Grey's Awakening (15 page)
“No, you can’t.” Noah stilled, and his face became a mask. “Janice and I aren’t living together anymore.” His brown eyes dulled to mud. “We’ve separated and are filing for a divorce.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.” Sympathy filled Sirus’s voice, and his chest hurt over a long marriage ending. He didn’t know Noah or Janice well, but he figured they had to have had twenty years of marriage on them. They had two teenage kids. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” It looked like it hurt Noah to swallow as he spoke. “It’s not easy, but it’s for the best.” More dark shadows crossed his gaze before he banked them completely.
Abruptly, he crossed his arms against his chest. “I’ve been staying at a motel, and was thinking about biting the bullet and renting a place, but I just heard the other day that the McClusky’s are selling their house and moving to New Mexico to be closer to their grandkids.” Noah mentioned the retired couple who owned the cabin on the east side of the lake. “It’s a big step, but I’m thinking about buying it.”
“I hate like hell the reason it’s happening,” Sirus replied, “but I’d love to have you as a neighbor. I’m biased and love this land. If you’re looking for a place where you can just stop and breathe for a while, I can’t think of a better place than this mountain.”
Noah’s attention drifted to the open shed door, staring, as if he could see through Sirus’s cabin to the lake beyond. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” His voice drifted, and then he seemed to turn inside himself, slowly altering from loose to stiff once again.
Sirus moved closer to Noah and touched his arm. “You okay?”
Noah jerked and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m fine.” His focus cleared and he became all business once more. “I apologize for unloading on you. I actually just came to tell you that you are good to move back into your home. I finished installing your new piping, everything that was damaged has been replaced and is as good as new, and I turned your water back on too. You can move back in,” Noah’s attention fell to the covered sketch of Grey again, “uh … whenever you want.”
Shit
.
Shit
.
Shit
. Noah knew Sirus had been staying at Grey’s cabin during these repairs. The man must have seen Grey in town at some point, as he clearly recognized the drawing as a real person and not some random art model. Damn it, Sirus could not predict how Grey would react to someone seeing a sketch of him in the nude, let alone what the image implied. Sirus shifted from one leg to the other, suddenly wildly uncomfortable with what to say next. “Listen.”
Noah lifted a hand as he moved to the open door. “Don’t even worry about it. I’m about to go through a divorce. Believe me when I say I have no interest in slinging other people’s private business to the gossips down in town.” His face took on a haunted quality that weighed down the air around them in a blanket of loneliness. Sirus recognized the features; he had looked much the same when he’d walked away from Paul after realizing his former lover would never be the man Sirus needed him to be.
“Thank you for your discretion.” Sirus leaned against the doorjamb and looked at Noah, a man obviously struggling with his life. The dark circles and deeper grooves in the lines of Noah’s face made so much more sense to Sirus now than when he noticed them a few days ago. “I’m here if you need me,” Sirus offered. “I know we’re not best friends or anything, but I’m serious about that.”
A hint of naked need slipped into Noah’s gaze. “I might just take you up on that one day.” He blinked, and the flash of vulnerability was gone. “I’ll send you a bill for the work.” He didn’t wait for Sirus to reply before walking away. He called back, “Have a good night.”
“Bye.” Sirus hung at the door until Noah drove away, his heart heavy with the strange conversation. As he stood there, not yet ready to face the picture he had drawn of Grey, Sirus realized he’d just had a more open, revealing conversation with his plumber than he’d ever had with Greyson Cole.
A man he had let fuck him. Multiple times.
Something wasn’t right about that.
Christ. Grey had not seen nor heard from Sirus all day long, and he had no expectation the man would return to the cabin tonight. The plumbing work on Sirus’s home had already gone one day over schedule, so there was no way Grey could expect another day of delays would force Sirus back to the cabin for one more night. Nope. Grey figured he’d had about as much ass as he was going to get on this vacation, and he might as well be satisfied he’d even gotten that.
No more kissing, fucking …
sleeping
with Sirus Wilder. Sweet, sexy, strong Sirus Wilder. All because Grey wouldn’t bend over and give up his own ass.
Damn it. Grey’s cock pressed against his jeans as he thought about being naked in bed with Sirus. His length pushed against his zipper where he sat, protesting the prospect of renewed celibacy. His chest squeezed tightly as well, as it had done all day every time Sirus’s name popped into his head. Worst of all, though, his ass throbbed a steady, aching staccato as a fast vision of Sirus penetrating him and stuffing his channel with exquisite, slow tenderness, filled Grey’s head. Grey gasped as his heart rate increased and his erection grew, shocking him with the intensity of his physical response
while in a public
place
.
Grey sat in a booth, where the table concealed his crotch; thank God. All the same, he scanned the diner’s patrons and prayed like hell it took at least a few more minutes to complete his order. He could not stand up right now. With his attention subtly touching on nearly every customer in the diner—none of whom paid him a damn bit of attention— Grey started to breathe a sigh of relief. Then his gaze clashed with a brown one that stared right at him, no blinking or backing off when Grey caught him in the act.
What the fuck?
From one booth away, the blond man continued to stare, and the feral business tycoon inside Grey stirred to life, putting an immediate cockblock on his hard-on. Grey regularly shat the remnants of millionaires and billionaires who thought they could intimate him; he sure as hell wouldn’t tuck tail and run over a small town local eyeballing him—no matter that the man looked like he could knock Grey unconscious with one punch.
His erection no longer an issue, Grey slid his phone back into his pocket, grabbed his cup of coffee, and moved to the other man’s table. “Mind if I join you?” Grey asked, but didn’t wait to get an answer before sitting down. He put his cup on the table and wrapped his hands around it, letting the warmth of the liquid inside seep into his palms. Not that he needed it. Grey tended to get damned hot under the collar when another alpha dog tried to hold him down and piss on his fur. Grey felt like this man sitting across from him attempted to do just that with one cold, unwavering look.
Grey settled into the cushion of the booth seat, and bared his teeth. He doubted the guy mistook it for a smile. “You got a problem with me,
friend
?”
“Not right now,” the man answered. His deep voice scratched like sandpaper, and he didn’t look like he so much as twitched under Grey’s cool delivery. “Just looking you over, though, and trying to figure out if I will before you leave this mountain.”
Grudging respect for this man’s balls had Grey retracting his fangs. “That seems unlikely,” he studied the guy’s roughly handsome face, searching for familiarity, “seeing as I don’t know who the hell you are.”
“Noah Maitland.” Noah did not reach across the table for a handshake.
Noah Maitland. Noah. Maitland. Noah.
Noah
. Oh.
This is Noah
. “Noah Maitland.”
Grey maintained a sense of ease in how he sat, but he couldn’t help but think about his immediate response when Sirus mentioned the man’s name the other morning. Right here, Grey’s skin got as hot under the surface as it had back then. Grey breathed, and kept the evidence of his reaction at bay. “You would be Sirus’s plumber.”
“I know how to do one or two other things, and I work for a few other people as well.” Noah sat across from Grey with quiet authority, and Grey knew—just on experience from dealing with entrepreneurs every day for over ten years—that Noah was a financial success in his business. This man was no pauper, and nobody’s bitch. “But yes,” Noah added, “most recently I did work up at Sirus’s cabin.”
Grey’s gut instinct hit him on another level—a personal one—and jealousy grew in his belly. He glanced down at Noah’s hand and noticed a wedding band on his finger.
Even with that, Grey wondered if Sirus knew Noah Maitland was gay. And if he didn’t, but discovered it, would Sirus’s interest in this man exceed home repair?
You can’t have him
sat right in Grey’s throat, choking him with its ferocity.
Not right
now
.
Not ever
.
A buzzing clouded Grey’s hearing, and Noah Maitland—with his way too sexy rugged man vibe—blurred before Grey’s eyes, his vision now covered in a film of red.
No. Get control of yourself, man. Don’t you dare let this guy see you lose your cool.
You’re a possessive person; anger is a natural reaction to seeing someone else crush on
the man you’re fucking. You don’t like to share. Anything. It doesn’t mean you care.
Grey muzzled the monologue looping in his head, locked his inner dog in another room, and affected a mildly interested arched brow. “What is it exactly you think you know that has you so concerned, Maitland?”
“I don’t know anything,” Noah answered. “Just saw something that allowed me to draw a conclusion on my own.”
“That’s not much to go on to make a snap judgment about a man.”
“No, sitting here watching you,” Noah sliced panic through Grey with his never-ending, assessing stare, “I think I figured the situation out exactly right.”
Right then, an earsplitting whistle cut across the diner. Everyone turned toward the pass-through window behind the lunch counter, and owner Ruthie Costa pointed at Grey with her spatula. “Order’s ready, honey,” she said, losing the interest of all the other diners with those words. “Nice and hot. Be out with it in just a second.”
“Thank you.” Grey dipped his head and made to slide out of the booth, but a strong hand wrapped around his wrist and locked him to the table. Grey’s attention slid down to the fingers holding his arm in a bruising vise. He blinked, and brought his focus back up to Noah’s face. “You’re going to want to take your hand off me.” His tone dripped colder than the polar icecaps. “Right now.”
Noah released Grey’s wrist. “I apologize,” he said, but again, looked Grey right in the eyes without cowering. “Let me just say one thing before you go.” The color in Noah’s eyes softened, even as his hand curled into a fist on the tabletop. “Sirus is a nice man. Kind. Generous. A lot of people in this area care about him and do not want to see him hurt again.”
Again?
Did these people know about Sirus’s relationship with Paul? Or had there been someone else? Jesus. The desire for knowledge about Sirus clutched at the inquisitive nature of Grey’s personality, at his need to know every little detail about any situation in which he was involved. At the same time,
fuck
, he couldn’t ask without becoming one hell of a hypocrite. There wasn’t any damn way he would exchange equal information about himself with Sirus, just to get some answers.
“If you’re a good man,” Noah continued, pulling Grey out of his private thoughts,
“and you think there’s even the possibility that you’re going to cause him pain, maybe you need to think about walking away right now.”
Grey fought down an unnatural wave of violence, and just resisted hauling this pretender to his feet and shoving him into the wall. “And give you room to step in?” Grey hissed, keeping his voice low, out of a respect he wasn’t sure this man deserved.
Noah flinched, and his pupils flared. “I didn’t say that.”
“No,” Grey bit down and took some of the rancor out of his tone, “but you’re thinking it.”
“Just don’t hurt him.” Noah’s gaze touched over every other patron in the diner, then came back to Grey. “Trust me when I say it would be more than me who cared.”
A young waitress passed by the table right then, a brown bag in her hands. “I have your food, Mr. Cole.” She smiled at both men shyly. “I’ll be waiting at the register whenever you’re ready.”
“Be right there,” Grey answered.
“Think about what I said.” Noah spoke one more time, his voice and face still quietly threatening.
The dog within Grey slipped out and, for just the blink of an eye, morphed into a wolf. “I’ll think about your fucking motives too,” he said, his voice cutting. He blinked, and everything slipped right back to cool. “You have a good night.”
Grey walked away and paid for his meal, smiling and making friendly chitchat to the server and the couple who also stepped in to pay their bill. On the inside, though, Grey saw the snarling teeth of a brown haired beast shredding to pieces a golden haired wolf.
To the victor went the prize.
Sirus Wilder.
caring
in that damn warning, as well as a very real concern that he had the power to hurt Sirus.