He had these flirty moments sometimes, where he’d flick his wrist or bump his hip. I loved watching him get playful that way. Like he could still shake his rear and purse his lips, even when he was holding the door for me.
We stood, and I linked our elbows back together as we walked the rest of the path. I started to sway side to side as we neared the door, and Grayson swayed along with me for a minute before we both started laughing and had to walk like normal again, releasing each other’s arms so that he could get the door for me.
“A beautiful date with a beautiful man,” I said, pulling my sunglasses from my pocket. “How am I so lucky?”
“You know… Grayson said, a breeze tussling his hair. “Demir and I had a part two to the date…”
GRAYSON
The more time I spent in the loft where the guys lived, the more I could see their individual influences there. I had no doubt, for example, that Demir was the one reading a large Russian novel, while Marco was almost definitely flagging possible haircuts for Demir in a fashion magazine with pink sticky notes. And the contemporary art, framed on the wall? All Marco, except for the one painting of a bridge, which I somehow knew was Demir.
Marco returned from the bathroom and joined me on the couch. I turned to the side table, then grabbed a small photo in a silver frame, showing the guys with a group of friends on vacation, somewhere with a giant waterfall. “Are these your friends?” I asked.
He smiled widely, then took the photo. “Alex you met,” he said, holding the picture straight in front of me and pointing over the top with an index finger. “And this is Sasha, Raul, and Paolo.”
“You all look very happy.”
Marco chuckled, then leaned over me to return it to the table. When he did, his shirt rose up, and I caught a glimpse of the neon pink waistband of his underwear.
My breath caught in my throat, and I fought down the urge to pull him down and swat his ass.
Great. Now I’m going to obsessively think about his underwear all night.
“We were very happy,” he said, “but also very drunk. Sasha had decided she didn’t want to ever get married, and so she threw herself a private honeymoon at Niagara Falls and invited everyone else along for the ride.”
I laughed. “And has she married?”
“Engaged twice. No marriages or divorces yet, though.”
I chuckled and glanced again at the photo out of the corner of my eye. “Some families can be good,” I said.
“That’s right,” Marco agreed.
He looked at me with that open expression of his, like he was welcoming me into his smile. My heart jumping, I laid my hand across his face and traced my fingers down his chin and across the soft, spare beard that he grew.
“You should come out with us,” he said. “Meet the friends. We try to get together every other week at a little bar nearby. It’s quiet, much more your speed.”
I dropped my hand down to his chest and felt how soft the fabric of his shirt was against my fingertips. “Yeah, I’d love that,” I said.
Marco leaned forward, and he brushed his lips across mine once, then twice. I placed my hand on the back of his head, and when I pulled us together, I sank my mouth into something pure, pink, and warm.
I pulled my lips away, although I wanted to hold him there against me forever. “You and Demir have a boundary that we keep our underwear on, right?”
“That’s right,” Marco said, batting his eyelashes playfully. He bounced up and folded his knees beneath him while he popped his shirt off and twirled it aside. I grinned as I tugged off my shirt, too, leaving my suspenders hanging by my side.
Fuck, he’s so hot.
“You guys seem like you have a really healthy… life together,” I said, stuttering off what I meant to say and feeling awkward that I might have brought something up I shouldn’t. We were all having sex together, I knew, but that didn’t mean they’d want to talk about their private lives with me.
“In bed?” Marco asked, then laughed warmly. “We’re lucky, it’s true. But have you got a look at that guy? How am I supposed to keep my hands off of him?”
I laughed, and Marco bit down on his lip while he flicked the button of his tight jeans open, pulling apart the top of the zipper.
“What about you, Grayson?” he asked. “What do you like to get up to in bed?”
My mouth went a little dry. I was comfortable talking about sex, but no one had ever asked me that so directly before.
I looked up and down Marco’s body, from the soft blonde happy trail that disappeared beneath the pink underwear to the nubs of his nipples, then up around his beautiful face.
