“Just you and me.” I crossed my heart, breath caught in my throat.
The doorbell rang a second time, and Grayson stepped to the side, then back and back, until he was shoulder to shoulder with me. He bumped into me, urging me forward.
“You gonna get that?” he asked.
“Do I have to?”
I knew it was Hendrix, but I didn’t know anything beyond that. If he wanted to talk or just wanted to break up. There were a thousand what-ifs on the other side of that door and I was so fucking terrified.
“You do,” Grayson informed me.
“What do I tell him?” I asked. “What do I say?”
“Just tell him everything your face told me earlier.” The doorbell rang a third time. “But I don’t think he’s going to push that button a fourth time.”
Grayson patted his pockets and lunged forward, opening the door and sliding past Hendrix onto the porch. He fished his keys out of his pocket and waved them in the air at me as he jogged down the walkway, hopping over a bush into the driveway. It was a signal we hadn’t used in years. It was Grayson letting me know not to wait up. It was Grayson giving me the house for the night. Giving me space to fix things with Hendrix.
“Hey.” I shoved my hair out of my face, but it quickly slid right back over my eye. “How was dinner?”
“It was nice.” Hendrix’s voice, though fresh from our brief disagreement earlier, sounded so much nicer to my ears now than it had before. He rocked back on his heels, a crevasse between us that felt terrifying and impassable. Younger me, the more impulsive and selfish me, might have let that space be the reason—no, the excuse that things between us would crumble.
But I didn’t want to be the man Hendrix feared I was.
I refused to be.
I turned to the side, stretching my arm in invitation.
“Did you want to come in?” I managed to ask, almost collapsing when Hendrix crossed the threshold. “We can talk.”
He closed the door behind him, head tilted like I was a predator he was surveying to establish the most viable method of escape.
“I’ll come in,” he said. “But I don’t want to talk.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Hendrix
Miles’s expression fell,and I couldn’t stand it. I closed the space between us in two strides, grabbed his face between both of my hands and crashed our mouths together. His lips parted with a startled gasp, and I swallowed it down, along with the taste of whatever red wine he’d been drinking. It took a breath, but Miles softened, matching my pose and taking my face into his hands as well. He walked me backward until my shoulders hit the door, changing the angle of his head to deepen the kiss.
I was immediately hard for him. My entire dinner with Wes had been spent thinking about Miles and his text messages. Thinking about his mouth and his hands and the way he made me feel when he said my name, and the way the soft smile he always had after he got off made me feel like I’d been electrocuted. I tried to remember what it was like to be his age, to be so protective of love that I would have reacted much the same way. I recognized the jealousy and the insecurity, all wrapped up and tucked away under the commanding and oftentimes abrasive personality Miles wore in public. Because when we were alone, when it was just him and me, he was tender and rough in the best ways, the sincerest ways.
The reaction about Wes was childish, but I understood where it came from and I couldn’t punish him for that. The night he’d gone to the club with Grayson, I’d been seething with jealousy, even long after he showed up on my porch alone. It was unfair for me to pretend that I was allowed some kind of emotional indiscretions just because I was older. If anything, he deserved more grace there than I did.
So, over dinner, I decided to give him just that.
“Hendrix,” he murmured my name against my mouth, but I held him tighter, swirling my tongue against his in an attempt to silence his arguments. I should have known better. Miles could be headstrong when there was something he wanted. I’d watched him put all of his dedication into wooing me, and look where it had gotten us. He grunted, tearing himself away from my mouth, my face still clutched tight in his hands.
He pressed our foreheads together. “We need to talk. I want to explain. I want to apol—”
“You did.”
“You deserve better than a text,” he said.
“Then apologize to me with this.” I reached down and grabbed his cock, relishing the way he hardened against my palm. His eyes darkened, and I knew he’d give me anything I wanted.
Anything I asked for.
And I knew it wasn’t from a place of selfishness or desire. He would bend to me because I kneeled for him, and there wasn’t anything more deserving than that. I gave his cock a tug, shifting my fingers and reaching for the zipper of his jeans.
