The Bromance Book Club - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,81

her off.

“Gavin, I’m tired of this. I can’t do this.”

He rounded the bed to her side and lowered to his knees. “Wh-when I was in high school, I had a crush on this girl. She w-was pretty and popular. I finally got the courage to ask her out, and she laughed at me. Made fun of my stutter right to my face.”

“Gavin, I’m sorry, but—”

“It gets worse. About a w-w-week later, a list started going around school. Top Ten Guys Most in Need of a . . .” He stopped to swallow against the bile of remembered humiliation. “A pity fuck. I was listed number one. She was the girl behind it.”

Thea rubbed her temples.

“Thea, I’ve never been confident about sex. I was . . . I was a late bloomer. I didn’t lose my virginity until college. And there’s always been—” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I’ve always had a fear that I was the one who was most in love in this marriage.”

“Gavin,” she breathed, eyes softening.

“I’ve always feared that you wouldn’t have married me, that I wouldn’t have been able to keep you, if you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”

Her hands fisted in his shirt. “How can you think that?”

“So, yes, there is a part of me that w-wishes I didn’t know you’d been faking it with me, because then I could keep pretending we were fine. That I wasn’t losing you.”

A tear leaked down her cheek.

“I was pretending that we could just move forward like nothing happened, but that’s not fair to you. Or to me, either, I guess.”

Thea swung her legs off the bed and tugged him closer. Which was as good an encouragement as any. He was officially going for broke. Gavin dropped his forehead to her knees. “I’m at your mercy, Thea. From the moment I first saw you, I have been half a man, because you’ve always held the other half of me.”

“Gavin . . .” His name came out scratchy, as if she was suddenly finding it as difficult to breathe as he was.

Gavin raised his gaze to hers. “End my agony, Thea. I beg you.”

His heart bounced like a grounder at second base as he waited for her to move. Indecision and longing ebbed and flowed between them with each mingled pant of their breaths. Inch by aching inch, she lowered her mouth toward his. Her breathing became erratic as her fingers encircled his straining biceps.

Gavin rose and pushed her gently onto the bed. Thea sank into her pillow, opened her mouth wide, and something released in his chest. A rush of oxygen and elation flooded his veins, a heady cocktail of relief and lust.

He hadn’t kissed his wife like this in so long, and he wasn’t talking about the passionate kisses he planted on her the past couple of weeks. He hadn’t kissed her this way in longer than he could remember. It was lazy and hot, with the comfort of familiarity but the thrill of newness. Her hands were in his hair. Her leg on his hip. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Even their wild kisses earlier tonight hadn’t come close to this simple intimacy. He poured apology and promises into every nudge and dip of his mouth, and he tasted the first hint of acceptance in return.

His body burned to shed their clothes and bury himself deep inside her. But he knew neither of them were ready. Their marriage wasn’t ready. They were on the verge of something new between them. Something better than before. He wasn’t going to risk it just to serve the needs of his body.

Especially since he still wasn’t sure he could serve the needs of hers. And any failure now would set them back to a place he never wanted to return. Not when he knew there were moments like this ahead of them.

And as the oxygen rushed from his lungs, something that felt like gratitude swept in to expand them. Yes, gratitude. For this moment. For this second chance. For this woman.

She’d owned half his heart for so long that the full, frenzied pounding of it was as foreign a sensation as the completeness of life that he only felt with her, had only ever felt with her. Thea made a noise, a soothing murmur as if she understood, as if she were feeling it all too.

She glided her hand along his jaw and parted her lips against his throat, her breath to his pulse. They moved. They touched. They spoke