He writhed in Charlie’s arms like a live wire, pulling against his hand, pressing into his chest and hip and thigh. Desperate.
Charlie felt like a god.
His blood throbbed in his veins and his dick throbbed and his heart throbbed. Every bit of him throbbed for the man who was falling apart in his arms.
Charlie clamped an arm around Rye’s waist, holding him so they touched everywhere, and pulled his hair with a sharp yank. Rye’s head lolled and his mouth fell open. Charlie did it again, then massaged Rye’s scalp with his fingertips to soothe the sting.
Rye’s eyes were shut tight and his pale skin was flushed blotchy from his cheeks to his throat. Charlie couldn’t comprehend how he could be touching someone so beautiful. So free.
In all his adult life, Charlie had never been that free.
Rye gasped as Charlie kissed him, trying to feel even a bit of what Rye felt. Rye slung his leg around Charlie’s hip and pressed even closer to him, and Charlie could feel his hard cock through both layers of their clothes. He felt the moment Rye tipped over, pleasure peaking.
Rye came with a strangled groan, then his mouth opened on silence. He fisted Charlie’s shirt and buried his face in Charlie’s shoulder as tremors ran through him.
Charlie was suspended in a wave of arousal that held him like a cloud. Beautiful and unbelievable and new.
Rye whimpered and his fists eased. He dropped back to his flat feet and Charlie let go of his hair. Charlie listened to him breathe for a while before Rye looked up at him. His lips were swollen and his eyes liquid.
Charlie cupped his face, wanting to see what it was that made someone be able to do that. To want something and to take it.
Under his scrutiny, Rye scowled like a sleeping cat who noticed it was observed.
“No, no.” Charlie smoothed his brow with the press of his thumb. “Sorry.”
He kissed Rye’s hair.
“Um.” Rye’s eyes darted everywhere but Charlie’s.
Charlie kissed Rye’s eyelids, forcing him to close them.
“You’re so beautiful,” Charlie let himself say with Rye’s eyes closed.
Rye nuzzled into him, his breathing back to normal.
“I can’t believe we just did that.”
“Why?” Charlie had rather gotten the sense that this was the kind of thing Rye was used to.
“Because.” Rye glanced up at him. “You... I... I thought you weren’t... Fuck, I don’t know.”
Charlie unclamped their half-made bowl from the lathe and wiped sawdust from the arms of the machine. The wood shavings he left for Jane to roll in later. She and Marmot had disappeared back into the house at some point and he hadn’t even noticed.
Sometimes Jane liked to come roll in the shavings while Charlie slept. On those nights, he would wake to the scent of fresh pine on her fur when she snuggled into bed beside him and curled up under his chin.
“Charlie.”
Rye’s hand touched his shoulder tentatively.
“I lied to you the other night,” Charlie said. “When we were watching Secaucus Psychic. I do believe in ghosts.”
Really, there was no belief involved. Charlie lived with them every day. When he swapped the contents of aisles five and two, putting the screws and nails in front of the cash register to discourage people from slipping one or two into their pockets as Charlie knew they often did, he’d heard his father’s voice in his ear.
When he’d baked Jack a birthday cake the year after they’d died and thought baking powder and baking soda were the same thing, he’d heard his mother’s voice.
If carrying them with him for the last twenty years didn’t prove that ghosts were real, Charlie wasn’t sure what would.
But now, in the aftermath of Rye’s pleasure and his own desire, more than anything, he wished for them to go away. To dissipate and leave him in peace. His own man.
“I lied too,” Rye said.
His voice sounded different and when Charlie turned, Rye was staring right at him.
“When I said I didn’t know just now. It’s... I was pretty sure you weren’t into me like that.”
Rye looked him up and down, gaze appreciative and lingering. “But you are, huh?”
Charlie swallowed hard, the fear of what it meant to admit his desire tightening his muscles. Then he nodded.
“I like you,” Rye said. “I really do.”
The knot in Charlie’s stomach eased a bit.
“I like you too,” he said, voice just above a whisper.
“I don’t know why,” Rye grumbled. “Cuz you’re a bossy, perfectionistic—”
“Okay, okay,” Charlie interrupted.
Rye grinned, his eyes soft enough to let Charlie know he was just teasing.
Chapter Fourteen
Rye
Rye’s arms and back ached under the hot water of a long shower, and he was pretty sure that he didn’t have a future in construction.
Early that morning they’d begun the first day of work on the demoed Crow Lane house and within an hour it was clear that while Charlie was good at demolition, he loved construction.