Just Like That - Cole McCade Page 0,60
curling over his, gripping tight. Summer sucked in a broken breath, lifting his head, sniffling back hard as he opened his eyes, scrubbing his free hand against his nose and staring at Fox miserably. At that smile that seemed the vessel for every pain he’d ever seen, ever known, awful and dark and heavy.
“I’m sorry,” Fox said. “Maybe if I’d known you in another life...known you as someone else. Before...everything. But I can give you these few months, Summer...and I hope it will be enough.”
No—no, it’s never enough!
Nothing is enough...not until I can call you mine, and you call me yours.
It was almost cruel of Fox—cruel of him to let Summer know how it could feel to be with him, to be loved by him, to be wrapped up in his passion and the full unfettered force of the emotions Fox tried so hard to repress.
What had happened back there...
That hadn’t been just lust.
Not the way Fox had kissed him, not the way Fox had touched him, whispered his name like a prayer, nearly worshipped him with every touch and every crash of their bodies. Fox had given him so much, and God, when he’d laughed, when Summer had seen that brightness transform his face until he came alive...
It only left him that much more cold when Fox withdrew once more behind a wall of quiet melancholy more stubborn and impenetrable than the harshest rejections, so determined to believe he was nothing else.
Summer wanted to shake him, wanted to beg...
But he couldn’t.
His heart was too sore and heavy, right now.
He was too raw with all the emotions that Fox had touched, stroking the exposed nerves of his heart to leave them too quivering and sensitive.
He couldn’t take this tonight.
But he wouldn’t give up, he told himself, even as he turned his hand to press palm to palm with Fox’s, lacing their fingers together, blinking back the blurring in his vision and forcing himself to smile.
“If that’s what you want,” he said thickly. “A few months is more than I ever thought would happen.”
Fox’s gaze flickered back and forth over Summer’s face, searching—before he tugged on their clasped hands, drawing Summer in.
“Come here, you ridiculous boy,” he sighed. “Just...come here.”
Then Fox’s arms were around him, enfolding him like an apology, drawing him in close against Fox’s chest, his warmth, the strength of him.
Summer told himself he wouldn’t break.
Wouldn’t cry.
But he clutched tight at Fox, buried his face in his chest, and breathed in deep wet gasps until that feeling of desperation passed, until he no longer felt like...like...
Like he was losing something before he even had a chance to grasp it tight.
Fox’s heat and bulk curled around him, fingers stroking against his back—before one hand pulled away.
And a moment later, something cool fell over Summer like rain, lashing and licking against his skin in silken washes.
He opened his eyes, sucking in a soft breath, watching as the spill of Fox’s hair cascaded down in threads of black diamond, fine and wispy and floating like feathers in looping arcs to spill over Fox, over the bed, over Summer. It was longer than he’d ever imagined, pouring in a river over the dark gray sheets, shining like thin threads of starlight shooting through a black night sky, liquid as water and silken-fine and wreathing Fox in a cloak that made him look ethereal, unreal, almost inhuman.
Summer’s heart thumped harder still, as he looked up into gray eyes that seemed to whisper a sorrow older than even Fox himself, older than the sky, older than the moon.
“Sleep, Summer,” Fox breathed, and bent over him, pressing his lips to Summer’s brow like a blessing. “Sleep...and this will all look different in the morning.”
* * *
Fox felt as though he had committed a crime.
A desecration. A sin. A defilement against everything he held dear.
A betrayal.
Not against Michiko; not against the memory that still perched on his shoulder like a silent thing, whispering in his ear endlessly in a constant stream of sounds he couldn’t understand but that would never give him peace.
Against Summer.
Fox curled on his side with his head pillowed on one arm, his other arm draped around Summer, gathering him close against his chest. Summer slept tucked tight into him, resting in the crook of Fox’s arm and burrowing his face into his shoulder, the mess of his hair spilling in black arcs over Fox’s chest and mixing with his own until they were just a sea of ink together, and all that tanned,