by A. J. Pine
But Alex stood in the open doorway of the bedroom now, the tray he held across his midsection the only thing giving him any sort of coverage at all. Not that Miles wanted any part of the man in front of him blocked from view.
Shit. This man was a sight, bare and beautiful and ready to sate him in a wholly different way than he just had. It had been hard enough for the two of them to make it from the living area to the bedroom, mostly because Miles had been—well—hard. Every time Alex’s lips touched his, Miles’s body ached for more. And once they finished what they started on the plane, he knew he’d say yes to anything this man asked of him this weekend. Maybe he didn’t commit long-term, but he sure as hell had pledged his entire being to Alex for the seventy-two hours he’d be in Greece.
“You look hungry,” Alex said, and Miles caught himself licking his lips. He was starving, the last full meal he ate in Minneapolis seeming like it was days ago.
Alex set the tray on the side table next to the bed and crawled back in next to Miles.
They fit together like instinct, as if there was no question that when Alex slipped under the sheet, Miles would drape a leg over his and pull him into another kiss. Because hungry as he was for whatever was on that tray, he craved the taste of Alex on his lips just that much more.
“You are delicious,” he said, and Alex let out a small moan mixed with a deep, sexy laugh.
“You need to eat,” he told Miles, sliding away just enough so that Miles and his ready-to-go-again erection were no longer pressing against Alex’s thigh. “Let me feed you,” Alex continued, reaching over to the tray and coming back with something that looked like a green egg roll. “And then”—he teased Miles’s parted lips with his tongue—“I’ll feed you.”
Miles growled under his breath. This weekend would be the end of him for sure, but what a fucking way to go.
He propped himself up on one elbow and raised a brow at the item between Alex’s fingers.
“Dolmathes,” Alex said, answering his unspoken question.
Miles narrowed his eyes. “Does not compute.”
Alex laughed. “Grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, onion, dill…they’re my specialty, so you’d better think they are exquisite or else lie and say they are anyway.”
Alex held a napkin under Miles’s chin, kissed him, and then lifted the green egg roll to his lips. Miles opened his mouth and bit down, olive oil dribbling from his chin and onto the napkin. He may not have been a foodie, but he knew enough to understand that he would never eat a dolmathe prepared by anyone else ever again.
“Jesus,” Miles said after swallowing. He licked the tangy oil from his lips. Was that lemon juice mixed in there?
Alex popped the second half in his own mouth. “Most people call me Alex.”
Miles rolled his eyes. Alex made a move to clean his hand on the napkin, but Miles grabbed his wrist before he could do it, licking the tips of his finger and thumb.
Alex closed his eyes and sighed. Miles knew the napkin would do a better job, but he couldn’t let an opportunity to savor the taste of his skin go to waste. In fact, as absolutely exquisite as the dolmathe was, he had an appetite for something else entirely.
He climbed over Alex, straddling him, Miles’s hard length pressed against Alex’s hip.
“Are you sure you don’t have to help out at the party?” he asked, and Alex shook his head.
“That was the deal, since I was only arriving back from New York this morning—finish food preparations for this evening and tomorrow, and I get the night off. The serving staff is taking care of the rest.”
Miles wrapped both of his hands around Alex’s wrists, pinning his arms above his head as he sampled what he craved, starting with full, inviting lips.
“In that case,” Miles said when he took a breath, “I’d like to satisfy my appetite, if you don’t mind.”
He held Alex’s wrists above his head as he kissed his stubbled jaw and neck.
“I don’t mind,” Alex told him, his voice low and hoarse.
When Miles needed the use of his hands to support his own body weight, he repositioned Alex’s on the low headboard.
“Don’t let go,” he said, just the hint of command in his voice.
Alex gave him an amused grin, but his eyes were hungry with need.
“Yes, sir,” he said, and Miles continued his descent down the length of this beautiful man’s body, kissing and sucking until he found the trail of fine dark hair, the map to his desired destination. Only when he dipped under the sheet, his expression safe from detection, did he let his overconfident grin fade.
Man or woman, Miles had never had a preference. He found both beautiful in their own ways and understood that his sexual connection came from a place deeper than the physical, which was why he was both terrified and insatiable. He couldn’t get enough of the man who lay beneath him. It had been so long since he’d wanted someone as much as he wanted Alex, and here he was, ripe for the taking and his—all his—for two more days. And then what? Alex said he wanted more than just his name, but it was only to remember him. That’s what he’d said. Not to deepen their bond past the physical. Miles enjoyed the hell out of the physical, but what did it mean that Alex fed him in bed, made him laugh, and made him somehow feel safe when he was thousands of miles from home?
He didn’t want to think. Instead he swirled his tongue around Alex’s tip, the tang of salt on his taste buds. Then Miles took his solid length into his mouth and lost himself in desire.
Two more days, he thought as Alex writhed beneath him. Two more days and then good-bye—because what was the alternative?
There wasn’t one, not a single scenario where Miles could test the waters—see how far his appetite could take him or if he’d ever admit to himself what couldn’t possibly be true after only one day: that Miles was hungry for more than food or the sweet agony of what Alex did to him physically.
The thing he’d so easily avoided when he called the shots flew out the window when a seven-hour flight took away what he’d maintained for years—control. And now that thing, that need, was creeping up from the depths and threatening to tear down his carefully constructed fortress.
Connection. Miles hadn’t known he’d wanted it, needed it, had been missing it until he got a taste of the possibility.
What if there was no flight on Sunday evening?
What if Alex wasn’t threatened by his sexuality?
What if something more didn’t have to mean something he would lose?
Alex came on a shudder under Miles’s expert care, yet none of it really mattered, did it? Because there was a flight. Once Alex knew Miles was bi, things would change. And wanting what he couldn’t keep always ended in loss.
Chapter Twenty
Duncan
Duncan played the part of the fiancé who was grateful to make it back to his almost-wife. He had tables of inebriated Greeks and Scots in tears of laughter as he recounted the day’s ordeal, making light of what might possibly have been the turning point in his relationship with Elaina.
This was how Elaina learned the whole story—not directly from him but second-hand as he entertained their guests, Duncan’s father slapping him on the back in congratulations for taking a fist to the face in the name of love; Elaina’s mother kissing him on both cheeks and thanking him repeatedly in Greek, Efharistó. Efharistó, for the special token he’d brought for her daughter. Add to that the excitement of Jordan and Noah’s engagement that maybe wasn’t supposed to happen just then, and no one seemed to notice the growing tension between him and his wife-to-be, that they hadn’t touched or kissed other than when family members demanded a preview of that moment after they both said, “I do.”
But the show was over now. Elaina’s family was strict on tradition, so despite the many, many nights he and Elaina had spent in the same bed while they lived in Scotland, going home together the night before the wedding was severely off-limits. So Duncan lay in his hotel bed alone with a melting bag of
ice on his face and the balcony door ajar so he could listen to the rhythmic beat of the waves lapping at the shore. He had hoped the cadence would lull him to sleep, but his brain refused to cooperate, so all he could do was analyze his reunion with Elaina and what it meant for the events that were supposed to follow in the morning.
He looked at his phone. One in the morning. Shite. He’d been laying there an hour already and felt no more sure about what was supposed to happen next than he had when he’d walked into the room. Alone.
Of course, this was how it was supposed to go—Duncan in the hotel and Elaina in her parents’ apartment. Tomorrow they were to spend their first night as husband and wife together in a suite that would be decorated by Elaina’s family prior to their arrival. Now he wasn’t so sure.
A soft knock sounded, and for a second he couldn’t tell if it came from his door or the one next to his room. He waited, and the sound came again, still light but louder than before, so he rose to see who it was. With his good eye to the peephole, he could see the back of Elaina’s head, but he was certain it was her. He gripped the door handle and pressed down, the audible click deafening in the tense silence. He’d only gotten the door open a crack when he felt resistance.
“Put the chain on so it will only open enough for you to hear me,” she said, and Duncan could hear that she’d been crying. His throat tightened, and his instinct was to throw the door open and pull her to him, to promise her that everything would be fine even when he knew that might be a lie. But he also knew her superstitions about the wedding day, and technically it was the day of the wedding. He wasn’t supposed to see her until the ceremony.
So he did as she asked, chaining the top of the door and pulling it open only as far as the chain would allow. Then he slid down the wall next to the small opening. Elaina did the same, keeping her back to him. He wanted to argue that she was bending the rules, that technically he could see her, but he refrained, not wanting to do anything that might send her away.
“You could have phoned,” he said. “Would have been easier, aye?”
She shook her head, her black waves tumbling over her shoulders. Elaina no longer wore the dress that had left him breathless but instead sat before him in an oversize cable-knit jumper and jeans. He recognized that jumper and realized it was the one that started the snowball effect of the day’s events. He’d removed it again at the party, lain it over a chair, and forgotten about it. Now here was his fiancée, face most likely tear-stained, and her body enveloped in his clothes. Earlier today he had hated that jumper. It was to blame, after all.
But now he wanted to bury his face in the itchy wool, breathe in his scent mixed with hers, and— Fuck. What were they doing?
“I don’t want this to be easy,” she said, and something in his heart lurched. What was this?
“Wha’ are we doin’ here, Elaina? Why’d you come?”
She cleared her throat, and he could feel that she was gearing up for something big.
“I was wrong,” she started, and he held his breath, not only for Elaina uttering words he’d never heard her say but because he wasn’t sure he could take whatever she said next. “I was wrong to say yes to marrying you when as much as I loved you, I hadn’t fully accepted you. Not the way I should have.”
Duncan had to tell himself to exhale. Then to inhale again. Breathing was no longer involuntary, and depending on what Elaina said next, he might not remember to take that next breath.
“You were right,” she continued. “I judged you and had expectations that were not based on who you are but on who I thought my future husband should be.”
He heard a hitch in her breath and watched Elaina’s shoulders rise and fall. If anything was clear to him tonight, it was that Elaina may have loved him, but she loved a version of him that didn’t exist yet and may not ever.
“I am sorry,” she said, her voice small and like nothing he’d ever heard before.
Elaina Tripoli was a force to be reckoned with, and Duncan wasn’t sure how to reconcile the woman he knew with the one sitting before him now. It looked like they both still had a lot to learn about each other.
“I love you, Duncan. But you deserve better than what I gave you today. You deserve someone who would never doubt you and who would never expect you to be anyone other than who you are. I know you might not believe me, but I fell in love with the boy you were when I met you.”
He reached a hand through the crack in the door, the tips of his fingers just barely making contact with hers. She didn’t flinch, and he told himself that if he maintained contact—an almost-touch—that this evening wouldn’t be the end they were barreling toward.
“Elaina,” he said, his strained voice unrecognizable to his own ears.
“Let me finish,” she said, and he waited. “I fell in love with the boy you were because I knew you’d become the man you were meant to be. And you have, Duncan. I should have seen that. I should have trusted that. But instead I conjured up unrealistic expectations of what I believed was perfection, and because of that I was not the woman I should have been for you. I see that now.”
She let out a long, shuddering breath, and he remained quiet. He did not move his hand, though, his fingertips still pressed to hers.
“I cannot promise you that I will change my way of thinking overnight, but I will try. For you I will try to be the woman you deserve. I will be at the church in the morning. If you come, I will marry you. If you do not—if I have put the final straw on top of the camel—I will understand.”
Duncan’s lips teased at a smile, if only for a second. He could spend the rest of his life listening to Elaina’s rephrasing of English idioms. He wanted to teach her some of his family’s sayings, like the one his great-gran always said when Duncan’s father would get on him about his marks in school: Failing means you’re playing.
In other words, it was better to be shite at something than not to be taking part in it at all.
For fuck’s sake. That was it. Maybe they’d mucked things up right and left today—and plenty of other times in the past three years—but he and Elaina were active participants in this relationship. They weren’t just sitting by waiting for things to happen. He sprang to his feet to unlatch the chain, not having realized what he should have already known when the tips of his fingers went cold.
Elaina was gone.
He scrambled to his bedside table and unlocked his phone, his fingers furious against the uncooperative keys and the equally arse-like autocorrect. It took him three tries just to get out, You didn’t let me finish. He waited the requisite amount of time for her to make it back to her home above Ambrosia. Then he waited several minutes more—and several more after that.
But there was no response.
Who did Elaina Tripoli think she was, coming to his room and being all grandiose and selfless? Apologizing, even, for the love of ouzo…and Duncan did love the stuff. Fucking hell, who was this woman promising to try to be better and then walking away before he could catch his breath—before he could tell her the answer to his own question.
She was the reason he could only see out of one eye at the moment.
She was the woman who drove him mad with his anticipation of her reaction to his…detainment in Athens.
She was the woman who scared him the most, but wasn’t Duncan McAllister the kind of guy who enjoyed a little bit of risk?
Elaina Tripoli was the woman he loved, even when they made a right mess of things.
She was his fiancée, and in a few short hours, he would don his kilt and make her his wife.
Chapter Twenty-One
Noah
Noah sat at the foot of the bed, head in his hands. He got up and paced the length of the room a few times. Then it was back to the bed.
She had said yes. Jordan had said yes. Of course she had. She loved him. Or maybe it was more… Of course she did. She had an audience. Jesus, what if that was why she’d agreed?
He flopped down on the bed, flat on hi
s back, and closed his eyes. On any other day he would have joined Jordan in the shower, especially since tonight’s was purely gratuitous, her need to experience “the best water pressure ever” for the second time that day. But right now he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
She’d cried. She’d said yes. She’d let him put the ring on her finger. Everything happened as he’d wanted it to happen. Except for one thing.
It wasn’t where it was supposed to happen. Or when. Okay, so maybe that was two things. But he realized those two things were it. This proposal was supposed to undo the crap they went through in Aberdeen and turn all of Jordan’s memories of that place into new and improved ones. He didn’t want her to remember the year they met in Scotland as one where he’d pushed her away, scared that what they’d felt wouldn’t survive once they were back in the real world, separated by geography. He didn’t begrudge her the happy times she had without him. She’d deserved that. And they did get it right in the end, even making the long-distance thing work until Jordan had moved to Columbus for grad school. But that didn’t change that they had wasted those months in Aberdeen. Every time he thought about what it would have been like to spend that time abroad together instead of apart, he kind of wanted to punch himself in the throat.
He took in a deep breath, ignoring the tiny shudder as he exhaled.
“Hey.”
Noah’s eyes widened at the sound of Jordan’s voice. He hadn’t realized the shower had stopped.
“Hey,” he said, eyes trained on the blades of the ceiling fan above him.
Jordan perched on the side of the bed, wearing nothing but the hotel robe.
“You gonna make some room for me?”
He rotated his head from side to side, taking note of his arms sprawled out from his shoulders. He motioned for her to come closer.
“There’s always room for you, Brooks.”
She smiled, the simplest of gestures yet one that made him melt just a little every time she did it. Then she burrowed into the space between his arm and his body, her wet hair soaking through his T-shirt, but he didn’t care. He pulled her closer, prepared for the entirety of his garment to act as her towel, so long as she stayed connected to him like this.
