Page 31 of The Party Plot

Laurel’s stomach sank, his face heating up. “No, I—we should have stopped at the Piggly Wiggly or something, I—”

“I am not being seen with you, buying condoms, at the Piggly Wiggly in the middle of the night.”

Casey was right, of course. Everyone knew everyone around here. But part of him wanted it, the tawdry rush of buying condoms together under fluorescent lights. “Good point. What do we do?”

“Improvise, I guess.”

There was the clink of a bottle on the counter. Laurel wondered who had staged this place, and who kept the olive oil container currently in Casey’s hand so pristine, if Denise hired people to dust the kitchen and stock it with cute little labeled bottles even though no one had ever cooked in here, and God, he hoped it wasn’t Miss Mina, because he’d probably never be able to look her in the eye again; he’d probably never be able to go to an Italian restaurant again, either, because Casey was sliding two fingers into him, his skin silky with oil, and there was something timeless and filthy and decadent and downright—Babylonian about it, as if Casey were a spoiled prince in a villa somewhere and Laurel his concubine.

A vein pulsed in Laurel’s neck, and Casey pressed a soft, sucking kiss to it.

“Stop thinking. I can see you doing it.”

He did. All the thoughts in his mind were like books tumbling off shelves, and it was just the hot press of Casey’s fingers inside him and the scrape of Casey’s teeth against his bare shoulder and Laurel’s hands, scrabbling against the edge of the countertop. He felt Casey undo his own belt buckle, and the metal scraping against Laurel’s tender skin sent currents of panicked desire rushing through him. His body was alight, like the Eiffel Tower at night, like the whole city of Paris, bright enough to be seen from space, his cock hard and bobbing untouched out in front of him as he moved his hips to the rhythm Casey had set. He turned his head, nuzzling against Casey’s throat.

“You can—you can—”

“No I can’t,” Casey said. “Don’t be stupid.” But he punctuated it with a kiss to Laurel’s temple, his jaw. Laurel could feel the hard press of Casey’s erection against his ass, could tell from the slick sounds of his other hand that he was jerking himself off, even as he continued to make Laurel see stars. Laurel was pleading, babbling, saying things that would make his mother faint dead away. All the need and want and rage of the past few hours was pounding in his chest, his balls, his brain, blotting out everything else. The edges of his mind had started to go white and staticky, and his thighs were shaking, his teeth on edge, his fingernails bending against the tiled edge of the counter, and he leaned back and their lips met in a shuddering kiss, Casey whispering into his mouth, “Go ahead. Touch yourself.”

It barely took two strokes of his own hand before Laurel was coming, slumping forward with a groan. He felt Casey finish a few moments later, across his lower back, his lips pressed to Laurel’s nape.

Casey started to pull away, and Laurel fumbled behind him, grabbing his hand, wrapping his arm around him and pressing it to his belly. Making Casey feel how he was still trembling.

“I’m not staying the night,” Casey murmured, his breath quick against Laurel’s skin.

“I know. Just hold me up for a second. You made me weak in the knees.”

Casey chuckled, but didn’t reply. The pad of his thumb traveled over Laurel’s shoulder and down his back, leaving behind shivery trails of delight.

“What are you doing?”

“Just—” Laurel heard Casey sigh. “Counting your freckles.” Untangling his other hand from Laurel’s, he stepped away. “I need to use your shower,” he said, as Laurel turned to face him. “And your dryer, I think. My clothes are still wet.”

“It’s all yours.”

He took a long time in the shower, so long that Laurel was on the verge of sleep when Casey came in, smelling of dryer sheets and Laurel’s soap. Laurel hadn’t showered, content to just wipe himself down with a towel and fall, still naked, into bed. He’d told himself he was too exhausted to clean up, but really, he hadn’t wanted to get rid of the evidence of what they’d done, not yet. His skin was still tingling, and his breath caught as he felt Casey sit down on the bed. Laurel didn’t open his eyes, not sure what kind of goodbye he could expect.

Casey’s hand brushed his cheek. “I know you’re awake, Sleeping Beauty.”

Laurel said nothing, his heart pounding. He ached, suddenly, for the soft press of Casey’s mouth on his, for Casey to curl up next to him and hold him through the night. But Casey hadn’t been able to wash him off fast enough. And as Laurel himself had said, he didn’t do relationships.

After a moment, he heard the sheets rustle as Casey stood up. “Well, get some rest,” he said. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

Laurel stayed rigid in the bed, hardly daring to breathe, as he listened to Casey’s steps disappear off down the hall. The front door closed, and then there was only the sound of the surf and the rain.

*

Casey pinched a salmon egg between the tines of his fork, daring it to burst. It didn’t, continuing to stare up at him like some gelatinous, orange, alien eye. He swallowed, wondering if anyone would notice that he’d just been pushing around the food on his tasting plate, not trying any of it.

Probably not. Even though Casey was, ostensibly, in charge of this whole thing, no one was paying attention to him right now. It was barely past noon and the consultation with Landry Hall’s event manager had already plunged from awkward into excruciating. Denise had insisted on coming, and there was a weird, prickly coldness between her and Laurel that was sucking all other energy out of the room.

“I just don’t know,” Denise said for the thousandth time, examining a piece of shrimp. She hadnot knownabout a lot of things Casey had thought were locked in. The black-and-white color scheme. The types of flowers. Basically all the aspects of the ball that he had actually been looking forward to.

“It’s just a little forbidding, isn’t it?” she’d asked, as Casey had shown her mockups of how he’d drape the arch at the head of the ballroom in ivy and black hollyhock. And, “I don’t understand why it would be so difficult to get a wall of sunflowers. You know, something colorful. People love color, Casey.” And, “What flowers did Lavinia Bonard have at their Carolina Day celebration? Can’t we do something like that? Very classy, very light and airy.”

Lavinia Bonard had had hydrangeas and peonies, which didn’t exactly scream Halloween. “We’ve already locked in the floral order with the Abernathys.”

“Oh, I know, Casey, but we’re still almost two months out. I don’t see how hard it would be to just modify it.”

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