“Fuck it,” Reece said out loud, and kissed him.
Time stopped. Grayson’s lips were soft, and so warm, sweet like lip balm with a faint hint of salt from sweat, and he waskissing Reece back.
And Reece’s empathy completely leapt from any semblance of control, lunging for Grayson like Reece could somehow read him with his lips, like it was ready to smash through any wall in its path to get to Grayson’s heart—
And then everything was black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
...for the first time in history, there will be a shield against these creatures who wield emotions like weapons. The Dead Man is, as his moniker implies, dead inside, and the change appears to be as permanent as corruption itself.
—NOTE FOUND AT [REDACTED], TEXAS
Grayson’s brain camescrambling back online too late, catching up with his lips just as he felt Reece’s mouth go slack and slip away.
He stared down at Reece, whose eyes were now closed, his head lolled against the backseat of the truck cab.
“Did you just—” Grayson cut himself off. Reece couldn’t hear him and it was a stupid question in the first place, because obviously hehadjust knocked himself out by kissing Grayson.
Oh, but they’d just done plenty more than kiss. Done enough that Grayson’s head was still fuzzy and spinning. Itwashis head, wasn’t it? Or was it his heart, beating too fast? Adrenaline or the afterglow, maybe, still thrumming through him.
Reece’s face was relaxed, unusually vulnerable, his grumpy outer shell gone so that he looked every inch the gentle empath he was inside. His lips seemed extra soft without their perpetual frown. Grayson licked his own lips without meaning to, unexpectedly sweet, because of course Reece tasted like the sugar he loved.
“Care Bear—” He cut himself off again, half because talking to an unconscious Reece was pointless, half because he’d been distracted by Reece’s hair where it was damp against his forehead. Grayson had made him sweat. The thought sent a ripple of want over him, a spark compared to the fire that’d been burning moments ago, but with the potential to become a conflagration all over again.
He shook his head to clear the thought, trying to focus. Why was he dizzy still? There was no time for that. He needed to clean up, needed to figure out next steps. He wasn’t going to think about how easy it would be to dip his head and brush his lips over Reece’s cheek or temple, where his skin would be warm and silky. Definitely wasn’t going to let himself get anywhere near Reece’s lips again.
This wasn’t a fairy tale—or if it was, Grayson wasn’t the prince who’d wake up Sleeping Beauty; he was the poison apple who’d cast the spell.
“Iamgonna call you Care Bear forever,” Grayson informed him, Reece’s words caught in his memories like a photograph. “You’re gonna be Bad Decisions Bear for life.”
But Grayson had made the same bad decisions, hadn’t he? Let his body take over, found a way to touch Reece, had kissed him back. Still wanted to kiss him, even now. Wanted to stretch out on the backseat and pull Reece all the way on top of him, wrap arms around him and let himself doze off.
Maybe if Grayson held him long enough, Reece would get used to the touch and he’d wake back up, and they could run away together to the safe house on Salt Spring Island, just the two of them, and forget the rest of the world.
He blinked.
What memory had causedthatthought? Grayson had slept with plenty of people, but it had always been casual. A lot of people wanted his size and strength in bed, but even before he’d been the Dead Man, he’d been too different from anyone else to ever find someone who’d want him long-term. There’d never been anyone serious, someone he could run away with.
How had his mind come up with a memory able to influence him into a thought like that?
He shook his head again. No point in even answering that question because it was out of the question. Being able to knock an empath out with his touch was one of the Dead Man’s weapons. Grayson could not risk losing it when it came to Reece.
And right now, he needed to handle this situation. Get them back on the road. Pull on a shirt without bloodstains.
Find a towel.
And probably burn Reece’s gloves.
A few minutes later, the backseat held no signs of their moments together, and Grayson had the passenger door open. He leaned through the door frame, awkwardly reaching in to get his arms under Reece’s knees and upper back. He lifted him off the seat, bridal style this time, and pulled him out of the truck’s backseat.
Snow had started to fall again, tiny spots of cold on the back of Grayson’s neck, the big, soft flakes catching in Reece’s dark hair. An occasional car could be heard on the highway, but the forest’s edge was quiet, and everything was cold and wet, but Reece was warm and the air was clean and bright, the scents of ocean and snow mixing with cedar and pine.
He set Reece carefully on the passenger seat, just as he had the day before. As he bent over to buckle him in, his gaze stole to Reece’s face again.
Maybe in another universe, Grayson wasn’t the Dead Man, and people left empaths the hell alone. Maybe in that universe, he’d be capable of being what someone like Reece deserved, and their moment in the truck would become more than a memory that occasionally surfaced—it would be the start of something amazing. Maybe in another universe, Grayson was still capable of happiness.
Because none of that was true in this one.
