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REMY

I’d do any damn thing you asked me, Remy thought, staring up into Jed’s blue-gray eyes that weren’t cold at all right now. And then, as Jed gave him the half smile that always killed him and let more of his weight fall on Remy’s hips, he thought, Damn it, this is not fair. But he didn’t say it. He just breathed Jed in again.

“How about you give it two weeks,” Jed continued. “Stay here with me for two weeks, and we’ll see what happens.”

He rolled to the side and pulled Remy with him so that Remy was on top, and slid his hands slowly up and down Remy’s back, under his shirt, warm against Remy’s skin. Remy’s dick, which had already started paying attention, perked up even more. Then Jed slid his hands down under the waistband of Remy’s sweats to his ass and squeezed, and Remy groaned.

“You don’t play fair.” Remy said it out loud this time.

“You’ve got rules against this now?”

“Uh, no. But you know I can’t keep my head on straight when you do this.”

“Do you need to? I thought maybe we’d said what we needed to say.” Jed pulled Remy’s hips down tight and kissed his neck, and Remy gave in for a moment, let himself drown in the heat and the contrast of Jed’s hard body underneath him and the softness of his lips. There was something more he wanted to say, though, and he couldn’t fully let go until he got it out.

“I want to make sure, though. Because you give me so much, and I worry that I’m taking advantage or something.”

“Well, I worry it’s the other way around, because I don’t know what you see in me when you could have anyone. So. Stay for a while longer, and let me try to show you what you give me.” Jed shifted Remy so that Remy could feel that Jed was getting hard now, too.

“Fine. Two weeks.” As if Remy didn’t want to be with Jed more than anything, especially when Jed touched him like that.

And then Jed pulled him down and kissed Remy so hard he could barely breathe. He only stopped long enough to whisper in Remy’s ear that he should take what he wanted, and Remy let himself get lost in the friction and the heat and the sharp, sweet taste of Jed’s mouth as they ground into each other.

“I should have made you promise you’d distract me like that for the whole two weeks,” Remy said, not very many minutes later as they were cleaning up.

“Too bad you didn’t think of that earlier. But don’t worry, I’m not going to let you sit around stressing. We’re going on a hike this afternoon.”

“We are?” Remy was outraged. “Wait, we don’t even get, like, one rest day?”

“Being in nature is restful.”

“Uh, not on one of your hikes, I bet. I want to spend this afternoon sitting on your deck. And then doing what we just did, only naked and not on the couch.”

“Okay.” Jed gave his ass a few taps and pushed him so they were both sitting up.

“Really?” Remy was surprised it was that easy, but then, maybe he shouldn’t be, because it was almost always easier than he thought it should be with Jed.

“Yeah. As long as you come for a hike tomorrow morning before we have to go in.”

“Fine. You win. Or I win. Maybe we both win, it’s hard to say.”

Jed smiled at him, then, a rare full smile that made Remy so happy it almost hurt.

It ended up being ten days.

Ten days before his agent called him and said Colorado had reached out about a three-year deal, and the salary was probably as good as they could expect, but she thought the performance bonuses could be higher. She ran through the details and then asked, did he want her to negotiate, or did he want to try to explore other options? He was still a restricted free agent, but if he was unhappy, Colorado might let him go.

Jed was taking a break from cooking and had gone to pick up lunch, so Remy was left to figure it out himself.

“Can I think about it?”

“You can have twenty-four hours, but I want to hear from you tomorrow afternoon. You’re better off picking a direction quickly. Let’s not make Colorado think you’re setting up for arbitration if this is where you want to be.”

“Okay.”

“Anything you want to tell me about why this is a hard decision?” Anne-Marie was smart. She knew something was going on.

He still wasn’t going to talk to her about his love life.