Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,81

white-hot and brighter than the sun is erupting under his skin.

“I’m…I,” he stutters through the words, half-stunted by the fact that Alejandro has not stopped kissing him.

Alejandro comes first, a hot spurt over Avery’s knuckles, and the feel of it sends him crashing over the edge. He doesn’t cry out—he makes no sound at all. His back bows, and his mouth falls open, and his eyes are wide and unseeing. He comes to with Alejandro kissing his neck and petting down his chest and murmuring soft noises against his neck.

He’s not entirely sure this isn’t the dream that had gripped him by the throat just minutes before his mother woke him, but as his heartbeat returns to normal, and he can breathe again, Alejandro is still there. There’s no space between them. He hasn’t faded into nothing.

“Tell me again,” Avery says as Alejandro rolls off him.

The older man props up on his elbow, and he pulls Avery’s hand to his mouth, kissing his knuckles in spite of the wet streaks of come. “I love you.”

Avery knows it’ll take time to believe it’s real, but he accepts it exactly as it is for now. Something like a miracle.

They lay in silence for a while, then Alejandro rolls over and makes a startled noise. Reaching behind him, he fumbles, then Avery sees what it is, and his cheeks go a little hot because there’s a look on Alejandro’s face like he knows.

“I saw it at the holiday market,” he murmurs. He pulls his shirt off, then wipes himself off before leaning over and giving Alejandro a cursory swipe. “It’s actually a Christmas market, but my mom calls it a holiday one so she doesn’t feel like she’s betraying our people by shopping there.”

Alejandro’s lip twitches in the corner. “She’s…fierce.”

“That’s one word for it.” Avery leans over and traces his finger around the blade again. “It made me think of you. Of us. I bought it for you, and I knew I’d keep it even if I never got to see you again.”

“You think I’d let you go that easy?” Alejandro sounds hurt now, and Avery isn’t really sure what to do with that because it’s not totally outrageous that a man like him would go back to what he’d once known and loved.

“I didn’t know what was happening. I thought you were going to end things—then you showed up at my place and told me we were spending the week together…” He trails off with a shrug.

Alejandro actually looks guilty at that, and he sets the carving down so he can roll a little closer. “That was my plan.” And Avery knew—but it still stings. “I fell for you the day I saw you at that little car wash, but I was too afraid that I was going to ruin you if I let this go on any longer.”

“So why?” Avery asks, his voice barely audible between them. “Why all the Chanukah stuff? Why…why this?”

“Because the moment I gave in and touched you,” Alejandro confesses with a confidence in his voice that Avery isn’t sure he’ll ever have. “I realized I never wanted to let you go. I realized I actually trusted myself to do right by you—which clearly I was wrong…”

“No,” Avery says, then he surges into a kiss because it’s the only way he can think of to really stop Alejandro from taking blame for that. “I could have stayed and asked.”

“You were hurt,” Alejandro tells him, and he brushes fingers across Avery’s kiss-swollen lips, and they tingle and feel so fucking good. “I wish you had trusted me enough to wait, but I’ve spent twelve months giving you no reason to.”

And well, that’s not a lie. It’s a plain, harsh truth, and he knows that it’s going to take longer than a surprise visit and love confession and one really—really—good orgasm to build something solid. But the fact that Alejandro is there does offer him something like courage.

“We both fucked up,” Avery eventually says. “We can do better.”

“Yes.” Alejandro pulls him closer until their legs are wrapped together and their lips have no room to do anything else except kiss, and kiss, and kiss.

20

The Taste of Miracles

The last thing in the world Alejandro’s mind needs is to spend the night in a hotel room without Avery there—but his parents were less than thrilled about seeing Alejandro and learning that the two of them have been in a relationship for the last year. He knows Avery isn’t going to tell