“Stop proposing to people you have no intention of marrying.”
They’d talked about that over dinner, too. About a man he used to love named Callahan who was Sebastian’s lifelong best friend. A man who lived in Myers Bluff, who was currently engaged to the sour-faced part of their group the very first day Beckett had served Rhys at La Creperie. Rhys had been honest about his regret over the way things with Callahan ended, but hadn’t wanted to linger on the conversation, and Beckett respected that. Rhys told him more about Ashley, the woman he was engaged to until a handful of months before, even though he’d never intended on marrying her at all.
“I plan on it,” Rhys said. “The next time I propose, I’m going to mean it.”
Beckett’s lashes fluttered and he cursed the way the checked wool suit made him feel like it could ever be him with Rhys’s ring on his finger.
“Being romantic is not the same as being in love,” he said. “Romance is a gesture. Love is…a feeling.”
“Only a feeling? Is it not an action? A response? A need?” Rhys pressed closer, turning so their bodies aligned.
Beckett could barely breathe.
“I don’t know about all that,” he rasped. “I’ve never been in love before.”
Rhys made a thoughtful sound, but didn’t say anything else. The car drove on, winding up the coast, away from home to some beachside hotel Rhys had booked for the night on account of the long drive back to Myers Bluff. Two glasses of champagne later and they arrived. Beckett was too buzzed and too high on the excitement of the night to worry about being waited on and tended to by the hospitality staff. He listened to the way the heels of their shoes clacked against the tiled walkway that led to their room, and he committed the sound of the door latching closed to memory.
His breath was suddenly so sharp and so loud, and Rhys reached for him, pushing the jacket off of his shoulders and onto the floor. He plucked at the buttons on his vest, stripping Beckett bare without so much as a word. It was romantic. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating.
“I never stop thinking about you,” Rhys murmured, dropping a line of delicate kisses up the curve of Beckett’s collarbone.
“About me or about this?”
“Both,” Rhys admitted, shrugging out of his own jacket and tearing at the knot on his tie.
Beckett slid his hands around Rhys’s waist, pulling his shirttails out of his pants as he walked them both backward toward the massive bed in the middle of the room. Rhys followed after him, eyes hooded and mouth parted. As soon as Beckett’s back landed against the sheets, their mouths collided in a passionate and fiery tangle of tongues.
Beckett’s entire body burned with want for Rhys, and their cocks rubbed together as they kissed, leaking and throbbing against his stomach. It was too good. Rhys was too good.
“Please tell me you have condoms and lube somewhere in this room,” he mumbled against Rhys’s mouth.
“Should be by the bedside. I called ahead.”
“Of course you did.” Beckett stretched back toward the nightstand, noting an arrangement of fresh flowers that overflowed out of a crystal vase in the center. In front of the vase was a bottle of lube and a box of condoms. He grabbed both, tearing open the box with desperate fingers while Rhys fiddled with the security seal on the lube.
“Money really will buy anything,” he said under his breath.
“Not you.” Rhys twisted the cap back on and moved to hand it back.
The comment was short, but jarring, and Beckett stalled, with a torn cardboard box in one hand and a plastic-wrapped condom in the other.
“No,” he said, discarding the box and ripping open the wrapper. “I suppose not.”
Beckett rolled the condom down his length and shoved Rhys’s shoulder until he fell onto his back. He arranged himself between Rhys’s long and toned legs, then took the lube bottle and flipped open the lid.
“I like that about you,” Rhys whispered.
Beckett squirted lube onto his fingers and reached down between Rhys’s legs, dragging a slippery hand over his balls before prodding toward his hole.
“What else do you like about me?” he asked, sliding his middle finger in down to the last knuckle.
Rhys fisted the sheets and arched off the bed, his lashes fluttering as his eyes rolled back.
“I like the way you make me feel.”
“How’s that?” He added another finger.
Rhys’s chin quivered and he wrapped a fist around his cock. He shook his head, and Beckett slid his fingers out. He didn’t have it in him to do more prep, and it looked like Rhys didn’t either. He lined the head of his cock up against Rhys’s lube-slick hole.
