Page 29 of Finally
“Now you’re laughing at me.”
“No, I’m not.” He wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist, still chuckling. “I’m laughingwithyou.”
“Only one of us is splitting a rib here.” Jack held up a single finger and then pointed it at Gray. “That’s not what ‘with’ means.”
He laughed harder. “Okay, I'm laughing at you.” He tugged Jack forward, bringing them chest to chest. “I can’t help it. You’re adorable and hilarious.”
“I haven’t been adorable since kindergarten and nobody thinks I’m funny.” Jack clutched the front of Gray’s shirt with both hands.
“That means they don’t know you like I do.”
Jack gazed into his eyes, his expression considering. “That’s probably true.”
Chest swelling, Gray rasped, “Yeah?”
“Uh huh. Not because I’m hiding something from everyone but it’s like…” Jack bit his lip and furrowed his brow. “You bring out a side of me that even I didn’t realize I had.”
“That’s because you know you’re safe with me.” For Jack, safe meant unconditionally accepted and desired. For years, their friends had said that Gray’s aggressive flirting with Jack was over the top and unwanted, but they had been wrong. Being unashamed and loud about his feelings was the only way to be heard above Jack’s self-doubts, and that was very much what Jack wanted and needed.
“I do know that.” Jack leaned forward and brushed their lips together. “Thank you for making me feel safe.”
“You’re welcome.” Gray returned the favor with a gentle kiss of his own.
They stood in silence, gazing at one another. “So you want to shower together?”
“Seeing you wet and naked?” Gray nodded. “Yes, that’s absolutely what I want.” They were close enough that he could feel Jack’s heart rate increase. “But if you’re not up for it, that’s fine. I can use another bathroom.”
“I…I am.” Jack rubbed his lips together. “We don’t have much time though.”
“Time for a shower or time for shower sex?”
Jack’s cheeks colored.
Forty-four years old and having experienced a ten-year relationship should have meant Jack wouldn’t be that bashful when it came to sex, but Gray was recognizing more and more that he very much was. He was also realizing that despite sharing a roof with a man every night during that relationship, Jack was very inexperienced. Thankfully, Gray had enough experience for the both of them and he didn’t have a shy bone in his body.
“I can enjoy being undressed with you without having sex.” He kissed Jack’s neck, just below his ear. “I like looking at you.” He leaned back and met Jack’s gaze. “You’re gorgeous.”
“So are you, Gray. If I see you without your clothes on, I don’t think I’ll be able to hide my reaction.”
Gray considered what Jack meant. “And by reaction you mean erection?”
Jack nodded.
“Turning you on is one of my life missions. Why would I want you to hide that from me?”
The worry left Jack’s face, and he smiled.
Gray returned his grin. “It’ll be like drawn out foreplay.” He traced Jack’s happy lips with his fingertip and then slid his palms from Jack’s shoulders, down his chest, and finally clutched his hips. “We can have functional nudity while we get clean, suffer through the party, and then come home and have extracurricular nudity.”
“The party won’t be as bad as you’re thinking.” Jack shook his head. “But yes to the rest of it.”
Taking Jack’s hand, he started walking toward the bedroom. “It’ll probably be worse but you’re doing an effective job of distracting me from the bad activity by putting it between two naked activities.”
“I'm brilliantly using the sandwich method but with actions instead of words.”
“The sandwich method?”
“It’s something I learned in a management seminar or read in a management book. When we need to talk to an employee about a performance issue or another problem that they won’t want to hear, we sandwich the criticism between two compliments. The first one gets their guard down so they’re open to listening, and the second one ends things on a good noteso they’re receptive to implementing whatever we discussed in the middle.”
