“You’re here now,” Cory said quietly, tentatively resting his hand on the top of my thigh. “Right?”
“I’m here.”
“And—” He dragged his hand up my leg to my wrist, fingers dancing across the watch I hadn’t taken off since he’d given it to me. “That’s where you want to be?”
“More than anything.”
“You want to move in with me?”
“I…” I snapped my mouth closed, swallowing hard. “I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to know why you hadn’t asked.”
“Because I didn’t want to scare you off.” Cory tugged me closer to him, coming back to himself more every second that passed. He kissed the inside of my wrist, the heel of my palm, smiling against my skin when I shivered.
“And now?”
“Now there’s nowhere for me to be with you besides all in.” He bit the tip of my thumb, eyes flashing dangerously. “What are your limits, Reese?”
CHAPTER 3
Cory
The way Reese’snostrils flared whenever I asked about his limits would never get old. I kept him flush against me, needing him within arm’s reach at all times after three hellish days without him.
Something sharp flashed in his eyes. “Honesty.” Reese let out a breath so deep it felt like part of his soul came out with it. “You should’ve told me you were thinking of us moving in together.”
“I’d say that you should’ve as well, but you tried. Kale’s appearance was highly unfortunate.” Mentioning Kale made me remember something he’d brought up when he was here. Ever the busybody, he’d told me that I needed to talk to Reese about it, and I’d never tell him that he was right, but he was.
“In the interest of honesty, I wanted to run something by you.”
Reese’s brow furrowed, but he stayed silent and waited for me to find the right sequence of words.
“I still have my New York apartment. I’d thought about keeping it so we had a place to use if we went to New York, but when I told Kale I hadn’t sold it yet, he pointed out all the reasons it was stupid of me not to. But if we’re going to livetogether and share our lives like that, you should get a voice in what I do with the apartment.”
Reese glowered at me and, for a second, I doubted the wisdom of my decision to come clean about the apartment in this moment when things still felt so fragile between us. Or maybe it was just me who felt fragile. The last few days had taken a toll on me, and now that Reese was back, I would do anything to keep him.
“You didn’t sell it?” He said the words slowly, like he wasn’t sure if he heard me right.
“Because I thought that if we went to New York to visit, we could stay there.”
He cracked a smile and shook his head. “You’re ridiculous. You’re sitting on prime New York real estate because you don’t want to book a hotel? Or is there another reason you want to keep it?”
“Not really. It was barely a home to me.” Sinking my hands into Reese’s hair, I made him look at me, made him hold my gaze as I let the truth pour out of me. “You’re my home, Reese. I spent so much time going from hotel to hotel, city to city, person to person, and then I met you, and you made time stand still. For the first time in my adult life, I wanted something more.”
“Sell it,” Reese said, his voice firm. “You don’t need an apartment in New York, and I don’t need a shoebox in LA.”
I crushed my mouth against his despite the smile on my face. “It really is too small, but is it stupid that I kind of still really like your place?”
Reese looked at me like I’d grown another head. “You’re not serious.”
I let my hands drift down his body to cradle his ass and pull him closer to me. “I like being there with you because I always know exactly where you are. The whole place feels like you.”
“That is disgustingly romantic. What do I even say to that?”
“Say you’ll live with me. Say you’ll stay. Say I didn’t fuck this up.”
He rolled his eyes at the last one, but his soft expression didn’t match his feigned exasperation. “Again, you’re ridiculous. We’re fine, Cory. You didn’t fuck anything up.”
“So, limits? Honesty? Anything else?”
