“Really? You want me to? I don’t have to. It’s a lot at once, and I don’t want to like, invade your space.”
The wisp of air released from his mouth as he spoke feathered over mypecand left nipple, eliciting a ripple of goosebumps over my sensitized skin.
Pressing a kiss into hisdisheveledred curls, I held him tighter to me.
“I want zero space,” I said as I hiked my knee over the top of his, once again bringing our groins into alignment. Even soft, it was a delicacy to press our cocks together. Like I was somehow locking in a sense of intimacy between us with every part of our bodies that I could connect.
Cade’s hand, which I arranged across my chest, absent-mindedly moved back and forth, dragging his fingers through my wiry chest hair.
“Did you mean it?” His voice was less than half the volume it was before.
I had a feeling I knew what he was asking. But selfishly, I wanted to hear him say the words.
“I’m fairly confident I meant everything I said tonight. But what do you mean specifically?”
Wrapped up tightly together under my warm bedding, a hushed, heady silence permeated the room around us.
“That you’re my boyfriend now?” Cade whispered.
“Yes, Cade baby. I am. Is that okay?”
“For sure. I like it,” he answered, releasing a deep sigh and wiggling a little closer to me.
The last thing I wanted to do was define our relationship before he was ready. But there was no world in which I was going to be able to play it cool about being exclusive with Cade.
There was nothing else for me to do except lean into the direction my feelings were headed.
I wouldn’t overwhelm him with the depth of what I already felt for him, but I wanted my wishes to be crystal clear.
With my thirtieth birthday closing in on me, plus my ongoing shoulder problems, I didn’t have the will or the energy to keep him in suspense.
Plus, the more I thought about my late teens and early twenties, the more I hated the whole wishy-washy “do they, don’t they like me” bullshit.
It hadn’t ever been fun, had only widened the cracks in my insecurities.
And from what I knew of Cade, his heart seemed tender under all the stoic protective layers he surrounded himself with. I would never intentionally cause him anymore uncertainty in his life.
Sexy or not, I was a sure thing. And I wanted him to know that.
The thought sparked an idea I’d had before he’d arrived tonight.
While my mind had been spinning, Cade’s breathing had become slow and steady.
“Cade? Are you still awake?”
“Yeah.” The accompanying yawn said he was getting sleepy.
“Would you want to come to Niagara Falls with me in a couple of weeks? It’s my niece’s birthday, and with the random four-day break in our schedule, it’ll be the first time in seven years that I’ll be able to be there in person. I want you to meet my family, you know, as my boyfriend.”
His fingers on my chest trembled a little.
“I feel like a broken record here, but are you sure? I don’t want you to feel obligated to take me home with you. I’d be totally fine on the break on my own. . .”
“Hey,” I interrupted. “What did I say that day you were in my office?”
“Oh, you mean the day where I embarrassed the shit out of myself by falling asleep on your shoulder and you waking me up while I had a hard on?”
“Jesus Christ!” Good thing I was lying down because I was floored. “Oh god, you were hard? That is so fucking hot. I barely remember anything about those few hours other than thinking every sad and awful thing so I wouldn’t have a permanent boner like some creep while you were pressed up against me.”
