“Oh, he does, Kevin.”
“It’s Craig.”
“Same difference.” Nathan strolled in front of the window. He never resisted the chance to perform in front of an audience. “He drove me all around the island, showing me caves and rolling hills and making me dive off these quite terrifying cliffs. At each stop, he would pick up little bits of food, and at the final stop, he cooked a meal from scratch for me. We sat on his coat overlooking the ocean, eating the best grilled salmon I’ve ever eaten, completely fresh. He caught the fish in a stream with his bare hands! That was six months ago.” Nathan reached across their table and took hold of Liam’s hands. “Liam was gracious enough not to make our relationship public since I am a public figure in England and my publicist didn’t want to make a whole to-do out of it.”
“That is quite a story,” Kelly said. He detected a hint of jealousy in her voice.Good.
“It’s not a story. It’s our life.” Nathan came around the table and put an arm around Liam. Liam seemed to get the hang of improv because he turned and kissed Nathan, completely going with the scene.
Except in that moment, with their lips together, it wasn’t a scene anymore. The kiss was sweet and tender, like it could’ve been a kiss Liam had been giving to him for years. It was brief but everlasting, not the makeout sessions they’d had during sex. Those kisses were about lust. This one stopped Nathan’s heart and made him forget whatever he was going to say next to keep the story going. Liam gazed into his eyes, and those milky blues knocked the wind out of Nathan.
“I feel very blessed,” Liam said to the table. He wrapped his arm around Nathan’s waist and pulled him close. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. “Anyway, we will let you get back to your dinner. But it was wonderful seeing both of you. Congratulations on the engagement.”
They walked back to their table and sat down. Nathan was still coming back to earth. It was like he was seeing Liam for the first time. He wanted more kisses like that.
“Thank you for that,” Liam said. “You saved my arse.”
Nathan said nothing back. The waiter had brought their food in the interim. He stared at his entree, but didn’t have an appetite. What the hell was going on with him? It wasn’t horniness. Or it was, but horniness of the heart?
“Liam, can you kiss me again?”
Liam creased his brow. “Excuse me?”
“Kiss me.”
“Now?”
Nathan nodded to reaffirm his seriousness of the request.
They leaned forward in their chairs and kissed over the candlelit table.
Whoa.
Chapter 24
Liam
The car ride home was full of the best kind of tension. Liam and Nathan were like magnets being kept apart at dinner, the energy of the opposing force threatening to shatter every window in the restaurant. The kiss in front of Kelly and Craig was better than a million sunrises. He imagined kissing Nathan that way over and over again. His dick was swollen and pressing against his jeans throughout the meal, but he also craved holding and touching Nathan.
As soon as he pulled up to his house and put the car in park, Nathan leaned over the console and kissed him with the same softness and heart in the restaurant.
“You’re a really good kisser,” Nathan said matter-of-factly.
“You, too.” Their mouths opened and closed delicately. Nathan’s tongue peeked inside. It was careful. He was trying to savor this moment, and Liam wanted to do the same thing. Everything between them was slower. Liam imprinted to memory the feel of Nathan’s warm lips, the silkiness of his tongue, the smoothness of his jaw.
They made out like teenagers in his car, but not the type where the goal was ripping each other’s clothes off—though Liam knew that was coming. It was like they’d just discovered kissing and the emotions it could unlock. Nathan climbed over the console and sat in his lap. Liam ran his fingers through Nathan’s hair and inhaled his sexy scent, sending his mind spiraling with desire. Nathan grazed his beard. His fingers were their own gentle kisses on his skin.
The one thing that had remained the same were the giant erections straining against their pants. Liam hugged Nathan close to him, letting his erection press against his firm ass. He couldn’t wait to feel the heat of his skin and plunge his cock deep inside him. Nathan’s ass rammed into his car horn, startling them and the sheep outside.
“I think we should go inside,” Liam said. Nathan nodded in agreement.
They climbed out of his car, which took a minute since they were tangled together. They kissed again and moved backwards to the door, neither removing themselves from the kiss. Liam had no idea what was going on, how much of this was lust and how much was something purer, but he couldn’t deny the feelings surging in him for Nathan.
Inside, Liam moved Nathan backwards to his bed. He lay on top of Nathan and unbuttoned his shirt. During the sex of lambing season, clothes were ripped off, torn asunder, yanked off bodies in milliseconds. The faster to nakedness, the better. But tonight, Liam wanted to stretch it out like a last supper. He undid each button, kissing the warm skin he was slowly revealing, tracing the curves of his lean, defined muscles with his lips, flicking a tongue over erect nipples. Nathan shivered under his touch. He brought Nathan’s shirt to his nose and inhaled the musky, soapy scent. “You are so beautiful, Nathan. I don’t want to stop looking at you.” Liam planted a soft kiss on his mouth. “I’m falling for you. I think I might already be there.”
“Me, too,” Nathan said barely above a whisper.
He kissed down Nathan’s smooth chest, over the ridges of his abs, to his pants button. He rubbed his beard over the mound in Nathan’s pants, eliciting moans of pleasure from the redhead that hummed through his body. Nathan gasped when he unbuttoned his jeans, his cock begging to be free. His teeth pulled at the waistband of Nathan’s underwear, making his farmhand writhe underneath him.
