Tobar, Soladán
Garrett slumped against the mirrored wall of the Colchester’s elevator, trying to keep weight off his injured leg in a way that didn’t make it hurt more and concentrating on not cursing. Well, not cursing too loudly. Not that it mattered, when there was a Fae—and a Fae’s hearing—waiting for him.
Lochlann, in fact, was waiting outside the elevator doors when they opened again. So much for being quiet.
“What did you do, grafain?” His partner’s disheveled dark hair hinted at an interrupted nap, but the aquamarine gaze that raked him from head to toe missed nothing.
“Tested the new poles,” Garrett muttered.
Lochlann shook his head, and before Garrett could react, his scair-anam had picked him up and was carrying him back toward their suite.
“You don’t have to do this.” Garrett really hated it when his mouth disconnected from his brain without warning.
His Fae didn’t bother to answer, unless you counted his low chuckle. The door to their suite was propped open, underscoring the fact that Lochlann had heard him coming, and had probably already diagnosed him before leaving their rooms. At the very least, he’d figured out that there was going to be carrying involved in getting Garrett home.
Not the first time that had happened. But a hell of a lot more pleasant than the first time had been.
“All right, grafain, lie still for a minute.” Lochlann deposited Garrett carefully on their bed, kissed him on the forehead, and headed for chest of drawers against the far wall. “I’m not really set up for patients here—you’re lucky I have an opening.”
“And you’re lucky I’m too classy to state the obvious.”
Garrett’s laughter at the slight sashay of Lochlann’s delicious ass, and his whistle as the Fae bent to open a drawer, were anything but classy. But damn, they felt good. Lochlann had done it all on purpose, of course, Fae healers did more than channel magick, or at least his Fae healer did.
When Lochlann straightened, he had a roll of rubber-backed canvas in one hand and a flat tin that even Garrett’s non-Fae nose could tell contained cocoa butter in the other. Shoving the drawer closed with a hip, to the accompaniment of more enthusiasm from Garrett, he unrolled the canvas on the opposite side of the bed and patted it lightly. “Can you wriggle yourself over here, or do you need help?”
“I’d love to take the help, but I think that would make us late for our dinner reservation.”
One dark eyebrow went up. “We have a couple of hours yet.”
“Exactly.”
It was a pleasantly awkward couple of minutes before Garrett was on the massage cloth—which had actually been on sale online as a portable baby-changing pad—and free of his jeans. Mostly pleasant; there was no way to avoid aggravating his already aggravated thigh muscle in the process.
Lochlann popped the lid off the tin and started running the heel of his hand over the contents in rapid circles, melting the waxy substance inside it. Garrett had never had a masseur use cocoa butter on him before Lochlann; once he’d had to go somewhere on the Metro after a session, and one woman standing near him in the crowded car had turned to her companion, bemused, and said Funny, I’m craving chocolate all of a sudden.
“No magick?—not that I’m complaining.” Complaining? He’d take and run with any chance to feel Lochlann’s hands on him, doing one of the things they did so well. Once he could run, anyway.
“Only if I have to.” Lochlann grasped Garrett’s leg and eased it out a few inches to one side, gently stroking down the inside of Garrett’s thigh with an open palm. “I’d rather not risk waking up the wellspring.”
Garrett didn’t need to point out the other thing Lochlann was doing a great job of waking up. His cock was already half-hard, the stainless steel ring piercing the underside coming into view. Lochlann rubbing his hands together to spread the warmed cocoa butter around didn’t help his condition, either. Or maybe it did. I suppose it depends on perspective.
“How did you do it?”
“Just a simple inversion, braking a spiral—aaaaahhhh!” Garrett’s head and shoulders came up off the bed as the heel of Lochlann’s hand dug in, exactly where all the pain from his torn muscle had accumulated during the cab ride home.
Lochlann didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The tilt of his head and the fractional lift of one brow said and you didn’t warm up first, did you? perfectly well.
Garrett wished his own eyebrows were half as eloquent. “I didn’t think I needed to warm up, not for something that basic.” It sounded stupid in his head, even more so when it came out of his mouth.
Lochlann, bless him, didn’t press the point. He simply leaned over and placed a kiss on Garrett’s abused thigh, before resuming his work. Garrett thought he saw a smile, though.
“Jesus, I think I tore it,” Garrett gasped, after a careful stretch of his leg nearly had him climbing a bedpost.
“I think you’re right.” Unthinking, Lochlann plowed a cocoa-buttered hand through his hair. “I’m going to need to channel to take care of this after all.”
Even short of breath and swallowing whimpers, Garrett couldn’t help grinning at the thought. Channeling meant calling the ley energy from someplace other than the wellspring directly under them, things being what they were, and calling the ley energy meant his scair-anam was going to need some help, of the arousal kind. Fae channeled magick best when they were turned on. Now there’s a real hardship.
“I know that look.” Lochlann’s fingertips barely brushed the inside of Garrett’s thigh. “Remember, you’re the one who reminded me we only have a couple of hours until dinner.”
“It’s only Thanksgiving. No big deal.”
The funny thing was, until he’d met Lochlann, Garrett would have totally bought into those words. Rejected by his family, nothing but a fuckboy to pretty much everyone he knew and an anonymous dancer to those he didn’t, and poz into the bargain, holidays had been way up there on his list of things to avoid.
But having someone to share holidays with—to make traditions with—made a difference. And when that someone had literally followed you into death, because he couldn’t imagine living without you... that changed you.
Lochlann’s half-smile told Garrett his Fae knew where his thoughts had wandered. “Come on, grafain. Give me just enough to let me help you. And then...”
* * *
Dinner ended up being frozen pizza and a bottle of pinot noir. It was the best Thanksgiving dinner Garrett could remember.