Somebody to Love (Tyler Jamison #1) - April Wilson Page 0,65
start over, okay?” I say. “We’re just two guys getting to know each other.” I reach for his hand, his fingers warm and rough against mine. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
He nods. “I’d like that.”
“Do you cook?”
“Just the basics—I know enough not to starve.”
He’s still so damn nervous. Reality hits me—he’s a virgin. No matter how many women he’s been with, right now he’s a virgin. Jesus. The thought of being his first is heady.
I want that. I want to be his first. “Let’s cook dinner together. We can eat up on the roof, beneath the stars. How does that sound?”
“That sounds great.”
I lean in and kiss him again, simply because I can’t resist looking at that face and not kissing it. This time he eagerly kisses me back.
A weight lifts off my chest.
Maybe there’s hope for us after all.
* * *
“How about pasta?” I say when we’re in my kitchen.
“Sure. That’s one thing I do know how to make.”
He’d already removed his leather jacket and hung it in the hall closet, along with his gun and holster. His t-shirt hugs his torso, outlining how fit he is and showcasing biceps that strain against the fabric. My gaze follows the veins that snake down his arms to his wrists. Fuck. I’m a sucker for arm porn, and he’s got it in spades.
“Red sauce or white?” I ask him.
“Red.”
“Garlic bread? Salad?”
“Yes to both.”
“And a bottle of red wine.”
He smiles. “I didn’t realize you were such a culinary expert.”
“My mom made me and my sister take cooking classes when we were teens. She said she’d sleep better at night knowing we knew how to feed ourselves.”
“Smart lady.”
“How about your mom?” I ask him. “Does she like to cook?”
“She’s an amazing cook. I learned out of necessity—being a bachelor and all—but my sister can’t boil water. Her husband can’t cook either, but they don’t have to. They have someone who does all the cooking for them. They’re spoiled rotten.”
“They have a cook?”
He laughs. “Not exactly. Cooper is my brother-in-law’s best friend and business partner. My sister and her husband share the penthouse floor of their apartment building with Cooper and his partner, Sam.”
My brows rise. “A gay couple?”
“Yeah.” Then he sobers. “Last night, after I left you, I went to my sister. I told her I was gay.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. After last night—after what we did—I couldn’t deny it any longer. And this morning, she and I paid a visit to our mother. I told her.”
“How did they take it?”
“They were great. I knew my sister would be okay with it—Sam and Cooper are like family to her. I was more worried about my mom’s reaction.” He shakes his head. “She said she and my dad always suspected I was gay, but when I started dating girls in high school, they thought they must have been wrong.”
“Why did you date girls, if you weren’t into them?”
He shrugs. “I wanted to fit in. And, because I couldn’t contemplate any other alternative, especially after my dad died. I was eighteen. My mom needed me, as did my baby sister. I couldn’t let them down.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I couldn’t let my dad down.”
“So, instead you carried the weight of the world on your shoulders for…what? Decades?”
He nods. “Pretty much.”
“What about what you wanted? What about your needs?”
“That didn’t matter.”
I put a pot of water on the stove to boil and then join him at the kitchen island, where he’s cutting up veggies for a salad. I stand close, my shoulder brushing against his. When he tenses, I step back.
He’s not used to being touched.
“I know this scares you,” I say.
“You have no idea.”
“It scares me, too. Last night, when I went down on you, it was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever experienced.”
He swallows hard. “I lost control, Ian. I was mindless.”
“I know, and I liked it.” I lean over and kiss his taut shoulder. “I’m not afraid of a hard fuck. I like it.”
“When I saw you on your knees like that, I went a little nuts. Nothing’s ever felt that good before.”
“You just wait,” I say, grabbing a slice of cucumber off the cutting board and popping it in my mouth. “The best is yet to come.”
We finish our preparations and carry our food, two wine glasses, and the most expensive bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon I have up to the roof to eat in the greenhouse.
He follows me through the door that leads into the greenhouse. I flip the light switch,