by Ashlyn Kane
Thank God. He shoved Flip’s pants down. Bernadette could retaliate however she liked—it’d be worth it. “I am leaving such a good Yelp review.”
Flip helpfully stepped out of his trousers, but before he stepped close for another kiss, Brayden saw a look of consternation cross his face.
“What?”
“I’m trying to work out how to get your pants off without letting you off the counter.” He mouthed down the other side of Brayden’s neck and then lower. He swept his tongue over Brayden’s collarbone, then his pectoral muscle as he slid Brayden’s zipper down.
“Teamwork?” Brayden gasped. Reluctantly he released his grip on Flip’s dick, braced himself on the counter with both hands, and lifted his lower body enough for Flip to yank his pants and underwear down. Brayden kicked them off and promptly wrapped his legs around Flip’s hips again.
“Don’t tell me if this is the kind of teamwork you got up to when you played baseball,” Flip huffed as he smoothed his palms up Brayden’s thighs.
Brayden hooked his fingers in the waistband of Flip’s underwear and pushed it down the rest of the way with his heels, freeing his dick just as Flip took him in hand. Then—at a horribly inappropriate moment—he started to laugh. “No.” He shook his head before Flip could get the wrong idea and kissed him quiet. “But I did play catcher.”
Flip groaned into his mouth, but he cut off when Brayden pushed him away. “What—”
“As hot as this is, I’m pretty sure you can’t fuck me and kiss me at the same time on this counter. That’s not a challenge,” he said quickly as Flip narrowed his eyes. “It’s an observation that there’s a giant bed in the next room, and I bet you could have my ass on it in ten seconds. Which is something I’m interested in. If you are?”
Flip stared at him. “If I am?” he repeated.
Brayden batted his eyelashes.
That was all it took. Brayden darted out a hand for the basket of necessities as Flip lifted him again. Their bodies rubbed together as he moved, and he teased Brayden’s crack with his fingers until he almost dropped the lube.
The mattress rushed up to meet him, and Flip followed, pushing the basket farther up the bed to safety while he ravished Brayden’s mouth, his body cradled between Brayden’s hips. “I want to do this right,” he murmured, almost shyly.
Damn it. Now was no time for feelings. Definitely not the bittersweet kind, at least. Brayden couldn’t think about Flip being sweet to him knowing that in a few weeks they’d be parting. “Let’s settle for doing it fast and then doing it again?”
“God, you’d be a terror in politics.”
Brayden laughed as Flip pressed one last kiss to his chest and then sat up and reached for the basket. He pretended his breath was steady when Flip pressed a slick finger inside him, but his heart was beating in trips and stutters, and his fingers curled into the blankets when Flip found his prostate with two. “What,” he gasped, “you’re not intimidated by flight attendants?”
“Shut up,” Flip told him again, just as fondly as the first time, and withdrew his fingers. “Ready?”
“Long past.”
The first push of Flip’s cock inside him didn’t break his world apart. It seemed to click together instead. Their eyes met and held, and then Flip exhaled quickly and shifted his hips and Brayden’s nervous system lit up like a Christmas tree.
He was right, it didn’t last. Flip kissed his shoulder, his mouth, his neck, and Brayden dug his heels and fingers into Flip’s back, needing everything more, now, harder. Flip seemed to know just where to touch him, or maybe it simply didn’t matter—a fleeting touch on the inside of Brayden’s upper arm got a shudder.
“Flip,” Brayden cried, shutting his eyes as Flip nailed his prostate, then again. His stomach tightened. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten this close, this fast. Then again, they’d had a week of foreplay. “I—”
“Me too,” Flip said, though even Brayden wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say. His face was close, their noses brushing. Brayden tilted his head until their mouths touched again.
He didn’t even have time to gasp out a warning when Flip’s hand, still slick with lube, curled around his cock. One second he was ready, body thrumming with almost. Then that simple touch, Flip’s thumb rubbing under the head of his cock, and he cried out again, wordless this time, pleasure bursting through him.
Flip shook against him, breathing shallowly against Brayden’s mouth, hips still thrusting minutely, wringing out every little aftershock.
Finally they stilled, and Flip rested on his elbows and then reached down to hold the condom as he pulled out. He curled on his side next to Brayden, loose-limbed and, if Brayden were any judge, sated.
Brayden opened his mouth, hoping for a smart remark, but before he could get anything out, Flip kissed him, languid and slow, his faint stubble scraping against the hypersensitive skin around Brayden’s mouth, which already felt raw. He shivered—not entirely from pleasure—and goose bumps rose on his upper arms.
Flip pulled away, flicking his gaze down Brayden’s face, trailing his finger over Brayden’s shoulder. “We should clean up,” he said regretfully.
Brayden was about to counter that they should get dirtier instead, but then he remembered the room’s setup and pushed up onto his elbows. “I agree. Think we can both fit in the tub?”
FLIP woke up to quiet music playing on the alarm clock. At first he didn’t know why. He was still muzzy from sleep and warm with Brayden tucked against him, sleeping the sleep of the sexually exhausted. At least, Flip liked to think so.
Then he looked up.
It seemed he wouldn’t have to extend their stay. He was almost disappointed.
“Brayden,” he murmured, carding his fingers through Brayden’s hair. Irina had cut it into a more European style—short on the sides with a few inches of length on top. It was already growing in, though, returning to his former all-over disheveled waves. Flip looked forward to it. The unruliness suited him infinitely better.
“Mhhhh,” Brayden answered, somewhat muffled by Flip’s chest. “I need at least another hour before round four.”
Idiot. “Should I tell Mother Nature to wait on you, then?”
Something of this seemed to register, because he took a deep breath and then another, tickling the skin of Flip’s neck, and raised his head, brow furrowed. “What?”
Flip moved his hand from Brayden’s hair and tilted his chin toward the sky. “Look up.”
Finally comprehension registered, and Brayden turned onto his back and snuggled close against Flip’s side.
Above them, the Northern Lights glittered through the Milky Way in shades of green and blue, chasing each other in some otherworldly dance. As they did, they cast their colors over the landscape, a nearly pristine canvas of white. Then a wave of fuchsia swept in, arcing across the sky before yielding to green.
And then suddenly the whole sky was alive with color, pulsing in spiked, concentric ribbons of lime and viridian and scarlet.
The two of them remained silent for countless minutes, taking in what felt to Flip to be an intensely private, personal show. And then Brayden drew in a shuddering breath, and Flip tore his gaze from the sky to take in the play of color over Brayden’s features, and found that his eyes were glassy bright. “Brayden? What—”
Brayden raised a hand to Flip’s lips, and Flip kissed the tips of his fingers. “It’s beautiful,” Brayden said. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
It turned out he didn’t need the full hour after all.
With permission to take his time, Flip put everything he hadn’t said into his touches—a soft kiss at the corner of Brayden’s eye, one at the edge of his jaw, a third above his heart. He’d been a fool to believe anything about their relationship could be pretend when Brayden was his perfect complement in every way. But if he voiced his feelings now, would Brayden believe him? Surely even Brayden, who did nothing by half measures, couldn’t f
all in love in a week.
You did, said a tiny voice inside him, but Flip hushed it and laced his fingers with Brayden’s. The beautiful glass bubble that let the sky in kept the real world out just as well.
Chapter Nine
AS Flip had expected, Brayden made an excellent travel companion—when he could be convinced to leave the igloo.
“We need breakfast,” Flip pointed out when Brayden’s stomach growled at nine thirty the next morning. The night before, they’d missed dinner, eating only off the snack tray the hotel staff had thoughtfully packaged away in the refrigerator.
Brayden leered and gave Flip a once-over. Flip threw a pair of underwear at him. “No protein-shake jokes.”
“Spoilsport,” Brayden teased, but he put the underwear on, followed by the rest of an appropriate Nordic winter outfit, and let Flip lead him to the main building for breakfast.
Over slow-cooked oats topped with nuts and preserves and crispbread with thick-cut cheese and paper-thin lox, Brayden flipped through the hotel activities guide and exclaimed every second page. Perhaps Flip might have an excuse to extend their stay after all.
“I’d love to check out the snowboarding, but—oh, a dogsled tour! I’ve never done that.” He looked up abruptly. “Uh, what about you, though? What do you want to do?”
As far as Flip was concerned, the trip’s sole purpose was to be good to Brayden. “Everything you’ve mentioned so far sounds good.” Flip enjoyed skiing, which was what he’d do if Brayden wanted to snowboard, though he’d rather spend the time doing something cozy. Perhaps he could nudge Brayden in that direction. “Do you think it’s too much to do the dogsledding and then the sleigh ride/barbecue?” That was, to put it delicately, a lot of sitting.
“Probably, but that’s why there’s coffee and Advil.” He grinned. “Let’s do it.”
The dogsledding was exhilarating, though cold. Flip marveled at the athleticism of the animals and their sheer joy for the task, but his favorite part of the trip came before and after the dogs were hitched, when Brayden was baby-talking to them and thanking them for a job well done.
But the sleigh ride. If Flip lived to be a hundred, he would never forget it—tucked next to Brayden in a sleigh behind a snowmobile, while overhead every color of the rainbow fought to prove itself the most beautiful. Brayden spent most of the ride with his head tilted back against Flip’s arm as he took in the sky. They were both going to have sore necks tomorrow, because Flip couldn’t tear his own gaze from Brayden’s face.
They stopped for a barbecue under the endless sky and drank blueberry tea to keep warm. When they at last stumbled back to their igloo, even Flip was sore and tired and cold. He was contemplating the fireplace, and maybe a call to the front desk for a hot-water bottle for his feet, when he leaned against the door to the sauna to take off his boots and noticed it was warm.
“Surprise,” Brayden said. “I asked the hotel staff to start it for us so it would be ready. I am a genius.”
In the small, hot, humid space, Flip let him prove it with his hands and mouth and then returned the favor, Brayden straddling his lap and writhing as Flip stroked him and kissed his neck. Flip’s spent cock twitched hopefully when Brayden came, spattering Flip’s stomach with release, but neither of them had much energy left. They rinsed off in the shower, fell into bed, and sleepily watched the remainder of the show.
Eventually it clouded over enough that Flip could close his eyes without guilt. He drifted off to sleep with Brayden half sprawled on his chest and thought if he could spend the rest of his life like this, he would die the happiest man in all of Lyngria.
BACK at the palace on Wednesday, Brayden realized he had a problem.
“You want to go shopping,” Flip repeated.
“I’m not going to be the guy who doesn’t have Christmas presents for his boyfriend’s family.” Fake boyfriend. Whatever. It was probably splitting hairs at this point. Either way, he wasn’t going to be that guy. “Clara would never forget it.”
Of course she might have plenty of reason to hate him anyway, because even if there was something between him and Flip, Brayden would eventually have to go back to work, and then what? But there was no reason to disappoint her prematurely.
Flip sighed. “I can’t go with you today. State business with my mother.”
“Two days before Christmas?”
Flip’s cheeks colored a bit. “In fairness, I did just sneak off with you for two days. We probably could’ve done this then, but the weather forecast….”
It had been snowing when they left Finland. “All right, you get a pass.” Brayden sighed long-sufferingly, but it was only partially put on. He was all too aware that their time together had an expiry date. Now every day felt precious.
Flip kissed the side of his head, a habit he’d picked up on their trip. “The crowds won’t be as bad here as they are in Toronto, but it won’t be a picnic. You sure you don’t want to shop online?”
He shook his head. “I need to get out and browse. Unless that’s inconvenient?”
“We’ll make it work.” He trailed his fingers over Brayden’s shoulder and then took the seat next to him. “I think my dad’s planning to go out. Would you mind doing your shopping together? We’ve got a skeleton crew for security around the holidays.”
“Oh my God, a few hours alone with your father? Good thing there’ll be half a dozen chaperones.”
Flip sighed, put upon. “Of course you think my dad is hot.”
“No, I think your dad is scorching. I’d use the acronym but I’m afraid you’ll never speak to me again because of the trauma.”
Flip’s expression turned wry. “Thank you for considering my feelings. I appreciate it.” Then he pulled his chair closer to the table and folded his hands, and it was like a switch had flipped. Brayden paid attention, and he noticed things. Flip got formal when he felt emotionally vulnerable—probably some kind of PR training he’d had drilled into him. Brayden wished he didn’t feel the need for it when it was just the two of them.
“My spidey senses are tingling,” Brayden said before Flip got the courage to open his mouth. He hoped a little humor might help Flip relax. “What’s up?”
“I’d like to talk to you about extending your visit.”
A little thrill raced down Brayden’s spine, but he quashed it before he got too excited. That didn’t have to mean what he thought it meant. “Oh?” He tried to keep his voice neutral, but a certain amount of hope must have slipped out, because Flip almost smiled.
“I think—I hope—we can both agree that for the past few days we’ve been… operating outside the bounds of our original arrangement.”
Brayden cleared his throat as his ears went hot. “That’s one way to put it,” he agreed.
“Yes, well.” Flip smoothed his hand over the back of his neck and then seemed to realize he was fidgeting and put it on top of his other one. “I thought—a few weeks hardly seems like enough time for us to get to know each other properly.”
I don’t know, I felt pretty well-known last night. For once in his life, Brayden bit his tongue on the instinctive quip. His heart skipped a beat. Could this really be happening? “I… could think about taking a leave of absence,” he suggested cautiously.
Flip broke into a wide grin and his posture relaxed. “Yeah?”
Brayden would do a lot for a Flip who loosened up enough to grin like that and use slang to boot. “Yeah.”
Holy shit, his life.
“Then it’s settled.” He rose from the table, and Brayden did too—just in time to be caught in a kiss that felt almost unfamiliar, full of warmth and hope and joy. He could get used to being kissed like that.
Of course, they were still new enough that the kiss turned lustful quickly enough, and a few seconds later Brayden was humming in pleasure as Flip squeezed his ass. But no sooner did he offer this promise than he pulled away, looking regretful. “I really have to go or I’ll be late.”
Brayden sighed and res
ted his head against Flip’s chest for a moment. “I get it. Duty calls.” Then he cheered. “Rain check?”
“Of course.”
BRAYDEN did not have the slightest clue what to expect from a shopping trip with Prince Irfan, but he certainly didn’t expect it to begin with Irfan insisting on driving.
“Unless you want to?” he asked as he dangled the keys in front of Brayden’s face. “What’s the point of having expensive cars if you don’t get to be the one to drive them?”
“Oh, uh.” Brayden hadn’t anticipated needing to confess something to Flip’s dad before he mentioned it to Flip. “I actually don’t have a driver’s license.”
Irfan accepted this without explanation. “Oh well. More fun for me. Come on, get in. The front has massaging seats.”
Brayden was tempted to look to Irfan’s bodyguards for guidance, if only because this seemed like a safety issue. But ultimately he decided they were probably used to going along with Irfan’s whims, whatever they happened to be. One of them got in the back seat, and two more got in the SUVs parked in front of and behind Irfan’s. “What is this, anyway?” Brayden boggled at the array of seat controls.
“Fun,” Irfan answered, and revved the engine.
Unfortunately for Irfan, the security team boxed him in and never let him get more than ten kilometers above the posted speed limit, a fact Irfan lamented at length as he drove.
Brayden missed sitting in the back with Flip. Since Thomas’s accident, he mostly avoided sitting in the front seat.
Perhaps Irfan noticed he was nervous, because after a few moments, he slowed down and seemed to at least pretend to pay more attention to his surroundings. “So, Christmas shopping, yes?”
“I mean, obviously it’s last-minute, which isn’t ideal.” Shit, how was he going to explain he hadn’t brought gifts for Flip’s family? They were supposed to be dating.
“Flip says you were nervous about meeting us,” Irfan prompted, as though offering Brayden a lifeline out of his own lies.