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“You can try. Lead the way,” Chuck’s mouth grew loose and wet with desire. “I’d say you better get a move on or I won’t be responsible for what happens to you next.”

They made their way upstairs as quietly as possible, pausing outside Winnie’s door to confirm the slow, steady sound of her breathing before they continued to Niall’s bedroom at the back of the house. Once inside, with the door firmly closed, Chuck didn’t fight being pushed against it as Niall’s mouth reclaimed his with abrupt urgency.

“Is that so?” Chuck teased when they came up for air, though his own heart galloped against Niall’s.

“You’ve been driving me bonkers all damn day,” Niall confessed, his hands already working at the buttons of Chuck’s shirt. “Stretching. Smiling. Walking around my store in those goddamned jeans.”

“Wait, what?” Chuck squinched his face in confusion. “What’s wrong with my jeans?”

“No. Nothing. Not that. They make me so crazy.” Niall closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, as if it were an effort. “You’re too beautiful. And then you’re all over the place fixing things, building things, being so decent with my kid… it’s not fair.”

“Not fair?” Chuck echoed, amused and aroused by this more assertive version of Niall. “How do you figure?”

“I can’t take it. All I could think about the whole day was getting you alone again. I almost jumped you twice. Once with Amber fifteen feet away.” Niall pushed the shirt off Chuck’s shoulders, and his hands explored the exposed muscle with reverence. “Yet I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”

“What’s stopping you now?” Chuck slipped his own hands under Niall’s sweater and traced the warm skin beneath.

“Nothing. Not a damn thing.” Niall licked the muscle of Chuck’s throat and then bit down, the spike of pleasure so intense Chuck worried he might not last long enough to get his pants open. “Oh. Ohhhh.”

“Niall, you can have anything you want. Everything. I’m right there. You feel me there? You did that to me, man. Look what you do to me. Hsst. Careful or I’m not going to last.”

They stripped each other with less patience and less caution than they had the night before, their movements fueled by a day’s worth of simmering desire. When they tumbled onto the bed, hot skin against hot skin, Chuck reveled in the gritty satisfaction of being here again, with Niall, under Niall, wrapped around Niall.

“What do you want?” He hovered above Niall, drinking in the sight of his black hair and dark eyes—flushed, eager, all traces of his usual reserve gone. “Look what you do to me.” He glanced down at the place where their hardness ground together.

“I can’t stop,” Niall growled. “I can’t stop it.”

Chuck leaned down to devour Niall’s mouth again, then began to work his way lower, licking and biting his way down his neck, his chest, his abdomen. By the time he reached his destination, Niall was shuddering and jerking with anticipation, his hands fisted in the sheets.

Chuck took his time milking the pleasure out of him, reveling in every hiss and groan he wrung from Niall, muttering his name like an oath. Heady stuff, this power to unravel someone so controlled, to reduce a real gentleman to incoherent pleas and breathless promises.

When Niall finally pulled him back up, his eyes gleaming with need, doing his best to keep quiet, Chuck went willingly. He let Niall flip their positions and push forward, forward until they were one thing, bodies grinding together in frantic silent rhythm, pleasure building, Niall’s mouth over his eating his whimpers until Chuck erupted into searing starlight, shuddered under him, then drifted back to earth. Niall cradled and stroked him, caressing his hot skin like stolen treasure.

Afterward, they lay tangled and slick with each other, their skin steaming, the only sound their gradually slowing breaths as the sweat and seed slid between them. Chuck curled closer to Niall’s side, content in a way that felt fearsome.

“Well now.” Niall chuckled, his voice a gritty rumble under Chuck’s ear. He twisted to press a kiss to Chuck’s shoulder, then bit him playfully.

“You took the words….” Chuck nodded, his heart still racing. He had no idea what came next. He’d never felt anything like this, and certainly not after sex.

“I’d say we’re figuring something out. Was that how you put it?”

“That’s the one.” Chuck propped himself up on one elbow and studied Niall’s face in the dim light that filtered through the curtains. “I’ve never been this sure of anything is what I’m telling you.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“My whole dumb life I’ve been making mistakes on purpose. Like, I knew they were crappy choices while I was making them. But not this one here.” He licked Niall’s salty chest and took hold of his softening shaft. “For the first time ever, I know what it feels like to be doing the very thing I need to do when I should be doing it. Which I didn’t expect.”

“Good unexpected, or bad unexpected?”

“Good. Definitely good.” Chuck hesitated, then decided to go with honesty. “But also scary. Right place, right time, right everything. Just right. Which is new for me. Mostly I’m wrong. I’m not great at this—relationships or whatever the hell. I tend to screw it up on purpose or bail when things get messy.”

“And this is already complicated.” Niall said it like he’d done the math already. “Because of Winnie. Because of the town. Because of the store.”

“Yeah. All of that.” Chuck sighed and flopped onto his back. “I don’t want to hurt you, Niall. Either of you. Still, I can’t promise I won’t. Truth. But this, this right here, is right.” He squeezed Niall’s shoulders.

Niall was quiet for a long moment, and Chuck stayed still.

Then Niall rolled over and propped himself up to look down at Chuck. “You know what I’ve learned, raising Winnie? That there are no guarantees—not in parenting, not in business, not in relationships. All we can do is try our best and hope it’s enough.”