He’s waiting for me on the doorstep. Or maybe he’s putting empties out for the milkman.
Either way, I don’t have to knock. I slip past Galen’s car and he’s right there, framed by the soft glow from his house, wearing nothing but charcoal grey pyjama trousers and a grin that reels me in like a fish on a fucking hook.
The door closes behind me.
He presses me against it and kisses me, pushing my coat from my shoulders, his tongue in my mouth as if it belongs there.
It’s starting to feel like it does, and I’m not sure how that fits with Tam’s theory about fleeting encounters, but I’m not here to think, and Galen seems to know it.
I leave my shoes by his front door and let him take me by the hand and coax me to the stairs—a departure from the couch we’ve rolled around on the handful of times I’ve been here.
“Still don’t have a bed,” he warns. “But the heating works better upstairs, and I’m guessing you haven’t had much time to warm up since I saw you.”
Barely an hour has passed since he left me in the town’s main car park, but I’m far from cold, and I follow him upstairs with fire in my blood.
There’s no carpet on the landing, no door to the second bedroom, and the one he leads me to hangs at the kind of angle that lets me know whoever fitted it walked away before they kicked a hole in it.
Beyond that, Galen shows me into a room that’s decorated, but mostly unfurnished. True to his word, there’s a mattress on the floor, but it’s made up with clean sheets and thick pillows, and it smells good in here. Fresh laundry and Galen.
“Told you I was messier than you.”
I blink as he speaks, realising he’s moved further into the room to scoop a pile of clothes from the carpet and dump it on top of another pile. “My place is only tidy because I have nothing else to do when Esme’s in bed. I make plenty of mess at my brother’s house.”
“Are you happier there?”
The question seems left field, but I go with it. “I’m more myself there than I am on my own.”
“People person?”
“Wouldn’t go that far.”
Galen straightens another pile of his belongings. Then he comes back to me with the beginnings of a smirk on his face. “Maybe you’re just better in groups, eh?”
I’m better withhim, but he steals my breath before I can speak, claiming my mouth with a kiss that feels different to any we’ve shared before—and we’ve shared a lot.
Maybe because we’re in a bedroom.Hisbedroom. I don’t know. But my heart seems to pump louder as Galen starts to peel my clothes off, and my dick…fuck. I’m so hard my whole body aches with want, and only Galen’s touch calms the pain, evenas he strips me naked and leaves me standing as he retrieves a nondescript wash-bag from the corner of the room.
He unzips it, tossing it on the mattress.
I glance at it, see lube, condoms, and…poppers, maybe? Whatever. My pulse kicks up a gear and I snatch a shaky inhale.
“Hey.” Galen puts his hands on my face. “Nothing in that bag means anything. It’s there so I don’t have to go looking for it if we need it. It’s fine if we don’t, okay? There’s no expectation here. We can chill and watch a fecking film.”
“On what?”
There’s no TV in his room.
Galen shrugs. “We’ll figure it out.”
I believe him, on all counts. I reach for him. Wind up taking his hand, and somehow, it works. We come together and I slide my hands to his waistband, easing down the loose trousers he’s wearing, taking a deep lungful of his scent as his shower-damp hair grazes my cheek.
The pyjama trousers get snagged on his cock.
Galen hums a laugh and frees himself.
Kicks them away.
Then he’s naked.I’mnaked. And his bed is right fucking there.
