“We don’t have to rush anything,Ev.”
“We don’t have to go too slow, either,” he whispered. He trailed his hands down over my chest, finding my nipples through the soft cotton. “It’s okay, Ipromise.”
There were still so many things I wanted to talk to him about, shit that I wanted to get sorted in my mind. Like, we still hadn’t exactly talked about why he’d cried after the first time we’d done anything physical, and I wanted to be sure he was reallyokay.
And… what exactly did he want from me, besidesnot-friendship? The irony of being on the other side of the coin, wondering if the guy I was into wanted something besides a friendly hookup was pretty fucking un-funny.
It felt so good and so right to have Ev beside me, but the ghost of that vulnerability I’d been feeling earlier… hell, that I’d been feeling since Saturday, if I was being honest… still clogged the back of mymind.
He grinned up at me and shook his head like he could sense my hesitation. “I can practicallyhearyou thinking. It feels like a weird kind of role reversal. I thought I was the suspicious overthinker. There are no squirrels here to eat us,Silas.”
I huffed out alaugh.
“What was it you were saying last weekend? Not everything needs to be a struggle? Don’t make things harder than they need tobe?”
He was right. After a week of worrying that I’d fucked things up beyond repair, he was in my arms again and he wanted me. Why the hell was Ihesitating?
I laughed and ran my hands down over the curve of his ass, squeezing his cheeks and pulling him against me again. “Why don’t you tell me howhardtheyneed to be,Everett?”
Hemoaned.
“Why don't you tell me everything you'd like to have happen right now,” I continued, whispering in his ear. “Just to make sure we’re on the samepage.”
“T-tell you?” he stuttered, rubbing himself against me. He was getting hard already andfuck, yeahthat turned me on. I felt my own cock respond with a happythrob.
“Exactly,” I replied, tracing the seam of his ass through his khakis. “You’re the artist. Paint me apicture.”
“Don’t stop doing that,” he breathed, clutching myshoulders.
“Then starttalking.”
He licked his lips. “T-tell you one of my fantasies? Aboutyou?”
“Is there more than one?” I rucked up his shirt in the back, slowly pulling it from his pants, eager to get my hands on hisskin.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t really ever touched him, not anywhere you wouldn’t touch a casual friend, and I needed to rectify thisimmediately.
His cheeks became ruddy and his eyesdilated.
“There are several. I think about, um… blow jobs.” He punctuated the word with a tiny thrust of his hips, like he couldn’t help himself from seekingfriction.
“And?”
“Uh… You coming into the hardware store, all pissed off like you were the other night at the meeting, with your blue eyes blazing and your jaw clenched.” He lifted one hand from my shoulder to trace my jaw and his eyes met mine. “And you take it out on me by fucking me over thecounter.”
“Jesus.” I ran both palms over the smooth, hot skin of his back, but it wasn’t enough to feel it. I wanted to see it, to taste it, tomarkit.
“But my favorite one is about… your truck.” His breath stuttered and my hands stoppedroaming.
I looked over Ev’s shoulder, through the open door of the garage, to the driveway where my truck sat innocently reflecting the yellow-orange glow of the setting sun. “Whataboutmy truck?” Igrowled.
“The first night we met you…You made that stupid comment. Do youremember?”
I shook my head. “Something dumbabout…”
“About strapping me down… in the bed of your truck.Yeah.” He swallowed. “I’ve never done anything like that before, but… it kinda got methinking.”
I looked down at his fever-bright eyes and the flush that had spread down his neck to the open collar of his shirt.FuckI loved that. Loved that he was turning himself on even as he turned me on. All of the available blood in my body rushedsouth.
