“Yes. I don’t want to have even more regrets one day. I already have so many. And I would regret it if I didn’t let you spend your time the way you want.” Running a hand through his hair, Oliver sighed. He should tell him. He should tell him, so one day he wasn’t kicking himself for letting Felipe Galvan leave his life without him knowing how he felt. “I wasn’t completely honest with you before. I came up to your room to ask you to have dinner with me and not to talk about the case.”
Galvan repeated back what he said when the realization struck. “You were coming to ask me to dinner in order to woo me?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to make things awkward between us. That isn’t why I revived you. That was an accident. I never would have done it on purpose. That’s just unethical.” The words tumbled out so fast that he had to force himself to stop and take a slow breath. “But yes, I was going to ask you to have dinner with me. You said we should have lunch, and I was going to take you up on that while hoping I didn’t misunderstand your intentions.”
“And, instead, you found me dead.” Felipe’s brown gaze flickered over Oliver’s form before coming to rest on his hair. “Is that why your hair’s different?”
The tips of Oliver’s ears burned. “Gwen said it looked nicer this way. That I looked more approachable.”
Felipe laughed but not in the mocking way Oliver might have expected. It was small and bright and matched the lopsided grin on his lips. “I like your hair both ways, Oliver, and so you know, you did not misunderstand my intentions. But if you felt the same, then why did you react the way you did when I mentioned us sharing a room?”
“Because I didn’t want you to think I was lying about distance potentially snapping the tether to get you into bed with me.” Opening his mouth to speak, Oliver released a tense breath and chewed his lip. “I’m not like that, but it would be perfectly reasonable of you to assume I was. I should know more about my powers. I’ve lived with them for thirty-six years and know next to nothing.”
People always assumed things, most of them negative.
“And because I take things slow. Like really slow. I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea.”
Oliver stared down at his hands, wishing he had something to fiddle with or do. This was the part where people lost interest. When they realized he would startle like a deer if they moved too fast, despite how strongly he felt about them. Hesitance was rejection to them. Oliver raised his gaze as Felipe’s shadow fell over him. Their eyes met like they did in the lobby, and the noise of the world outside the room drowned beneath the roar of his pulse thundering in his ears. Felipe raised his hand, and when Oliver didn’t pull away, he swept his fingers across the other man’s cheek. Heat radiated from his palm, sending a chill down Oliver’s spine as Felipe’s other arm snaked around his waist and his back collided with the armchair. Shuddering at the skim of Galvan’s leg against his, Oliver closed his eyes and leaned closer. The tether tightened as Oliver pressed flush against Felipe’s chest, lips half a breath from touching. He couldn’t be sure which of them closed the gap, but in the space of a heartbeat they were kissing.
Not in the hot, frantic way he had glimpsed in the bathhouses or in dark alleys, but slowly, as if each touch of lip or slip of tongue wove into the tapestry of who they were and what they would become together. Oliver’s hand slid under Felipe’s shirt. Cradling his healing ribs, he tried to map the terrain of his body and remember how he felt beneath his fingertips. A stifled moan broke from his throat at the slide of Felipe’s hand across his ass, but a moment later, Felipe pulled back for breath. Oliver’s head swam with the heady rush of his absence and his blood pooling in the wrong parts of his body for thinking. Staring down at him, Felipe grinned and swiped his thumb across the corner of Oliver’s lip as the other man watched mutely from the arm of the chair.
“We can still take it slow if you’d like,” Felipe said in a rough whisper.
Every nerve in Oliver’s body sang, overwhelming his thoughts. If they continued, he would explode in a jangle of nerves the second his adrenaline cooled, but god, did he want to. He wanted nothing more than to pull Felipe Galvan down for another kiss and see how far they would go. Swallowing against the knot in his throat, Oliver nodded silently.
“Slow it is, then,” Felipe confirmed as he helped Oliver to his feet. “The bed or the floor, the next move is yours. There’s no wrong choice; I want to go at your pace.”
Planting a chaste kiss on Oliver’s cheek, Felipe held his arms for a moment before letting him go with a pat on the shoulder. “I’m going to get ready for bed. Good night, Oliver.”
Oliver stood quietly for a long moment until his blood cooled. He desperately wanted to trust Felipe Galvan. So many in the past had offered the illusion of choice but got angry when he picked incorrectly. By the time Galvan disappeared behind his bedroom door, Oliver finally worked the words free.
“Do you mean that? About no wrong choice,” Oliver replied, his voice halting.
“You said, you like to go slow, so I have no expectation of anything else happening tonight, except sleep. You have my word.”
Touching his kiss-bruised lips, Oliver closed his eyes. There was no malice in Galvan’s voice, no cloying seduction. He would take it at face value and hope Felipe wasn’t lying. In the empty parlor, he quickly changed into his pajamas and shoved a spindly chair under the doorknob for good measure. At the door to Felipe’s room, Oliver hesitated. He had made the decision to take the floor at the foot of the bed no matter what Galvan said, but if the man pressured him, he would be out of the room, tether or danger be damned. When he finally came in, he found Galvan in bed wrapped in his red robe reading the newspaper.
“There’s an article about my friend’s gallery in here,” he said by way of greeting. “I wanted to read it before bed, but I can turn the light off now if you want.”
“I don’t mind. I’m going to sleep on the floor over here, so it won’t bother me.”
As Oliver settled on the rug, a pillow sailed over his head followed by a heavy knit blanket that landed on him like a fisherman’s net. Pulling it off his head, he turned to find Felipe watching him from his pillow with a sly smile.
“I thought you might get cold. If you need another blanket, there’s one in the bottom of the bureau.”
“Thanks. Good night.”
Hunkering down with his borrowed pillow and blanket, Oliver closed his eyes and focused on the tether. It felt different this time, though he couldn’t put his finger on how. Maybe it was due to Galvan being far more whole than the shambling reanimated corpses he was accustomed to, but when he started to drift into that space between waking and sleeping, he felt Galvan’s heart beating at the other end of the invisible string. His heart slowed to Oliver’s sleepy pace, falling into rhythm until they beat as one.
