Understanding made Ranger’s dark eyes gleam. His hands clenched into fists before he remembered the lit cigarette.
In the time it took for that to happen, I had unconsciously backed away from him.
I made myself stop.
I was not afraid of wanting Ranger.
Of him wanting me.
I was afraid it was going to hurt when I could not give him what we both needed.
Ranger crushed the cigarette into the desk, leaving a scorch mark on the wood. “Tell me to shut the fuck up and I will, I swear.”
“You do not need to be quiet. I have nothing to hide.”
“Wouldn’t matter if you did.”
“Why not?”
“Vik, we ain’t married. You don’t owe me shit. I’m just fucking nosy.”
“About Jake?”
“Aboutyou.” He thought about it. Changed his mind. “All right. Maybe I want to know if Jake’s gonna castrate me for putting my lips on his man.”
“He would not. I am not Jake’s man. And Jake... he is not anyone’s. He does not think of anyone beyond sex.”
Ranger frowned. “You’re more than just sex to him.”
“That is different.”
“How?”
I tried to answer. A rush of air escaped me instead and my thoughts became like the cement mixers on the Rebel Kings’ building sites. I could not catch them. But for Ranger, I tried. “Jake and I sleep together because we always have. It is a safe place, for us both. Easy, no? Other men...” I shook my head. “It has been only women for me. I cannot speak for him. I just knowit is not romantic between us. I have never felt that way about him, and he does not even want it—from me, or anyone else.”
In the time it had taken me to trip over my words, Ranger had lit another cigarette. It smouldered in his grasp, but he did not smoke it, gaze fixed on me, and yet somehow distant as however he felt about my explanation sank in.
I stepped closer to him.
Changed my mind.
He rose to meet me.
Said nothing. Just rubbed his cheek against mine, and I felt that more than if he’d kissed me again. “Comfort fucks make sense to me. It’s what I had with Finch.”
“You love her.”
“I do.”
“You would fuck her again?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Life moved on. And every time we were together, I knew it was more than friendship but less than what we both needed to stay. It might be different for you and Jake. You might be fucking him until you’re all old and shit.”
“It is sweet that you picture a world where either one of us lives that long. And I have not been with Jake for more than a year. Since before we met.”
