Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,96

it into the tomato and peppers before taking a bite.

It wasn’t perfect. It tasted nothing like his mother’s—the sort of rich, hearty comfort after a long Shabbat where his active body and mind had been forced to stay still and quiet for longer than he ever wanted.

But it was perfect, because this was not his past. This was his future.

“It’s good,” he said, swallowing.

Fredric was smiling, but he shook his head. “I know it probably needs work.”

“It tastes like,” Ilan said, searching. He took another bite, then set the bowl down and turned so he could touch Fredric’s cheek. “It tastes like yours. It tastes like you made it. It doesn’t need any work you don’t want to put into it.”

Fredric’s cheeks pinked against Ilan’s hand, and he bit his lip. “I just want to know I can be good at this.”

“You already are,” Ilan told him. “I know I…I haven’t really given you much reason to trust me. I’ve spent the last few weeks talking about how I want to try to be more serious but have no faith in my ability to do it. And I ran out on you more than once.”

“Just the one time,” Fredric said, the curve of his smile pushing against Ilan’s hand, “technically.”

Ilan scoffed. “I’m trying to say something here, old man,” he said, and Fredric’s eyes squinted with his grin, as though the mocking nickname was something endearing and wanted.

When Ilan followed up with silence, Fredric shifted and turned to face him, all teasing and mocking gone from his expression. “Ilan.”

“I…” he said, then ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He spied his glasses at the edge of the bed and reached forward, shoving them on. They were smudged from where he’d grabbed them by the lenses, but Fredric’s face came into sharper focus, and it gave Ilan something like courage to see the patience shining from his eyes. “I’m going to try, okay? Hard. I’m going work my ass off because I want to be worth your attention and your l—” he stopped abruptly because just like the night before, the word almost slipped out and he wasn’t ready to acknowledge that, no matter how he felt. “Your patience.”

It was obvious from the look on Fredric’s face he knew what Ilan nearly said, but he let the moment pass. “You already are, my darling.”

“I just,” Ilan said quietly, “want to do this right.”

Fredric bit down on his lip, then said nothing. He reached for the bowls again, handing Ilan’s off to him, and Ilan appreciated the reprieve. They sat shoulder to shoulder that way, with the sun coming in and warming their toes, with the sounds of the ocean gently floating through the two-inch crack in the window.

The moment felt like something important, but small, and Ilan had a sudden and irrational desire to curl his hands around it so nothing could ever touch it. Which was absurd. Things between them weren’t going to stay perfect. Things probably wouldn’t even stay like this for the rest of the day. He still didn’t have enough faith in himself, and Fredric was still feeling his way out of the ghost of his bad marriage.

It was a recipe for disaster, but Ilan was starving for it anyway.

“Thank you,” he said when he was done eating, pushing the tray to the very corner of the bed. The bowls were stacked, and his mouth was a little sour from the tomatoes, but he was feeling calmer now. He leaned back, then looked over at Fredric and saw a smudge of yolk on his cheek, and he reached up without thinking to brush it away with a licked thumb.

Fredric caught him before he could pull back, laughter tugging at the corners of his lips. “Did I make a mess?”

Ilan grinned. “Not as big of a mess as we made last night.” He could see stains on the top of the comforter, which would need a thorough cleaning, but he couldn’t give it more than a passing thought when he saw naked, raw desire rising on Fredric’s face.

“That was…” he said and swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and Ilan wanted to lean forward and nibble at it. “It was nothing like I imagined.”

“Worse?”

Fredric gave him a flat look. “Did I seem unsatisfied?”

“You seemed,” Ilan said, hunting for the words, but there were none. He hadn’t been able to see much of him in the dim light, but he’d been able to feel all of him, hear all