I felt my face coloring long before the heat flared across my neck.
Now it was Jeremiah laughing and reaching out his hand to tug me on top of him. He let out an “oof” as my weight settled but wrapped his arms around me as though I might flee.
Then he kissed me again.
And I felt like I was floating and falling and drowning and breathing air for the first time . . . and those are a lot of things to feel in one moment. Jeremiah’s lips were firm and soft, and the way he held me so close, how his hand cradled my head and his lips drank me in, felt unlike any affection I’d ever known.
I groaned.
He jerked his head back, something akin to worry filling his gaze. “Are you okay? Was that okay?”
I reached up and traced fingers across his cheek. “Don’t you ever stop kissing me, please.”
He blinked.
And then his lips crashed into mine once more.
Gentleness vanished, replaced by hunger and pent-up lust I knew we’d both felt for weeks. I wasn’t sure which of us groped or rubbed or kissed harder. I was desperate for him, needed him, couldn’t get enough of him through his layers of clothing.
“If you aren’t naked in two minutes, I’m tearing your clothes off,” I said, surprising us both.
Jeremiah grinned, gently pushed me off him, sat up, and did that crossed-arm-model-move where his shirt flew off and his hair somehow flowed in the nonexistent bedroom breeze.
Fuck me, he was beautiful.
I’d known his body was rock hard, but imagining it through his work shirts and seeing his flesh revealed were two very different things.
English became my second language.
Hell, I think I forgot how to speak.
“Jer . . . God . . . you’re . . . your . . . holy crap, your chest . . . and those arms . . .”
Now his face colored, and his chin ducked in the most adorable move I’d ever seen on any man . . . ever. For the briefest moment, I forgot the Adonis before me and saw the shy, almost awkward boy, his hair flopping everywhere, his eyes struggling to maintain contact, his cheeks the slightest pink but quickly turning crimson.
The only thing I could do was lean down and press my lips to his.
But he stopped me.
Strong, beefy hands pressed into my chest, lifting me up.
“What?” I said, unable to hide the disappointment in my voice.
His lips twitched. “A shirt for a shirt. It’s only fair.”
My chin didn’t dip like his had. My whole body fell into his, my head burying itself in his chest before I remembered he was half naked and my nose was basically molesting his armpit. His hand found my chin and lifted me up so our eyes met again.
“Theo, I think you’re awesome. You know that, right?”
God, I had to fight to keep our eyes locked.
“I’m . . . I don’t . . . my body—”
“I want your body, Theo,” he said, his voice steady and firm. “I’ve seen your shirt lift, giving me a peek at a tight stomach. I don’t care if your chest and arms are smaller than mine. I actually like it better that way.”
I gaped. He was a gym rat, everything I would never be physically. I’d just assumed he was obsessed with muscles and tendons and whatever other body parts were improved by moving heavy things around. Never once had I considered that he might like skinny guys like me.
Intellectually, I knew there was no more delaying or avoiding. If my dreams about this night—dreams that ended in muchhappier ways that any other dream of mine—had any chance of coming true, the shirt had to go.
