Simon frowned, disconcerted. “You know this because—”
“I see your car, the black Prius. I always thought it was odd because—” He shrugged. “—it’s not what you expect someone living in a castle to drive. I’m thinking Infiniti QX or Humvee. But no—you’re driving a Prius.”
Simon felt the flush creep up his neck. “It’s just the office is forty-five minutes away from the house. And I bought the property—there’s ninety acres of it—in one big, weirdly shaped parcel because—” He shrugged, struggling to explain. “—I just felt like I belonged there.” He chewed on his lip, thinking. “Wait, you live in the little house across from me. I mean, the only one I can see from up there, right?”
Lachlan nodded. “Yeah. It’s a good thing neither of us piss off the porch naked, or this could be really uncomfortable right here.”
Simon was caught unawares, and for the second time that day he made that hyuck sound he’d so hated in adolescence. Lachlan laughed outright, a rich, sort of rolling sound, and Alex strode up to them, head tilted in curiosity.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your boyfriend has the best laugh!” Lachlan said, handing over Glinda’s leash. “Here,” he said, reaching for the wine Simon had brought. “We’ll trade. Bartholomew’s got goodies inside you can grab before you take off.”
The others came walking up the driveway, Josh and Jordan taking time out to move the little sleeping bodies of squirrels off the concrete using sheets of cardboard. After a brief greeting and a wave, they went inside Alex and Bartholomew’s house, leaving Simon and Alex alone in the lowering shadows of a Gold Country evening.
Alex smiled shyly at him in the resulting quiet. “What?” he asked, although Simon hadn’t said a word.
Simon shook his head and bit his lip, unable to put his thoughts in order. Alex’s green eyes were murky in the dark, but the way they slanted, coupled with that faintly amused half smile on his lips, was suddenly mysterious, alluring, and sensual.
“I’m just glad to see you,” he said weakly, and that amazing smile widened.
“Me too. I kept expecting you to text me with ‘Sorry! Too weird! Call me back when your neighborhood isn’t going to hell!’”
“Hyuck!” And again. God, that wretched laugh was going to be Simon’s undoing!
Alex clapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh my God!” he said, and Simon covered his face with his hands.
“Can you unhear that?” he asked, the words muffled.
“No! That was amazing.” Alex tugged at his fingers, the contact warm and welcome and skin-to-skin.
Simon dropped his hands but kept his fingers around Alex’s. “Amazing?” Boy, he was pathetic. But after the morning of hearing Chris’s devastated ranting about his ex, the thought that Alex might want him for himself and not for his money or his company or whatever was absolutely intoxicating.
“Yeah,” Alex said, standing closer, close enough for their heat to mingle, for their bodies to touch. Close enough to kiss. “That was the best laugh I’ve ever heard.”
He licked his lips then, and Simon prayed it was a hint.
He lowered his mouth, stopping a breath away from touching, taking in that moment of the two of them and the last of the autumn twilight. Then Alex made a breathy sound of impatience and raised his face, pressing his lips to Simon’s and initiating the kiss.
He was bold, sweeping his tongue inside, making urgent noises in the back of his throat, pulling Simon’s hips forward until their chests met, both of them hard and unyielding.
Simon raised his hands to cup Alex’s cheeks and took over, his tongue surging inside Alex’s mouth this time, tasting the needy whimpers, the excited moans they were both making as the kiss went on and on and on.
Glinda’s impatient yap broke them apart, and Simon pulled back, startled, while Alex rested his forehead against Simon’s shoulder.
“She’s getting antsy,” Alex panted.
“Noticed that.” Simon swallowed hard and nuzzled Alex’s temple. “I… uh….”
“Tomorrow,” Alex said, nodding like this made complete sense. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“It’s the weekend.” Wow. Stating the obvious.
“Yes, Simon,” Alex said, pulling back so Simon could see that familiar twist of the lips. “We call it the weekend, and it provides time for people to do things that could, possibly, further a relationship.”
“Ah.” Simon smiled, his brain still scrambled. “I’ve been wondering what they’re for. Now I know.”
Alex bit his lip, showing that unexpected bit of vulnerability that pretty much hooked Simon and dragged him in to shore. “So far my weekends have been for bike riding, bug hunting, and adventures with my friends,” he said honestly. “I’d like very much to see if I could expand my repertoire.”
Simon was going to say yes, was going to jump right on that, but then, unbidden, came an automatic replay of Chris’s misery from Simon’s office that morning.
“Maybe we could go on a bike ride,” he murmured. “Or take the dog somewhere. Or—”
Alex’s eyes widened, and Simon wondered if he’d said something wrong. “Uhm, sure, but… uh….” He gave a little awkward head tilt. “Uhm, I was getting the feeling there that we’d, uh….”
The blush that followed was so savage, Simon felt the heat of it washing off Alex’s cheeks.
“Jump into bed and have all the sex and then go back on Monday and pretend nothing happened?” Simon asked, hoping he was wrong about that.
“No!” Alex protested, and before Simon could argue that he didn’t sound sincere about that, he winced. “Okay, maybe. I just… you kiss really good and you smell excellent. I-I don’t know how to do the relationship thing, but the kissing, that I could follow up on!”
Simon had to laugh. “You do the relationship thing by taking your time with the kissing,” he said, because that’s what the rulebooks all said and that was the playbook by which he’d run every relationship he’d ever had. That they hadn’t lasted very long after the sex had started was not his fault—he was doing things by the book, dammit!
Alex scowled at him suspiciously. “That isn’t how Bartholomew and Lachlan did it,” he said. “That’s not even how Kate and Josh did it. There was sex relatively early. I mean, there was yearning, there was some banter that worked as foreplay, and there was sex, and it was spectacular, and it turned into an amazing relationship in which both participants are bound for life.”
Simon knew his eyes were huge. “Life?”
Alex grimaced. “Well, not that this will be us, I’m just saying: passion. There is passion here, and I haven’t really seen where passion takes us, and I would like to.”
Simon cocked his head. “You haven’t seen where passion takes you?”
Alex’s blush, which had faded, suddenly amped up.
“So, uhm, does that mean you’re, uhm. A—”
“Don’t say it,” Alex commanded, and sure enough, Simon’s lips were sealed shut. “We’re not going to talk about that. Fine. Fine. If we have to do things together and be a couple before we can do the other thing, so be it. I’m in. You choose the activity, and I will be there, balls out.” He blew out a disgruntled breath and scrubbed at his short ginger hair with one hand. “Bad expression,” he said, but not contritely. “I’m just saying, I will throw myself wholeheartedly into whatever you want to do tomorrow.”