“Almost?”

Troy chuckled, full cheeks blushing as they faced each other in the soft light of the big window that dominated the hotel room. “I mean, I can still see the human parts of you,” Troy said, nodding at his chest.

“Oh, yeah. A little help?”

Troy’s smile froze. He cocked his head. “Pardon?”

“Can you zip me up?”

“It’s in the front,” Troy reminded him, even as he inched ever closer to the “front” in question.

Gray nodded, stomach taut with anticipation -- and doubt. The thought had come to him suddenly, while Troy had watched him wriggle into the ridiculous squirrel suit in the first place. “I know, but ... I want it to be just right.”

“Are you ... serious?”

Gray merely nodded, watching the indecision cloud Troy’s soft, round, adorable face. He was so unlike Gray’s former lovers, who’d all been gym rats or alphas or muscle heads or, in the case of his last sorry excuse for a boyfriend, all of the above combined.

Troy was the polar opposite: soft and plushy and pale and squishy and nerdy and kind and smart and four thousand percent adorkable. “I mean,” he hemmed, even as his trembling hand reached for the zipper. It was just above Gray’s crotch, thick and half-hard, all but on display beneath his thinnest pair of boxer briefs. Troy hovered, as if afraid to grab the zipper clasp. “Are you sure you can’t just ... do it yourself?”

Gray inched a little closer, so that Troy’s fingers rasped across his waistband inevitably. “I mean, sure, if you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Troy insisted, taking hold of the clasp at last. “It just seems unnecessary.”

“Not to me it isn’t,” Gray insisted, taking the plunge. When he said he hadn’t slept, he wasn’t joking. The thoughts of Troy, kind and laughing and teasing and wry, pale and doughy and irresistible, had kept him tossing and turning all night. Now, wired and nearly frantic, it felt as if the night had never ended. Like this was just a continuation of their vaguely flirty exchange in the downstairs bar.

“Okay, well ...” Troy’s breath was warm on his throat, a sensual feeling he couldn’t remember having before. “If you insist.”

Troy zipped him up slowly, the sensation clearly enjoyable to both of them. The sound was exotic, the feeling even more so, another man, face to face, zipping him up slowly as their eyes danced curiously around one another. “Getting tighter,” Troy insisted, pausing halfway up Gray’s chest.

“Thought you’d never notice,” Gray teased, nodding just beneath his waist.

Troy rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, your chest. It’s ... broad.”

“Thanks.” Gray puffed it out, just for show. “You can touch it. If you want.”

“Come again?”

Gray leveled his eyes at Troy, finger still on the half-closed zipper, close enough for him to kiss those soft, pale lips of his. “You heard me, Troy. If you want, you can touch it.”

“Your chest?”

“Sure, I mean, you’re halfway there anyway.”

“Gray, I ...”

“I know,” Gray murmured. “It sounds funny, saying something like that in the light of day, but ... I’m here. In your room. Half-naked. In a squirrel costume. I feel like we made a connection last night, don’t you?”

“Sure, absolutely, I just ... here? Now?”

Gray stood his ground. It was make or break time. He could feel the moment, teetering on unsteady legs, desperate to get the momentum back. “Listen, I was gonna follow you around the Con floor all day, flopping around like a giant squirrel, make you a special drink afterward and hit on you then, but ... the minute you grabbed that zipper, I kind of felt, why wait?”

“Cocky bastard,” Troy murmured, clinging to the zipper just the same as it hovered in place, half-up, half-down.

“I’m not the only one,” Gray insisted, nodding at the fancy spread by the window. “Fresh coffee. Baked goodies. A window view, the shades pulled back, the bed all made, and you in your spiffiest Cyborg Clone jammy pants!”