“Your priorities suck, Forrester,” I told him.
He set aside the sack and wiped the salty grease from his food on the shoulder of his shirt. Correction, my shirt.
The toes of his shoes hit mine when he stepped up close. His hands reached for my hat and spun it around backward on my head.
Excitement curled low in my belly, and I had to force myself to stand there and not grab him close. I liked the anticipation. Of waiting to see what he would do. Of not being the one to always make the first move.
I wasn’t opposed to it. In fact, if someone asked, I would likely answer I made a lot more first moves than he did.
That’s what made this moment so much sweeter.
“My priorities are exactly as they should be.” His voice was low. I had to strain to hear him over the pounding of the rain.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Fries before guys.” I reminded him.
“You’re not a guy.”
“No?”
He closed the distance between us. Our chests bumped when he advanced. Any bystander might glance at us and assume we were measuring the other, possibly even challenging the other… but there was no challenge here.
Only desire.
His lips came close. “No,” he whispered. I felt the brush of his mouth more than I actually heard the word.
Then he was kissing me, and I forgot all about fries and anticipation. I sank into the kiss. I actually felt my soul tug inside me, swaying toward Drew.
Unable to help myself, I wrapped one arm around his shoulders and held him tightly against my body. Drew’s hands wound around my waist and dipped low, fingertips pulling at the hem of my shirt, and my back muscles contracted waiting for his touch.
Instead of going up beneath the fabric, his hands slid down, diving right into the back pockets of my jeans so he could palm my ass.
I groaned into his mouth and tilted my head a little farther. Drew intensified the kiss, his tongue delving deep, and we battled it out for who could explore more of the other.
A crash of thunder literally shook the roof, but it didn’t matter. We were creating our own storm right here in each other’s arms. When at last he retreated, he did so slowly, pulling my lower lip as he went, tugging it out and sucking gently.
My heart was thumping when we pulled apart and the air brushed over my kiss-slicked lips and made them feel cold.
Drew smirked like he was proud of himself for kissing the shit out of me and reached down to adjust the hardness beneath his jeans. When he was done, he reached over and adjusted mine.
Blazing hot need pulsed through my veins. “Be careful, Forrester,” I said, hoarse. “Your virginity is at stake.”
He scoffed and grabbed the bag of fries to shove some more in his face. His lips were slightly swollen now from kissing.
“I hate to break it to you,” he said, chewing loudly, “but that ship sailed a long time ago.”
“Not the ship I’m talking about.”
He paused in chewing. The second he realized what I meant, he glanced down at my cock.
“I took your virginity.” The possession and pride in his tone was just a little arrogant.
“I gave it to you.” I corrected.
“Would you do it again?” His voice was curious, if even a little abrupt.
Was that a little vulnerability? I smiled. “That’s something I can only give once.”
He made a face, and the white sack crumpled when his hand clenched around it.
“Yeah, Forrester,” I said low. “I’d do it again.”
Just like that, the confidence he always wore like a second skin came back. His smile was quick and satisfied. His hand dove back in for the food. “I’m not sharing my fries.”
“There’s ketchup in the bag,” I told him, amused. Like I even entertained the thought of him sharing those damn fries. “And I do have a burger in there… You gonna eat that, too?”
He made a face. “You probably got extra tomato on it.”
“Nah, I’ll just add the tomato off yours to mine.”
He grunted and moved to the front of the car. “Come look at this. I need a hand with the engine.”
Just like that, we transitioned into best friend mode. I loved it. I loved the layers to our relationship. I loved how one minute, he was adjusting my junk because he was the one who made it hard, and the next, we were eating burgers and arguing over the best way to fix an engine.
It was everything. And though our relationship had many layers, they weren’t separate. Like my feelings for him weren’t kept in a neat little box beside the one where our friendship was.
We swirled together. Like chocolate and vanilla soft serve, like ketchup and mustard on a burger.
Our friendship was better because of our love. Our love was better because it blossomed out of friendship.
“You need some muscle,” I told him after a few minutes of watching him work. “Step aside.” I used the flat of my hand against his shoulder to push him over to wedge myself above the engine where he’d been showing me what he was doing.
After a few seconds, I loosened the cap he was struggling with and also flipped a few other things open and pulled out a bad sparkplug.
“See?” I held the plug up with one hand and patted his cheek with my other. “I think Mr. Magazine Cover is turning into a pretty boy.”
Drew slapped my hand away. “Asshole.”
I laughed and went back to work. The garage was dim because there was only one overhead light and the sky outside was darkening quickly. The rainstorm added an extra gloomy quality to the light, but it wasn’t a hindrance. We were two guys hunkered down amongst tools and greasy food. Just the two of us without the outside world to bother with.
A little while later, my hands were dirty and the scent of oil filled the air. Both our heads were bent low and a bare bulb was lit and clipped to the underside of the hood, giving us some much-needed extra light.
I felt Drew move slightly, his elbows hitting the edge of the car. “So this is what you had in mind for dinner tonight?”
I moved back and grabbed a nearby rag to wipe off my hands. “Do you need more romance, Forrester?” I teased.
“Do you?” He wasn’t teasing. Slowly, Drew pulled back, propped a hip against the car, and crossed his arms over his chest.
I watched him closely, trying to hear what he hadn’t said. “Why would you think that?”
He shrugged. “You’re not the best talker, T. That’s cool, but I don’t want you sacrificing your own happiness for mine.”
I dropped the rag on the workbench and stepped closer, mirroring his position. It hit me in all the soft spots. He was asking if I was happy like he was worried I wasn’t.
As if I could be anything but happy with him.
“All I want is who we are.” I gestured between us. “Burgers and fries, engines, bad jokes, and maybe you beside me in bed at night.”
“That’s all?” He tilted his head.
I nodded. “But if you need more separation… like more friend time and more… person time, then I’m down. Say the word. I’ll even get you some flowers and pretend I’m nervous when I pick you up at the door.”
I’d totally be nervous. But he didn’t need to know I was serious. But joking aside, this was something I needed to know. I thought the way we blended was perfect, but what if he didn’t feel the same?
“Flowers?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“You can be the girl in the relationship.” So maybe I wasn’t done joking. On the outside anyway. It helped cover some of the nerves bunching low in my belly. Even though we made it past a lot of hard parts, it didn’t mean any of this was easy. It might not ever be. But some things in life were worth the struggle.
He laughed and shook his head. The blue of his eyes sparked with amusement, and I relaxed a little. “You know how I feel about labels, frat boy.”
“My bad.” I pretended to be sorry.
Drew chuckled and rubbed a hand over his face. He had
some grease smeared on his fingers. I thought about snatching his hand and cleaning it up for him. “I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of you. Of us.”
I stiffened, and although I didn’t make a sound, I still heard a low whistle in my mind. That was a heavy sentence to drop. It blew up all traces of jokes and sarcasm. “I don’t think that.”
He glanced up, held my eyes. I liked the way we’d grown together. How once we skirted around the way we felt, ran from our thoughts. Now we looked each other in the eye and dealt with it.
“I had some time to think today.”
I nodded so he would continue.
“You noticed how I reacted when everyone looked at us when we came downstairs, how my instinct was to pull away. I haven’t told my father, my brother, or Gamble.”
“Drew—” I started, but he cut me off.
“You’ve been shouldering our relationship alone. You got attacked for it. You faced the frat and when you told the family you were gay. You. Not me. You probably wouldn’t have told them about me at all if I hadn’t spoken up. Would you?”
Slowly, I shook my head. Of course I wouldn’t. That was his decision to make. I’d never take something like that out of his hands.
Drew pressed his lips together before continuing. “You’ve kept me out of it. You’ve been shielding me.”
“And I’ll keep doing it. There’s no timeline on this. There’s no rule that says you have to spring out of the closet and shout our relationship to the world. You don’t have to declare we’re dating. You don’t have to hold my hand in public. You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for.”
“I called Ron Gamble before you got here,” he said.
I jerked upright. “What?”
“I asked for a meeting. I’m going to tell him.”
“If you’re doing this because you somehow think I want you to…”
“Don’t you?” He pressed gently.
I sighed. “Have I thought about it? Hell yeah, but not because I think you’re ashamed. I think the unknown of people’s reactions is a heavy burden for you to bear. In some ways, it would be easier if we could walk into a room and not worry about how we looked at each other.”
“People are gonna see regardless,” he mused.
I smiled. “Yeah, probably. But I can back off, stay in the background of your career.”
“No.” His voice was hard and finite. “You’ve spent almost all the time I’ve known you in the background, T. You don’t belong there, and I’ll be damned if that’s where I put you.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, trying not to be totally won over by his burst of resolve.
“I want to live like I drive. Full throttle. I don’t want to back down. I don’t want to put my career above our relationship. I don’t want a line drawn between my life with you on one side and everything else on the other.”
“Tell me what you need, Drew. You’ll have it.” I kind of felt like I was walking a tight rope. Walking that line Drew mentioned he didn’t want to have. It was unsteady, and I was scared, but I had to keep my balance. I had to make it across.
“As determined as I am…” His voice faded away and his face turned down so I couldn’t look at him.
“You’re scared.” If he couldn’t say, I could. I knew what it was like to be scared. I knew what it was like when you weren’t supposed to be scared. My joke about Drew being a girl aside, we were both men, strong ones, ones who would never want to show weakness.
The truth was everyone in life was sometimes afraid. It was how one reacted to that fear that defined a person.
He nodded but didn’t look up.
The need to make the bubble Drew and I lived in a little bit bigger, a little more secure, grew tenfold. The distance between us was minimal. I grabbed him, not really caring if he was ready or not. Sometimes I liked to move slow with him, cautious so as not to scare him away.
But now wasn’t the time for that shit.
Now was the time for action. I knew what it was like to be scared and to fall into a black hole of not knowing how people would react to the way you felt inside. I didn’t want him to feel that. I knew it was likely inevitable—it was a natural almost automatic response to falling in love with your best friend—but he wasn’t alone.
He didn’t have to be alone.
His big body collided with mine, and I wound both arms around him to hold him close. My heart ached a little when his forehead hit my shoulder, like it was a relief I was offering to hold him up.
“You aren’t alone,” I whispered.
“Do you ever get scared?” he whispered back.
All the fucking time. “Not when you’re beside me.”
“Liar,” he muttered.
I tried to suppress my laughter, but my body quaked with it, so I know he felt it, too.
“I’m coming to the meeting. I’m gonna be there at your parents’ house,” I told him.
His body, which was pliable in my arms, went rigid.
“Don’t bother,” I said, lazy, tightening my grip. “It’s not up for discussion. I don’t have to talk, but I will be there. I just said you aren’t alone, and I meant it.”
“What if he throws me out?” Although the words weren’t whispered, they were low, and they ripped from the deepest part of him. A part so deep I had no idea it even existed.
He gave me something else with those painful words. Something I didn’t even know was missing.
He was mine entirely now.
He might have given me his heart before, but it wasn’t just his heart I wanted.
I wanted the place I thought only I had inside me. That place that hid behind the heart. As tender as the heart was, this place was more so. A place so fragile only the heart could protect it.
He showed it to me.
Now it wasn’t just his heart that would protect it.
I would, too.
For all the fierceness that rose up inside me, I couldn’t lie. “I don’t know,” I replied and hugged him a little tighter.
The sharp grip of his fingertips pushed into my lower back, and I let him cling. It reminded me of all the times I tied a knot in the straw paper he always blew across the table at me.
Sometimes in life you had to tie a knot and hold on. I would be his knot.
Of all the obstacles Drew and I faced as men who’d fallen in love, the biggest hurdle for Drew was his father. I didn’t know what it was like to want to please someone so badly, because my dad had never been around.
It seemed like a lot of pressure to not only be who you were, but who everyone else wanted you to be.
Oh.
Maybe I did understand that better than I realized.
Drew shifted, but he didn’t pull away. His head turned to the side and his cheek rested against my shoulder. It wasn’t often I got to hold him. It wasn’t often he seemed to need this kind of reassurance.
Even though it was for reasons that were difficult, I relished in it. A light, almost giddy feeling somersaulted around inside me. It was still new between us, or maybe the chemistry was just so raw it would always be this way. A million butterflies knocked around inside my stomach, bouncing off the walls and making everything feel like an earthquake.
“You smell like leather,” I murmured, tucking in just a little closer. I had to get my feels in while I could get ‘em.
“You smell like home.”
Aanndd holding him wasn’t enough anymore.
I wrenched away, his fingers dragged over my sides as I yanked and practically tossed his ass on the edge of the open engine. The hood was propped up just enough to allow his head room, and I lunged forward between his open knees to attack.
My fist twisted in the front of his T-shirt, bunching the fabric the way he bunched up my heart. My chest rumbled like a souped-up engine as my lips latched onto his.
He tasted like salt and French fries, his lips full and warm.
I licked deep, so deep his body swayed backward, but he w
asn’t about to get away. I slammed my hand down on top of the engine to brace my weight while both his hands clamped around my shoulders.
If he were a snow drift, I’d be the plow. I wasn’t gentle, but really, I didn’t have to be. I kissed him like I always wanted to but never actually did.
I lost count of time, of the sound of the rain. Everything around me distorted down until the only thing in focus was the burning need to satiate the way he made me feel.
But kissing Drew was like drinking water from the sea. The more I drank, the thirstier I became.
So I kissed him endlessly; I devoured his mouth with relentless appetite.
There was no way a woman could withstand the potency of passion between us. We were like two forces of nature crashing together at unmatched speed. But Drew could. Speed was practically his specialty, and his strength matched my own.
I released the grip on his shirt, palmed his hip, and pulled him right up against me. Our centers met. His dick was stiff beneath his sweats, and the friction of it rubbing against my jeans made me shudder.
I wrenched my mouth away and pressed my lips together. My balls were drawn so tight up against my body I wanted to shove my hand down the front of my pants and massage them.
So careful. I’d always been painstakingly careful with Drew. Until now.
“I think I might be high,” Drew said, breathless, his body swaying a little.
I hid a smile. I was feeling a little high myself. “Too much?” I asked.
“More.” He scoffed. “I want more.”
I rubbed my thumb across his lower lip. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Just as I was about to suggest we take this inside, a sound snapped me back to reality, and reality brought an unwelcome guest.
“Well, well, what do we have here?”
My head whipped up as Lorhaven stepped into view.
Drew
Panic hit me first.
It wasn’t my finest moment and I wasn’t proud. But I didn’t have control over my immediate reaction to a surprise.
It was so incredibly easy to feel secure with Trent. I didn’t even have to try.
So when Lorhaven stepped into view and no doubt saw how Trent and I were wrapped up in one another, I felt like a volcano I didn’t even know was active erupted inside me.
#Rev (GearShark #2) Page 12
