Max peeled Grady’s arm from around his waist. Considering he generally knocked off while using Grady as a body pillow and Grady never complained, Grady found this very rude. “I gotta take Gru for a run.”
Grady squinted at the clock. It was barely seven in the morning. Normally he’d be getting up by now too, but it had taken him longer than usual to fall asleep the night before. Besides—“No morning birthday sex?”
Max had already pushed himself up off the bed, but he turned around and planted a kiss on Grady’s head. “Get up and run with us.” The edges of his smile sharpened. “And then we can get up in the shower afterward, before you make me breakfast.”
Unlike California, New Brunswick was not having a drought. Grady didn’t have to feel guilty about shower sex here.
He got up.
The foggy, slightly damp morning made for a comfortable run, and it was early enough that there wasn’t much traffic along the road. (Running on Max’s property was a no-go unless you wanted a broken ankle.) Gru flopped along gamely, sandwiched between his two favorite people. Even better, when they returned to the house, he scarfed his breakfast, slurped down a bowl of water, and pancaked on his Minions bed.
Max gave Grady a knowing smirk and raced him up the stairs.
“Bet I can make you come first,” he challenged when they were under the spray. Water droplets clung to his eyelashes, somehow underscoring what a little shit he was.
He might as well have begged Grady to make him come in the nastiest way possible. Grady pushed him back against the shower wall. “Bet.”
In the ten months they’d been having sex, Grady had gained a comprehensive understanding of Max’s bulletproof kinks. Most of them boiled down to Grady being kind of mean to him. Grady had spent a few days agonizing over what kind of person it made him that he also enjoyed it before realizing it had more to do with Max’s reaction than anything. Whowouldn’tget off on Max straining against their grip on his hair as he tried to get more cock in his mouth, or mouthing taunts designed to make Grady snap and slap his pert round ass and nail him harder?
Grady’s main dilemma was whether to bring Max off by giving him what he wanted or by withholding it. The effect was the same.
He didn’t have a game plan yet when he brought his mouth down to the hinge of Max’s jaw—not beyond distraction, anyway. Max gasped at the threat of Grady’s teeth and moved his right hand toward Grady’s cock, but Grady caught his wrist and pinned that against the tile above his head.
“This is cheating.” Max shuddered when Grady shoved a thigh between his legs.
Grady ground his quad against Max’s erection, unrepentant. “You don’t get to change the rules after the game starts.”
Max squirmed against him and tried to worm his left hand between their bodies. “But it’s my birthday.”
Grady pinned that wrist too and tilted his head in consideration. Now there was an idea. Birthday spankings were a thing, right? He hazily recalled something like that from his childhood, friends chasing each other around the schoolyard,and a pinch to grow an inch!
“You’re right. I’m doing this all wrong.”
Before Max could protest or gloat—both equally likely—Grady released his wrists and spun him around. One less-than-gentle yank and Max’s ass made a beautiful target turned up for Grady’s attention. Max hissed in pleasure when Grady smoothed his palm over the supple wet skin. “It’s one for each year, right?”
Max gave up on the pretense of trying to touch Grady and braced himself on the shower wall. “Yeah.”
“You can count them for me.”
The first slap echoed obscenely off the tile. The pressure and the water turned Max’s pale skin bright red in the shape of Grady’s hand, even though he’d pulled it. Max was hosting a family party today; he didn’t need to wince every time he sat down.
Max would know he was going easy, but for once he didn’t complain about it. He just cursed and swore and arched into Grady’s slaps and counted—Grady hoped he was counting, because Grady couldn’t—until somehow Grady had three fingers buried in Max’s ass and his other hand on his dick and Max was clenching and shuddering and coming like he hadn’t been touched in weeks.
Grady bit the back of his shoulder and then jerked off on his bright red ass. “I win.”
Max’s laugh echoed too. “You sure did, bud.”
Grady spanked him once more for good measure and then pulled him upright. Some things were absolutely worth letting Max manipulate him into.
Especially since it kept him from dwelling on the rest of the day’s planned activities.
They barely had half an hour to themselves before Max’s parents showed up to help prepare for Max’s birthday party. Grady thought starting party prep at 10:00 a.m. was insane, but then he saw the three thousand pounds of potatoes Big Max had brought and realized that they intended to feed the entire province for said party.
He knew Max had a big family, but this seemed excessive, especially since they’d all be back in two weeks for the Cup party. But excessive or not, if the Lockharts wanted to gather en masse in Max’s backyard and feed him seafood, Grady wasn’t going to stop them. Maybe someone at this party could accidentally offer insight into how to get Max to marry him. He squared his shoulders and tried to projectcasually trying to be a good future son-in-lawas he helped Max’s parents bring in enough food to feed an army. “How can I help?”
Max raised his eyebrows—his little smirk readsuck-up—but Grady cared less about that than about Big Max’s expression, which let him know in no uncertain terms that he missed the mark oncasual. “You can help me in the kitchen.”
Which was how Grady ended up peeling Potato Mountain next to Max’s dad for an hour as he tried to work out how to say what he wanted. That he loved Max and wanted to be annoyed by him forever? That ever since his parents died, the only solid ground under his feet had been ice until he met Max? That he knew Max’s family loved Max and wanted him to be happy, and Grady also wanted that and would strongly prefer to be the architect of said happiness?
