Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,72

leave. But he’d never taken much time to explore himself beyond the abstract idea that he wanted something different.

Maybe if he had, he would have realized that his feelings for Ilan had been changing—a slow, gentle evolution that was almost impossible to see unless he stopped and looked for it. And why would he—why would he have even considered it was a possibility? But he thought back to the wedding, the night before all hell broke loose and Julian’s life began to crumble.

Ilan had been with him in a dark moment filled with scotch and confessions. It had been filled with warm touches and a comforting body pressed against his he’d taken for granted. If he’d stopped then, even for a moment, and truly looked, he might have seen it. Or, at the very least, he would have felt that spark ignited by some innocuous moment not worth remembering, but began the blaze of want and need and love that was now threatening to consume him.

Being alone with his own company wasn’t comfortable, but it was necessary.

He showered, took Bas out for one last romp, then made himself a mug of herbal tea and curled up in bed. He had an audiobook queued, and he had his Braille Note if he wanted the silence instead, but neither of those things were appealing.

He laid back in his bed, his eyes half-lidded, and he thought about their almost. The breath of a second that might have changed everything. Even if Ilan turned him down the moment he stepped through the door the next night, Fredric would always know what he felt like. Not just causal touches, and not touches of comfort, but touches of desire. He knew the way Ilan’s heart pounded and the way he trembled with a vulnerability he showed almost no one. He knew that Ilan’s body was hard yet graceful and his skin was rough in places with hair that scraped his palms, but his lips were soft and parted on a tender sigh.

He knew that Ilan’s pulse matched his own when everything in the world ceased to exist but them. He knew that Ilan smelled like the woods and coffee and spices. He knew the shape of his jaw now and the corners of his mouth and the rush of his breath.

He was desperate to know more, but something deep inside him told him this could be enough—if it had to be. And he would be patient for the rest of time. After all, he’d given thirty-six years to Jacqueline—and she deserved very few of those moments he’d spent on her. He could give Ilan eternity and not feel a single second of regret.

Closing his eyes, he pulled the blanket tight around him and thought about what Ilan had confessed. I’ve never slept in bed with anyone.

It had been years for Fredric too. So many that all of these things—dating, kissing, fucking, waking up with someone in the morning—all felt like firsts. Like he was being reborn into a new life, and the hand reaching out to his was the one that would always, always make sure he knew he was loved.

Fredric expected the next day to pass at a crawl. Agatha and Teddy were in St. Augustine for a gallery showing, which meant he had nothing to distract himself from the wait except cleaning and making sure to remember he had some working lights in the house. Ilan had never complained before, but he remembered more than once Ilan fumbling around in the dark and saying nothing until Fredric heard him crashing into tables.

It was yet another reminder that Ilan had always twisted himself into shapes to fit Fredric. The way he’d adjusted himself to make the other man comfortable and never once made it feel like a burden. Ilan had always been very much himself, but he was nothing like the man Fredric thought he’d grow up to be. The brave boy who wanted to fight every person who ever looked at Fredric askance. The child with his hands curled into fists, ready to take on anyone who might stand in his way had somehow become this man so unaware of his own worth and importance, and Fredric wasn’t quite sure how to go forward.

And maybe Fredric should feel worse about falling for him. This was Ilan—his son’s best friend. Their relationship had evolved in ways he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and it felt like another universe—another set of people when he thought back