didn’t know if you’d still feel that way,” I admitted.
“I don’t think I ever stopped,” he said simply.
“Me neither,” I confessed. I had one hand on the back of the couch and one on his thigh, feeling the tension in the strong muscle. “God, I love your legs.”
“I like your face.”
“I thought you said it was stupid?” I couldn’t stop my smile.
“I lied.” Staring deep into my eyes, he traced the lines of my nose and my cheeks. He ran his fingertips softly over the arch of my eyebrows and the curve of my lips. “But you are Jake. I see you. How you were then. How you are now.”
Closing my eyes, I kissed his fingertips. I couldn’t bear to tell him everything he saw was a lie.
“Truth or dare?” he asked.
“Truth,” I said instantly, opening my eyes. If there was ever a time in my worthless life that demanded even a modicum of truth, this was it.
“Have you ever been in love?”
He had to know the answer to that. “Yes. Once. Have you?”
“Yes. You know I have.”
My heart lurched, stopped, and beat. It hurt, a real physical pain. There was a ghost and an imposter in this room and they were both me. I didn’t deserve his love, even in the past, but God did I want it. “I didn’t, I mean, I don’t know that.”
“Some things are too scary to say out loud,” he said with a sad smile.
Wasn’t that the ultimate truth? “Truth or dare?” I asked him.
“Dare,” he said, his big hand wrapping around the back of my neck.
“I dare you to kiss me,” I said.
He did.
15 Eric
I’d known we were going to end up here the second Jake had walked into my office. I also knew it was probably going to end in tears. But I wasn’t asking for forever. I’d given up on that fantasy years ago. There were no soulmates, no happy ever afters. But there was this moment, and there was Jake and an offer of comfort, however temporary, and I was going to take it.
And I was going to blow his mind. The last time I’d touched Jake with any kind of intent, I’d been a kid, practically a virgin. Now I was a grown man and far from innocent. I had moves.
Grabbing his chin with my fingers, I turned his head until my mouth was right by his ear and brushed a feather-light kiss against the sensitive shell of flesh.
“Please, Eric,” he said with a shudder. “Fucking kiss me.”
I grabbed his head with both hands, pulling him back to me and crashed our mouths together, my lips cutting against my teeth with the force of the kiss. I fell backward onto the couch, pulling him down on top of me.
He caught himself with one hand. From the chest down, we were plastered together, but he pulled away far enough to speak. “It’s still a really bad idea,” he said quietly even as he carded his fingers through my hair. “There’s so much you don’t know about me. So much we need to talk about.”
“I know.” I pulled him back down to me, spreading my legs so he could lie between them. He was already so hard. “But it can wait. Just promise me one thing?”
I could see the reluctance in his eyes. That was good because it meant he was aware he might not be able to and he didn’t want to lie to me. “Just promise me that you’ll tell me before you leave this time.”
He stared at me for a long moment, weighing telling me what he thought I wanted to hear against the truth. In the end, he simply said, “I promise.” And then he kissed me.
When Jake kissed me it was new and exciting and so familiar and comforting that I could have cried. We kissed with all the desperation of the kids we used to be and all the passion of the grown men we were.
I loved the weight of him on top of me, the way he felt with my arms wrapped around him. Beneath the T-shirt, his skin was warm and soft. I smoothed my hands down the muscles on either side of his spine and slipped them under the pants, grabbing his ass with both hands. He groaned, moving his mouth to my neck. Yanking the collar of my shirt wide, he kissed all the skin he could reach, laying small stinging bites that I knew from past experience would leave tiny