Fortune's Favor (A Power Up! Story) by Marie Harte Page B

help but laugh.
    “Shower first. Then we’re going to play some more. And did I mention I have a cock ring in my bag?”
    Nathan groaned. Avery laughed. Talk about one hell of a night.

Chapter Six
    Nathan didn’t know how it had happened, but the giant lunkhead he’d been partnered with had turned out to be a really decent guy. The sex had definitely eased tensions between them. Somehow Avery’s dry comments and orders every other sentence didn’t bother Nathan as much as they used to. He felt like he understood his partner now. Underneath all that gruffness lay the same man who’d bathed Nathan with tenderness. He’d been fucked, cared for, cleaned up, and comforted all in the same night.
    Mr. I Don’t Do Comfort had soothed Nathan’s fears and worries without effort. Nathan kept trying to figure out if the sex had done it or if it was something else, and he was stymied each time. Which wasn’t to say that for all of Avery’s surprising gentleness, he couldn’t still be annoying.
    “Hey, princess, get the lead out, would you? We have another few stops to make.” Nathan shot him the finger and earned another grin. He continued to count Avery’s smiles. Today he’d managed four out of the jarhead. Another night on their road trip back to Bend. Nathan didn’t know how Avery had managed it, but their boss had agreed they needed to return. He’d put their search for Espada de Sangre on hold while Avery and Nathan made the cross-country trip back in an SUV. Apparently there were a few other things Jack wanted them to check into, items their client needed found.
    Nathan made a quick trip into the convenience store and returned to the vehicle carrying junk food, sodas, and a black coffee, no cream or sugar, for the hard-ass in the driver’s seat.
    “Here you go.”
    Avery took the steaming cup, grunted at him—what constituted a thanks—and pulled out of the gas station.
    They didn’t hold hands or kiss. They didn’t discuss the incredible night Nathan had spent doing whatever Avery wanted. Or that Nathan had let the man come all over and in him several times, no condoms at all. He should have been panicked at the thought of disease, but if he knew anything about Avery, it was that his partner was obsessed about safety.
    That he’d fucked Nathan bare pleased Nathan to no end. Only once, his very first time, had Nathan gone without protection. He’d had his proverbial cherry popped by an older man who knew what he was doing. And just two nights ago, it had been popped again by a man with control issues.
    “Hey, how old are you?” Nathan asked. Avery seemed older somehow. Maybe it was the stick shoved up his ass that aged him.
    “Why?”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “Thirty-three.”
    “Ha. I knew you had to be older.”
    “Why?”
    Because you make me feel safe. Because when I’m with you, I find I don’t worry so much anymore . “Because of that gray in your hair.” Had someone hinted of gray to Nathan, he’d dive for a mirror. Avery merely raised a brow.
    Nathan had to know. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you so serious all the time?” He’d never been drawn to the stick-in-the-mud type, but Avery was different. “Were your parents assholes to you growing up? Did you have a bad life before the PWP?”
    Avery looked surprised. “Not at all. My parents are great people. We talk a lot. I had a normal childhood. Saw the world, learned a lot, had friends. My dad was career military, my mom a doctor. We had a great life, and they still call me once a week. They’re retired and loving it in Washington.”
    Nathan frowned. “Then why the attitude?”
    “Attitude? This is who I am, dickhead. It’s called being real. I don’t need twinks and parties to make me feel good. I like who I am.”
    And maybe that was what Nathan was drawn to—Avery’s confidence. His happiness with himself. Nathan liked to think he was perfect, but he’d never been able to get over why Malcolm had hated him so