But then, he wanted a lot of intimacy that he wasn’t going to be able to have. Not for long, anyway. It was sort of funny because, for just that second, he felt like maybe he and Ray could be together. Like they could make plans, have a life that involved each other.
But it was nothing but a fantasy. An incredibly intense, and deeply unusual, fantasy for Simon to be having, not his usual style at all, but as the pleasure faded and the one being they had temporarily made became two again, Simon saw it for the impossibility that it was.
Even if he decided that he didn’t care about his job, there was the fact that Ray didn’t want a relationship. He’d been clear about that from the beginning. Simon silently got up to deal with the condom, then came back to bed and crawled in, looking greedily at Ray’s lovely face.
He was completely and utterly screwed. Maybe he had been for a while, but he was truly noticing it now. He had arrogantly thought he could handle whatever came up emotionally, that it wouldn’t be a big deal. But it was only now, when it was far too late, that he realized that he should never have let himself get into this situation in the first place.
Closing his eyes, he folded Ray into his arms and buried his face in the younger man’s shoulder. It was going to feel like his heart was being torn out when this inevitably ended. All he could do now was try to survive it, and hopefully keep some of his dignity intact.
“Thank you for bringing me to bed,” Simon said, just barely loudly enough for Ray to hear. And he meant it, too. If all he had with Ray was these last couple of weeks, he was going to want to spend as much of it as possible in bed with him. After all, it wasn’t as though he had to worry about falling in love with the guy, not anymore. It was far too late to stop that from happening.
Ray didn’t say anything, and Simon let his eyes fall shut. Eventually, he fell asleep, but even once he had, he didn’t let go of Ray.
Chapter Seventeen
Ray
It was Christmas Eve. The first one that Ray had ever spent out of the United States, or, indeed, out of his home city of Seattle. It was bitterly cold and had been all day, and that seemed to fit pretty well with how Ray was feeling.
In one week, exactly seven days, he was going to be leaving Paris, and he couldn’t help but think that it would be forever. When would he ever have a chance to do this again? It was too expensive. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him, and there was no use in pretending otherwise.
The same could go, he thought gloomily to himself, for this whole crazy thing with Simon. He sat by the window, looking out into the still, silent, dark street, brooding in a way that he knew was not at all like himself. But then, he was under quite a bit of stress, so maybe it wasn’t that strange.
In a few minutes, he would go to bed—go climb in and let Simon warm him up. For a few moments, while they were intimately joined, he knew that he would forget about all of his uncertainty and lose himself in pleasure and emotional connection and sensation.
“Simon!” Ray suddenly called, his voice pitched fairly low, since it was so late at night and he didn’t want to wake anyone up, but urgent. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in the sight of Simon spread out over the bed, completely naked, reading a book. It was probably the sexiest thing that Ray had ever seen.
“What’s wrong, beautiful? Did you just realize that you should be in bed with me instead of moping out the window?” Simon murmured back, his voice gently teasing and utterly without an edge. It didn’t even occur to Ray to be offended. And if not for what he had just seen out the window, he definitely would have taken Simon up on his flirtatious comment.
Meanwhile, he had to admit that Simon saying that one little word,beautiful, had chased away ninety percent of the unaccustomed melancholy that had been afflicting him. He felt like he was glowing inside. It had just been so sincere and yet so effortless.
“No, come here,” Ray demanded, and he turned back around to look out the window, mostly to remind himself of why he wanted Simon out of bed. “Don’t pout, babe. Trust me. It’s worth it.”
Was that the first time he had called Simon by a term of endearment? Probably. Ray found that he didn’t quite dare look at the older man, but then, Simon had started it. There was something about Simon that disarmed Ray completely. It wasn’t even fair.
Simon didn’t comment, though. He just came up and stood beside Ray, his arm settling effortlessly around his waist and pulling him close for warmth, which was nice on such a cold night.
“Check that out,” Simon murmured, and Ray didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling, that was very clear in his voice. “It’s snowing.”
And it was, big fluffy flakes drifting lazily out of a slate-gray sky. It had only been a few minutes, but the snow was already sticking, settling on the ground, and softening everything.
“Let’s go outside,” Ray said suddenly. He turned to look at Simon, saw objections forming in the other man’s eyes, and spoke quickly to derail them before they got fully formed. “We don’t have to go far, maybe just into the courtyard. That way, if any of the students need us, they can find us.”
Not that it would happen, Ray was confident about that. The whole time they’d been here, there hadn’t been even once when any of the students had sought them out at night. These were teenagers, and Ray and Simon tended to let them do what they wanted, as long as it wasn’t dangerous, and they didn’t leave the hotel. They weren’t going to do anything to put that at risk.
“Just to the courtyard,” Simon agreed, and Ray grinned at him, then started to rush around, finding his warmest clothing. While Simon wasn’t paying attention, Ray tucked a wrapped parcel into his coat, because a glance at his phone told him that it was just five minutes until midnight—until Christmas.
It was very still and silent as they made their way through the hotel lobby. If any of the students were awake, they were hiding it well, and when they stepped out into the snowy night, Ray had the somewhat disorienting, but beautiful and compelling, feeling that he and Simon might as well have been the only people in the entire world.
Outside, it was warmer than Ray would have expected. The snow provided some insulation, but that didn’t stop him from huddling closer to Simon. For once, Ray found himself with nothing to say. It was simply too gorgeous out here, snow painting the greenery in the courtyard. It could have been a scene right off of a Christmas card, and Ray couldn’t form words. His throat felt too thick to let him say anything.
“It’s midnight,” Simon murmured, and Ray turned to look at him. There were flakes of snow in Simon’s dark hair, and his cheeks were flushed with the cold, his eyes bright.
“Christmas,” Ray agreed, smiling at him and not even really trying to act like he wasn’t admiring the other man. “Merry Christmas.”
“Joyeaux Noel,” Simon countered, and Ray had picked up enough in his last month in Paris that he knew the French words for Merry Christmas when he heard them.
“It’s not even fair, how sexy you sound when you speak French,” Ray mock-complained, pouting dramatically at the other man. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to let you go when we get back to America.”
