“Don’t you feel weird about all of this?”
“No.” No hesitation. Just quiet confidence.
“Why not?”
He inhaled a breath, kissed my shoulder again. “Because I’ve wanted this with you for a long, long time.”
Kellan had wanted to have sex with me? Before the fake engagement and all this forced proximity and PDA? I tried to wrap my brain around that. “You have? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want to fuck up our friendship.”
I understood that. I was deathly afraid of what all this meant for us. “What changed?”
He stayed silent for long enough that I nearly turned over to face him.
“Nearly died on this deployment. It put some shit in perspective for me.”
My entire body went cold despite Kellan’s warmth pressed against me. I twisted in his arms to face him. “What do you mean you nearly died?” My voice cracked on the last word.
His jaw tightened. “Camp got attacked.”
“When?” The word came out as barely more than a whisper.
“Couple months ago.” His fingers traced circles on my hip, like he was trying to ground himself. “We got ambushed. Lost two guys.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them. Two months ago I’d been going about my life, waiting for the article to come out, not knowing the mess I’d just made for myself, while Kellan had been fighting for his life halfway around the world. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Couldn’t. Communications blackout after. Then...” He brushed away my tears with his thumb. “Didn’t want to worry you when I was already okay.”
I pressed my face into his chest, breathing in the clean scent of his skin. My fingers curled against his shoulders as if I could somehow keep him here, keep him safe. “You could’ve died, and I wouldn’t have known. I could’ve lost you without ever...” The words stuck in my throat.
“Hey.” He tilted my chin up, making me meet his eyes. “I’m right here. I made it through. But it made me want to stop putting off going after what I wanted.”
My brain finally moved past the threat he’d faced to what he was really saying. “So when you came home to this whole fake engagement thing…”
“I figured it would be a good way to see if you were on the same page.” He paused again, stroking the hair back from my face. “Are we?”
“Kellan, we just had sex.”
“Really stupendous sex,” he pointed out.
No arguments there.
“With each other,” I pressed.
One corner of his mouth quirked up, and those blue eyes I loved so damned much sparked. “Yes, I noticed that part.”
He totally wasn’t getting this. “You’re my best friend.”
“And?”
“Surely I’m not supposed to find you hot as hell?” Because seeing him like this after more than twenty years was really making my brain explode.
“Why not? Where is that in the best friend handbook?”
“I don’t know! But this is confusing!” I honestly had no idea what had come over me in that bathroom.
Lust, Cavanaugh. The answer is lust. Not an emotion I was accustomed to feeling about this man. But, deep down, I knew it was more than that. I was catching real feelings for him, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
