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“Shut up,” Flip said warmly and kissed him again. But he seemed to have developed a taste for Brayden’s throat, or else he had noticed that kisses there made Brayden gasp and squirm, because he worked his way south again. “I wanted to.”

Brayden shuddered and finally eased Flip’s fly open.

He slid his hand into the opening and palmed Flip’s cock through his absurdly expensive underwear.

He was hard and thick, and Brayden could feel his foreskin sliding beneath the fabric as he worked him.

“Please tell me you have—” Flip sucked a mark over the tendon in his neck.

“— fuck , please tell me you have condoms and lube somewhere on your person, I swear to God.”

Flip broke away and rested his head against Brayden’s for a moment.

“Bernadette would kill me.” Then he reached to his right and dragged over what Brayden had assumed was a basket of complimentary bath products—which he supposed they were, since technically they were about to get good use in the bathroom. “Fortunately the hotel has provided.”

Thank God. He shoved Flip’s pants down. Bernadette could retaliate however she liked—it’d be worth it. “I am leaving such a good Yelp review.”

Flip helpfully stepped out of his trousers, but before he stepped close for another kiss, Brayden saw a look of consternation cross his face.

“What?”

“I’m trying to work out how to get your pants off without letting you off the counter.” He mouthed down the other side of Brayden’s neck and then lower. He swept his tongue over Brayden’s collarbone, then his pectoral muscle as he slid Brayden’s zipper down.

“Teamwork?” Brayden gasped. Reluctantly he released his grip on Flip’s dick, braced himself on the counter with both hands, and lifted his lower body enough for Flip to yank his pants and underwear down. Brayden kicked them off and promptly wrapped his legs around Flip’s hips again.

“Don’t tell me if this is the kind of teamwork you got up to when you played baseball,” Flip huffed as he smoothed his palms up Brayden’s thighs.

Brayden hooked his fingers in the waistband of Flip’s underwear and pushed it down the rest of the way with his heels, freeing his dick just as Flip took him in hand.

Then—at a horribly inappropriate moment—he started to laugh.

“No.” He shook his head before Flip could get the wrong idea and kissed him quiet. “But I did play catcher.”

Flip groaned into his mouth, but he cut off when Brayden pushed him away. “What—”

“As hot as this is, I’m pretty sure you can’t fuck me and kiss me at the same time on this counter.

That’s not a challenge,” he said quickly as Flip narrowed his eyes.

“It’s an observation that there’s a giant bed in the next room, and I bet you could have my ass on it in ten seconds.

Which is something I’m interested in. If you are? ”

Flip stared at him. “If I am?” he repeated.

Brayden batted his eyelashes.

That was all it took. Brayden darted out a hand for the basket of necessities as Flip lifted him again. Their bodies rubbed together as he moved, and he teased Brayden’s crack with his fingers until he almost dropped the lube.

The mattress rushed up to meet him, and Flip followed, pushing the basket farther up the bed to safety while he ravished Brayden’s mouth, his body cradled between Brayden’s hips. “I want to do this right,” he murmured, almost shyly.

Damn it. Now was no time for feelings . Definitely not the bittersweet kind, at least. Brayden couldn’t think about Flip being sweet to him knowing that in a few weeks they’d be parting. “Let’s settle for doing it fast and then doing it again?”

“God, you’d be a terror in politics.”

Brayden laughed as Flip pressed one last kiss to his chest and then sat up and reached for the basket.

He pretended his breath was steady when Flip pressed a slick finger inside him, but his heart was beating in trips and stutters, and his fingers curled into the blankets when Flip found his prostate with two.

“What,” he gasped, “you’re not intimidated by flight attendants? ”

“Shut up,” Flip told him again, just as fondly as the first time, and withdrew his fingers. “Ready?”

“Long past.”

The first push of Flip’s cock inside him didn’t break his world apart. It seemed to click together instead. Their eyes met and held, and then Flip exhaled quickly and shifted his hips and Brayden’s nervous system lit up like a Christmas tree.

He was right, it didn’t last. Flip kissed his shoulder, his mouth, his neck, and Brayden dug his heels and fingers into Flip’s back, needing everything more, now, harder.

Flip seemed to know just where to touch him, or maybe it simply didn’t matter—a fleeting touch on the inside of Brayden’s upper arm got a shudder.

“Flip,” Brayden cried, shutting his eyes as Flip nailed his prostate, then again. His stomach tightened. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten this close, this fast. Then again, they’d had a week of foreplay. “I—”

“Me too,” Flip said, though even Brayden wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say. His face was close, their noses brushing. Brayden tilted his head until their mouths touched again.

He didn’t even have time to gasp out a warning when Flip’s hand, still slick with lube, curled around his cock.

One second he was ready, body thrumming with almost .

Then that simple touch, Flip’s thumb rubbing under the head of his cock, and he cried out again, wordless this time, pleasure bursting through him.

Flip shook against him, breathing shallowly against Brayden’s mouth, hips still thrusting minutely, wringing out every little aftershock.

Finally they stilled, and Flip rested on his elbows and then reached down to hold the condom as he pulled out. He curled on his side next to Brayden, loose-limbed and, if Brayden were any judge, sated.

Brayden opened his mouth, hoping for a smart remark, but before he could get anything out, Flip kissed him, languid and slow, his faint stubble scraping against the hypersensitive skin around Brayden’s mouth, which already felt raw.

He shivered—not entirely from pleasure—and goose bumps rose on his upper arms.

Flip pulled away, flicking his gaze down Brayden’s face, trailing his finger over Brayden’s shoulder. “We should clean up,” he said regretfully.

Brayden was about to counter that they should get dirtier instead, but then he remembered the room’s setup and pushed up onto his elbows. “I agree. Think we can both fit in the tub?”

Flip woke up to quiet music playing on the alarm clock. At first he didn’t know why. He was still muzzy from sleep and warm with Brayden tucked against him, sleeping the sleep of the sexually exhausted. At least, Flip liked to think so.

Then he looked up.

It seemed he wouldn’t have to extend their stay. He was almost disappointed.

“Brayden,” he murmured, carding his fingers through Brayden’s hair.

Irina had cut it into a more European style—short on the sides with a few inches of length on top.

It was already growing in, though, returning to his former all-over disheveled waves.

Flip looked forward to it. The unruliness suited him infinitely better.

“Mhhhh,” Brayden answered, somewhat muffled by Flip’s chest. “I need at least another hour before round four.”

Idiot. “Should I tell Mother Nature to wait on you, then?”

Something of this seemed to register, because he took a deep breath and then another, tickling the skin of Flip’s neck, and raised his head, brow furrowed. “What?”

Flip moved his hand from Brayden’s hair and tilted his chin toward the sky. “Look up.”

Finally comprehension registered, and Brayden turned onto his back and snuggled close against Flip’s side.

Above them, the Northern Lights glittered through the Milky Way in shades of green and blue, chasing each other in some otherworldly dance.

As they did, they cast their colors over the landscape, a nearly pristine canvas of white.

Then a wave of fuchsia swept in, arcing across the sky before yielding to green.

And then suddenly the whole sky was alive with color, pulsing in spiked, concentric ribbons of lime and viridian and scarlet.

The two of them remained silent for countless minutes, taking in what felt to Flip to be an intensely private, personal show.

And then Brayden drew in a shuddering breath, and Flip tore his gaze from the sky to take in the play of color over Brayden’s features, and found that his eyes were glassy bright. “Brayden? What—”

Brayden raised a hand to Flip’s lips, and Flip kissed the tips of his fingers. “It’s beautiful,” Brayden said. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”

It turned out he didn’t need the full hour after all .

With permission to take his time, Flip put everything he hadn’t said into his touches—a soft kiss at the corner of Brayden’s eye, one at the edge of his jaw, a third above his heart.

He’d been a fool to believe anything about their relationship could be pretend when Brayden was his perfect complement in every way.

But if he voiced his feelings now, would Brayden believe him?

Surely even Brayden, who did nothing by half measures, couldn’t fall in love in a week.

You did , said a tiny voice inside him, but Flip hushed it and laced his fingers with Brayden’s. The beautiful glass bubble that let the sky in kept the real world out just as well.