightening with the confession I’ve never made out loud, only ever to myself. “I mean, come on, who wins the lottery twice, right? For the past decade I figured I’d had the little slice of happiness I was going to get and wanting any more would just be greedy. What were the chances someone else would be stupid enough to fall for a grumpy asshole like me anyway?”

Ledger makes a strangled sound in his throat and pushes off the counter.

“Hi, it’s me, the stupid park ranger obsessed with grumpy bears,” he mumbles as he crashes into me.

I rumble another laugh, feelings expanding too rapidly inside my chest, until I’m sure I’ll burst. He cards his fingers through my beard and nuzzles his nose against mine.

“So…” I cup his face and search his eyes. “This thing, whatever we’ve been doing, it’s about more than just free handiwork, right?”

He slips a hand under my shirt to stroke over the soft swell of my belly and bumps our noses together again, a smile twisting his lips. The heat of his touch goes straight between my legs, making my cock swell and my balls get heavy.

“Now who’s the stupid one?” He brushes his lips against mine in an aching almost-kiss, and a whimper tightens my throat. “I’m your secret admirer, silly. And if I’d known getting my hands on you would be as easy as flooding my living room, I would have taken a sledgehammer to the pipes the same week I moved in.”

“You’re…” My mind spins over his confession. He was the obvious answer the whole time, but letting myself see that would have meant admitting that this was more than just a little bit of fun and light prostitution between neighbors. I’m still struggling to catch up with the timeline though. “No, the flowers came weeks ago, before I started fixing your living room or anything.”

He nods, bumping our foreheads together. “It’s possible I’ve had a teeny tiny, stalker-adjacent obsession with you pretty much since I moved in.”

“Since you…” All the words he’s saying make sense on their own, it’s just the whole context that I’m struggling to absorb.

Ledger grins and kisses me again, full and slow, stroking his tongue over mine as he pets my belly and grinds our swelling cocks against each other.

“I was unpacking my stuff, and I saw you through the window, shirtless on your deck, sipping your coffee with this look on your face like it had offended you. I saw your lips moving, so I cracked my window open to see if I could hear what you were saying, and you were grumbling about too much sunshine.”

“You were moving in, saw me being a grumpy asshole first thing in the morning, and… decided you had a crush on me?” I frown and he cackles, sinking into me a little more, like he can’t get close enough but he’s willing to try.

“What can I say? I like what I like.” He shrugs unapologetically, and my heart does that thing where it feels too big, like it might burst, again. “Does this mean I can stop playing it cool, big bear? Please tell me that’s what this whole conversation is leading to. Tell me I can openly swoon over all of your grunts and scowls, and the next time we go out we can call it a date.”

“This whole time has been you playing it cool?”

“Oh, baby, you have no idea.” He grinds against me again and smirks. “Are you my boyfriend?”

I nod and it feels like the bubble in my chest bursts, flooding my body with warmth. Ledger practically shrieks with happiness, the sound ringing in my ears until I drag him in for another hungry kiss.

LEDGER

Grifflikesme. He brought me flowers and he used all of his big feeling words and damn, this is way too exciting, I think I’m going to scream again. Except, screaming would require getting my tongue out of Griff’s mouth, and that sounds like the worst idea of all time. Like, Titanic levels of tragic. So I settle for making a muffled noise of excitement against his lips and trying my damnedest to climb him like a tree.

Unfortunately, we’re about the same height and I’m oddly denser than I look. Griff’s laughter vibrates around my tongue and against my lips, and happiness fizzes inside me. I stop trying to climb him and settle for undressing him instead. We tug at each other’s clothes, only breaking our kiss to get our shirts offbefore falling right back into the rhythm of trading our tongues back and forth and devouring each other’s lips.

A happy purr vibrates in Griff’s chest, pressed right up against mine, sending quakes of pleasure through me. My cock is hard and aching, straining in my jeans to get closer to Griff, just like every other part of me is desperate to do. He groans and drags his mouth away from mine to kiss along my jaw as he works my jeans open. I can’t stop running my hands over his chest and belly long enough to unbutton his pants. His nipples are stiff, and the gasp he makes when I run my fingers over them is so addictive I do it a couple more times just because I can. His belly trembles a little with every heavy breath and grumbly moan that slips out of his throat, and all I want to do is rub my face in all his soft hair.

“Want to go to your bedroom?” he murmurs, nipping and sucking on the stubbled skin along my jaw.

“And miss out on kitchen floor sex with my boyfriend? Absolutely not.” I finally manage to work one hand down to tug at the zipper on his jeans. I chuckle and flick my tongue against the shell of his ear.

“Kitchen floor—”

I cackle and drag him down onto the cool tile floor. We both kick our jeans and briefs off before I scramble on top of him, straddling him so our bare, hard cocks find each other. I moan, canting my hips so I can feel the length of his erection throb against mine. Precum drools from my slit and catches on his cockhead, and I return to my favorite activity—groping his sexy fucking body.

“Fuck, I want you, Ledge.” He groans, rolling his hips and burying his face against my throat.

“I couldn’t tell,” I tease, wrapping my hand around both our cocks, pressing them together and gasping at the toe-curling pressure and silky heat.

“No.” He sucks on my pulse point then kisses his way up towards my lips again, stopping when he reaches my chin and looking me in the eyes. “I mean,yes,I want you like that.” His beard tickles my lips and my free hand rests against his chest, where I can feel his heart pounding wildly. “But I want more than this. I want you waking up in my bed and talking too damn much before coffee. I want to know every stupid thing about birds that’s stored in that brain of yours. I want to tell you all the shit that’s hard to say to anybody else.”

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