I didn’t know how to tell him that I didn’t mind. Instead, I brushed fingers through his hair as he stirred a bit more, then pushed up to sit. Staring down at me, a smile played with his lips until it bloomed into a proper grin.
“Last night was real.”
I still had some of the evidence on the wiry hair lining my lower stomach. Ryan had brought soapy washcloths from the bathroom, but I could feel the stinging pull of dried come as I moved my hips back and forth.
“It was very real. And I desperately need a shower.”
He covered his mouth before laughing. “Oh god, me too. I thought I got everything, but, uh…”
I pulled the blankets down a little to show him the evidence. It was dried, flaky and white, and he stared at it the same way I did—with a mixture of possessiveness and the need to clean it all off.
Ryan bit his lip for a second, and when he released it, it was spit-slick and shiny. That wasn’t helping my desire to pin him to the bed and kiss the breath out of his lungs. “Breakfast?”
“Breakfast exists, yes.”
He rolled his eyes. “I mean, can I take you?”
Something skittered up my spine—a sensation I was entirely unfamiliar with. He wanted to take me to breakfast. That was not a thing I’d ever done. I’d never gotten to go on real dates. Raleigh and I kind of fell into each other one night after a long practice, and we just…never stopped.
There was no anniversary, no romance, no quiet hand holding or stealing kisses in dark corners. There were never sweet mornings after with coffee and toast. There was never a promise that he and I meant anything to each other besides scratching an itch.
There had only ever been drunk nights when he couldn’t hold back, or nights he was too tired to go out and find someone to suck his dick at a club. In public, there were the occasional, damn near deep-throating tongue kisses onstage. “For the fans,” he’d told me. “Gotta give them what they want.”
But none of it had ever been for me—for us.
I got used to telling myself that was the consequence of fame. That he was all I could ever hope to have. No one would ever love me for me because the whole world thought they knew who I was, and almost all of them had gotten it wrong.
But when Ryan told me last night that he knew me, I understood what he was saying. It had nothing to do with reading old press interviews and watching a million YouTube videos where I was exhausted and babbling. It wasn’t about Buzzfeed quizzes and Tumblr rumors.
He’d seen me at my worst, and in that moment, he knew the person that was beneath all the layers of social media lies.
“Atlas,” Ryan said softly. He touched my chin, drawing me out of my head. “I’m okay if you don’t want to?—”
“I want to,” I said quickly. “Sorry, uh…I think I’m still processing. But I want to have breakfast with you. Yes. Very much.” I knew I was making too much out of a simple meal, but I couldn’t help it.
He let out a small laugh and pushed off the bed, completely naked, half-hard, and one of the most gorgeous men I had ever seen in my life. He was a little on the thin side, his hip bones prominent, and he had a massive scar that went from his belly button all the way around his side, almost touching the top of his ass.
He caught me staring and pressed a hand over the thickest, most jagged part. “This is what happens when you let a thirteen-year-old push his little brother on one of those metal roundabout things. I flew off and landed on the jagged edge of the seesaw and almost spilled my guts on the ground.”
“Oh my god,” I breathed.
He grimaced, then held both hands out to me and took me by the wrist to help me all the way up, sliding me to the end of the mattress. “Guess who got in trouble for that one too.”
I stood on wobbly legs. It always took a while for my nerves to wake up in the morning, especially after a night like last night. Not that I’d had sex since my accident, but it felt very much the same as it had when I was in the hardest parts of my physical therapy.
“How the hell did you get in trouble for that?” I asked, gently pulling away from him.
He shrugged and dragged both hands through his hair. “My parents found any reason to be pissed off at me. I was only nine, so I didn’t understand why they were so angry, but after I healed up, I had to do my brother’s chores for a week.”
I felt a spark of rage in my chest, and I breathed through it. “I’m so fucking glad they’re not here right now. I don’t think I’d be able to keep my mouth shut.”
He swayed into me, grabbing me by the hips. My half chub got harder as it pressed against his warm skin. I had no desire to do anything about it now except rock against him, and his pupils blew wide when he realized what I was doing.
“It’s hard to give a shit about that when I have you right here.”
I tilted my face up. I hadn’t noticed last night, but he was so tall. “I’d like a kiss. I might taste disgusting, but?—”
He didn’t let me finish. The kiss was mostly chaste, a touch of tongue against my own. It was sour and kind of terrible, but also the best fucking morning kiss in the world. “I’m going to shower in my room. I want to be distracted by you, but…later.”
