He drops my arm and spins me around to face him. His brow is creased, mouth parted. “What did you just say?”
I recognize the hope in his eyes because I feel it too. There are other things as well. A trickle of doubt mixed with a trickle of disbelief. An echo of pain that I want to chase away.
“I said I’m falling in love with you.” I raise my arm and card my fingers through his hair until my hand is curled around the back of his head. I lean in and rest my forehead lightly against his. He comes to me easily, with no resistance at all. “But now that I’ve heard myself say it, I don’t think it’s true. I’m not falling. I’ve fallen. It’s already happened. It’s done. I’m in love with you.”
His arms tighten around my waist and a rush of breath hits my face. “A-are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but I’m sure it’s happened.”
He drops his gaze and speaks quietly, his voice shaking. “I do know when it happened for me, Con. I might not have realized what it was or what it meant, but I know when it happened.” He works his eyes up my face slowly, almost gingerly, as though he’s afraid of what I’m going to see, or what he’s going to show me. “I fell for you the second I laid eyes on you.”
Dinner is a hazy, drawn-out affair that goes on for hours. I feel a little drunk despite the fact that I haven’t had a sip of liquor in well over a year. Tank and Georgie and Anna and Blake are here. They’ve eaten, and talked and talked, and laughed and laughed.
I’ve barely heard a word anyone’s said. All I can hear, all I can see, are Lennon’s lips moving to form the wordsI fell for you the second I laid eyes on you.
The second I laid eyes on you.
Laid eyes on you.
Every time I think of it, my entire body goes hot. I can’t believe it. How is this my life? How in the world did the perfect man walk into my life—mine of all people—by pure dumb luck and make my entire life make sense? How did I get so lucky?
“…a regular event. Not monthly or anything like that, but definitely quarterly.”
It takes me a while to piece it together, but best I can tell, Anna is proposing a regular team-building event for Lennon’s team.
Yes, that’s it. I can tell from the way Lennon and Blake groan in unison.
“Oh, don’t you start,” she scolds. “You both loved the last event, and you’re going to love the next one too.”
There’s a chorus of arguments and a sea of happy faces around my dining table. I catch Lennon’s eye and the world stopsturning. His scowl is nowhere to be seen, replaced by a soft smile that mainly affects his eyes. It’s not so much a smile, really, as it is a message.
A message for me.
I love yousays his eyes, and a second later, his hand finds mine under the table. Our fingers lace together, knitting themselves into something that’s familiar now. Something that’s right. Something that feels more like home than the roof over my head does.
His lips move, soundlessly mouthing the same words his eyes did.
“Thank fuck,” he groans as he closes the front door. “I thought they’d never leave.”
I get where he’s coming from. I love my friends, don’t get me wrong, I do. Anna and Blake are really good company too. They play off each other well, and the sexual tension between them is palpable. It’s been driving Lennon crazy that neither of them has had the balls to make a move on the other yet, but I think it’s nice to be around people who care about each other. Ordinarily, it would be a pleasure to spend time with them. It’s just that at the moment, I can’t be around people who aren’t Lennon.
I kiss him hungrily, roughly, with lips and tongue that deliver a little bite. He kisses me back the same way. My dick, which has been hard on and off for most of the night, hardens fully and with such speed that I feel a little lightheaded.
“Want you naked,” I tell him as we crash to the bedroom, tearing shirts and belts off.
When we get to his bedroom, I kneel at his feet and pull off his shoes and socks for him. A wave of primal excitement rises to meet every item of clothing that falls to the floor. It sinks to my groin and makes me harder and hotter.
Lennon looks down at me with something that looks like acceptance, or maybe even reverence, and pushes his jeans and underwear down. He steps out of them woodenly, and like that, I have what I’ve wanted all night: my man stripped bare.
If I weren’t already kneeling, the sight of him naked would have buckled my knees for sure. Lennon, without any clothes on, is almost too much to handle. His skin is naturally tanned, naturally sun-kissed, and his musculature is a tease, a hint, more than an in-your-face assault of testosterone. His brand of masculinity is hard, forceful, and cloaked in vulnerability. Raw strength wrestles with something softer. Something sensitive. Something I want to take from him and care for. Something I want to nurse back to health before I give it back to him.
I sit back on my heels and sigh. “Holy shit, you’re attractive.”
His lips quirk, but his expression remains sincere. “You’re beautiful, Connor.”
He tilts his head to the side to get a better vantage of me, and a question pushes a single brow up. I know what he’s thinking.
“What are you in the mood for? Top, bottom, side?”
