Under Wraps

by Louisa Keller

Not only was I not alone, I had a whole group of people around who had chosen or were in the process of choosing to be in my life.

  >>LEO: i know dude

  >>LEO: you should make ainsley part of your family too

  >>LEO: not, like, marry him or anything

  >>LEO: just figure out how to hang onto him

  >>LEO: he’s got plenty of money, you can make this work even if he lives across the country

  The thing was, Leo was right.

  He was absolutely right.

  And I needed to tell Ainsley before the end of the week.

  >>CARSON: thanks man

  >>CARSON: you’re right

  >>CARSON: i’ll figure something out with him

  A wave of happiness spread through me as I sent that last text.

  No matter what lay ahead of me, I had just decided on the path I wanted to take.

  And, sure, it might all blow up in my face.

  Dom probably wouldn’t be thrilled. A lot of people would probably gawk at the gay couple with a twenty-year age gap. There would be a lot of coordination involved, to see each other.

  But I wanted Ainsley, and he wanted me, and I had just decided to take a chance on that, to ask for a future together.

  I was brimming with contentment. Right up until Leo sent his next message.

  >>LEO: are you feeling okay about the anniversary on friday?

  It’s always jarring, having your happy bubble popped by a painful memory.

  I was used to the sensation, having dealt with it periodically for eight years.

  But this time it wasn’t just the memories that made my heart sink. It was also the fact that I had been ignoring the upcoming anniversary ever since I had arrived in Ponderosa.

  Sure, I knew it was coming up. That wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I could forget. But for the first time, I had allowed myself to notice its approach without looking directly at it. And some small, awful part of me thought, I don’t want to waste one of my few days with Ainsley. I don’t want to grieve when I could be falling more and more deeply in love with him.

  Horrified by my own thoughts, I physically shook my head, trying to dislodge the traitorous idea.

  How could you even think that? I asked myself angrily.

  >>CARSON: i don’t want to talk about friday

  I wished that Leo was there with me, so I could talk to him out loud. And, as if he could read my mind, my phone began buzzing incessantly, his name popping up on the screen. I hesitantly answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey.”

  We were both silent for a moment, and then I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “That sounds like something someone I have to worry about would say,” Leo pointed out.

  I snorted.

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  “Dude, I’ve known you for ten years. You don’t have to, like, play it cool around me. ’Kay?”

  “God, Leo, what do you want me to say?”

  “Uh…say whatever’s true, bro.”

  “What if I want you to fuck off and leave me alone?” I asked lightly. “What if I really don’t want to talk about it?”

  I could practically hear his casual little shrug.

  “Then we can talk about something else. Or just sit on the phone without talking. Or I guess you could hang up on me. I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t wanna do, cool? But I’m also not gonna let you feel alone.”

  And, goddammit, I was tearing up.

  “I miss them, Leo.”

  “I know, buddy. I know.”

  “You know Andrea would be turning twenty-one this winter? If she hadn’t—well, I’d be taking her to get her first legal drink.”

  “Yeah, and you probably would’ve been buying her alcohol for the past couple years whenever she came to visit Seattle,” he said softly.

  I sniffed, trying to keep some modicum of my composure.

  “She would’ve loved Seattle. Maybe she would’ve even followed me there, gone to UW or something.”

  “I’m sorry you never got to see her grow up,” Leo murmured.

  “God, me too.”

  “She’d probably be the one giving you advice about Ainsley if she were here.”

  “Yeah, teasing the shit out of me about it, too. Good thing you’re able to do that since she can’t.”

  “I’ll make sure to regularly tease you about your forty-five-year-old boyfriend,” Leo promised.

  “It might be a smidge too early to call him my boyfriend,” I said.

  “Lock that shit down, man. Not, like, in a Neanderthal way. Just…if you want a relationship with Ainsley, you should ask for it. With any luck, he wants the same thing.”

  “I’m gonna try to get through the week first. But…yeah. Boyfriend sounds really nice.”

  There was a light knock on the door, and Ainsley’s voice came through.

  “Uh, Leo, I gotta go,” I muttered.

  “Get some, man!”

  I hung up on him and padded over to the door. There was no way of knowing if Dom was in his room across the hall, which was probably why Ainsley was being so quiet. Pulling the door open, I found myself face-to-face with the man I was falling hard for.

  “Hi,” I whispered, taking in his beautiful lithe body, his gorgeous face, the lovestruck expression on it. “Come on in.”

  He closed the door firmly behind us and locked it for good measure.

  “I was thinking about this morning,” Ainsley said carefully.

  “Oh really?”

  My dick was already perking up, hoping that this was going to lead where I thought it might be leading.

  Ainsley blushed a deep crimson.

  “What we did in the shower…I’ve never even heard of anything like that,” he admitted, his eyes wide and earnest. “It was earthshattering, Carson.”

  Now my cheeks were heating. I pulled him in for a quick kiss, chaste and affectionate, and then sat down on the bed, patting the spot next to me.

  “It was incredible for me as well,” I assured him. “You felt so good, and everything you did…I never would’ve guessed you hadn’t done that before. You knew exactly where to touch me, how to touch me.”

  “I want you to show me more,” he said hoarsely. “All the ways that two men can be together…I want to learn every single way that I can possibly pleasure you. And I want to keep learning until I can do it all perfectly.”

  Fuck.

  This was like something out of a goddamn wet dream.

  And Ainsley wasn’t being performative, he wasn’t trying to seduce me. His words were completely sincere, and unbelievably romantic.

  God, I wanted him.

  I wanted him a million different ways, a million different times.

  “You want me to teach you,” I echoed, sliding a hand onto his thigh and inching toward his inseam.

  Yep, there it was, his cock all hot and hard, throbbing for me.

  Christ, I was barely touching him and he was already worked up.

  “Everything you know,” he breathed.

  “That might take longer than one night,” I warned as I pulled his shirt up over his head.

  “Good.”

  I took him apart that night, with my hands and my mouth.

  Looking back, it’s like a blissful montage of clever fingers wrapping around cocks; sucking him down my throat and guiding him through doing the same to me; letting the tip of one finger flirt around his hole just to give him a taste, and then pulling away; assuring him that there would be more tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

  And after that…well, we didn’t talk about it that night.

  We were too busy coaxing pleasure from one another.

  Flashback

  For months after the accident, I couldn’t get hard.

  Apparently, it’s not that unusual for people who have gone through trauma.

  For a while the interest wasn’t there
, and then there was a torturous period when I wanted to get off but couldn’t.

  I spent a lot of time really learning my body, exploring every possibly avenue to arousal, furiously studying goddamn anatomy. By the time my body finally started cooperating again, I knew more about the prostate than most doctors—and more about cock than most porn stars.

  My sex life went back to normal long before the first anniversary, and the men I slept with from that point on definitely benefited from all the research I had done.

  I knew pretty much everything there was to know about getting guys off. But until Ainsley, I had never wanted so badly to please someone.

  In a strange way, I was grateful that I had needed to learn so much about male sexuality.

  14

  Ainsley

  Waking up in Carson’s bed on Thursday morning was as lovely and strange as it had been to wake up with him in my bed the day before. He was an aggressive cuddler, all four limbs wrapped around me, and it filled me with a sense of peace that was as unfamiliar as it was welcome. He had mesmerized me for hours before we fell asleep, drawing two breathtaking orgasms from me with an obscene amount of build-up and complete ease. And, to my surprise and delight, I had been able to please him as well, with gentle direction and a lot of encouragement. His cries of yes, more, Ainsley, baby, were reverberating around my mind as I woke. Was it possible that we had been created solely for the purpose of bringing each other to completion again and again?

  Of course, I could not stay in his room all morning. I never should have fallen asleep there, and would not have except that my limbs had felt so light, my mind so free of worries. It had been impossible to resist the lure of sleeping in his arms.

  So, without rousing him, I untangled his limbs and slid from the bed. I took one last, long look at the stunning man who set my heart to racing, and then snuck back down the hall to my own room. There was something exciting about the secrecy, inconvenient as it was. I felt wild and young and free, invigorated by the clandestine tryst I was carrying on with Carson. Beau, to my annoyance, saw it all over my face when he dragged me outside for another run.

  “Someone got laaaaaaid.”

  “Beau, if you keep that up I will push you off the next bridge we cross.”

  “You just try it, lover boy.”

  I was hoping to pull Carson away for another stolen adventure when I got back to the manor, but he and Dom had gone into town.

  “They should be back in time for dinner,” Sydney said with a smile. “We’re all going to eat together tonight if that’s okay with you.”

  My heart sank. Carson would be gone for most of the day, and then we would be forced to sit through a meal with everyone else before I could get him alone. I suddenly wished that I had his number so that I could text him—let him know that I was thinking of him, longing for him. But I was too proud to ask Sydney for his number, so I just nodded and wandered away.

  The day passed slowly. At one point, Beau coaxed me into the hot tub, but it was a poor distraction. I was all too aware that Carson would be heading back to Seattle on Saturday night, and I to New York. It was such a waste, spending the day apart. And what was he doing? Spending time with Dominic? They saw each other almost every day when they were back home. It was selfish of Dominic to steal Carson away for himself all day, and I was bitterly jealous.

  But, no, that was not quite right either. Because Dominic had no idea that Carson and I were together. There was no way for him to know that it was unfair. The fact that I could not, logically, be angry with Dominic only made me more irritated.

  “Ainsley, if you don’t stop scowling, you’re going to get frown lines,” Beau warned, splashing me from across the hot tub.

  “Frown lines are distinguished,” I sniffed. “I will scowl if I want to scowl.”

  “Are you sulking because you miss your boyfriend?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously.

  “Stop being childish.”

  “Oh, come on, you’ve been pissy all day. He’ll be back in a few hours, relax. You have plenty of time to fuck around with him.”

  “I don’t, though,” I snapped. Beau quirked one brow, but didn’t say anything. “In three days, we will be an entire continent apart.”

  “And then you can fuck around with other guys. Or women. Or whoever. The world is your oyster, Ains.”

  I glowered at him, crossing my arms for good measure. He looked genuinely confused. “Am I missing something here? Because you’re…disproportionately upset about Carson going into town for the afternoon.”

  “It is not about this afternoon,” I huffed out. “This is bigger than that.”

  “Okay…uh…are you freaking out about your sexual orientation? Because there’s nothing wrong with—”

  “I like him,” I practically snarled.

  “Clearly, I found him naked in your bathroom this morning.”

  “No, Beau. I like him in a big way. I want more than a week of sneaking into each other’s rooms and making out behind waterfalls.”

  “You made out behind a waterfall?”

  “Beau!”

  “Right, sorry, uh…you’re saying that you’re sad to be going your separate ways at the end of the week?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m saying that I don’t want to go our separate ways. I want to be with him, Beau, in the real world. But he lives in Seattle, and I live in New York, and it is absolutely ridiculous to uproot my entire life after spending less than a week with him.”

  Beau gaped at me. “You—you’re in love with him.”

  “Well, there’s no need to sound so accusatory.”

  “You are,” he said, letting out a celebratory whoop. “You’re in love with Carson. Holy shit, Ainsley, this is huge.”

  I shushed him, looking around to make sure Alistair and Sydney weren’t around. “Stop it, right this second. This is a bad thing. He’s going to think I’ve lost it if I offer to move to Seattle for him, and I’m not going to encourage him to leave Seattle when he has so many important people there. So, either I lose him because of the distance, or I lose him because I ask for a relationship and he turns me down.”

  “Uh, while I can see that you’ve scripted out this entire conversation already, I’m gonna deviate a bit,” Beau said. “There’s another option. You ask him for a relationship and he says yes. It’s not impossible for the two of you to find a way to make this work, you know. And this is fast, yeah, but it’s not unheard of for people to just know when they meet someone. I mean, that’s why people talk about love at first sight. Because, sometimes it actually happens.”

  “Okay,” I countered, “but there’s still the issue that his best friend is my stepbrother and—oh yeah—he hates me.”

  “Dominic is coming around.”

  “Then there’s the age difference. I am old enough to be Carson’s father,” I pointed out.

  “He’s an adult, there’s no rule saying you can’t be with him. Plenty of couples have big age gaps. What’s your next excuse?”

  I flipped him off. “These are not excuses. They are logical, valid arguments.”

  “Ainsley, I know you better than anyone. I have never seen you happier than yesterday at that coffee shop, okay? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but…it’s pretty obvious to me that taking the leap is the right move here. And I don’t know Carson well, but he looked pretty damn happy yesterday too.”

  Could Beau possibly be right? It felt absurd to trust my gut. My entire life I had worked hard so that I could help others—treating myself to things that felt good was a brand new, bizarre idea. But, god, I wanted Carson. And being with him wouldn’t interfere with my work. I could still help people from Seattle, or commute back and forth between Seattle and New York.

  And if Carson had no interest in a relationship with me, well, I could just go back to the way things were before. Back to my office in New York, my grueling work hours, my solitary runs, seeing nobody but Beau and Misty.

  �
�You really think it could work?” I asked.

  Beau nodded, grinning. “I really do.”

  I hope you are right, I thought. Because I am going to give it a shot.

  Alistair, Beau, Sydney, and I were already sitting at the dinner table when Carson and Dominic came crashing through the front door, arms full of paper bags.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Dominic said, as they both began to unload takeout containers onto the table. “There was a turtle in the middle of the road and we stopped to help it cross safely. Took a while to get him to the side, he was pretty big and squirming like crazy every time we picked him up.”

  “That reminds me of the time you got detention in high school because you showed up an hour late after taking a stray dog to the humane society,” Sydney said, grinning.

  “Some things never change,” Dominic said, kissing her on the cheek.

  “Help yourselves to food, we’re just gonna go wash our hands,” Carson said, shooting me a private smile as he headed for the nearest bathroom. My pulse sped up just from that look.

  A couple of minutes later the six of us were digging into a huge array of Chinese takeout. It would have been conspicuously quiet if not for the fact that Sydney and Carson were valiantly carrying on a conversation.

  “Have you heard from the rest of the boys this week?” Sydney asked him as I took a bite of tofu.

  “Leo’s been keeping me updated,” Carson said. “Not much going on in Seattle. I’m sure Finley’s gotten into at least a bit of mischief since we’ve been here, though.”

  “Oh, Finley,” Sydney sighed fondly. “One of these days he’s going to settle down and stop getting himself into so much trouble.”

  “Unlikely,” Dominic piped up. “He’s going to be a troublemaking asshole for life, but that’s why we love him.”

  Sydney started to laugh, but Alistair cleared his throat and leveled Dominic with a grim stare. “I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using crass language at the dinner table.”