Itisme, though. Not with my partners, but my temper is always just under the surface, expecting something to go wrong or someone to piss me off so I can explode. But Luca has never made me feel that. Around him, I feel… calm. Like nothing can bother me. He’s a balm to my soul.
“Maddox,” he whispers, and my heart thumps in my chest. Especially when he slides from his seat and onto my lap. I grab on tight, holding him close enough that he squirms against me. “I don’t think you’d hurt me. You remember what happened at Mask?”
I urge my dick not to get hard thinking of how beautiful he looked bent over that bench, his ass red and inflamed from my hand. “What?”
He smiles. “You were so worried, so upset. You held me like I was made of porcelain, apologizing and making sure I was okay after you did exactly what I wanted, because you were concerned. A violent person wouldn’t care that way. If you wanted to hurt me, that would have been your moment.”
“What if I get angry?” Am I trying to scare him away? What kind of fucking question is that?
He shakes his head. “I’m not worried. We all get angry, but I trust you.” He bites his lip, his gaze unsure. “Is that… okay? You still want to be with me now that I know, right?”
Sighing, I bring him in for a kiss. “Are you kidding me? You’re the best thing to happen to me, Luca. I don’t want you to leave. But I want you to be sure.”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to go.” I kiss him again until we’re both breathless. When he’s able to breathe again, he says, “I’m not saying violence is okay, but I don’t think you’re an inherently violent person. Being targeted for being queer has a way of burrowing into you.”
“Has someone made you feel that way?” I ask, my fingers tight on his thigh just thinking about anyone hurting him.
Luca grins, but shakes his head. “No, never. I’ve always stuck to myself and never really thought about what I was. I didn’t know what I wanted until… recently.”
I let out a long breath, glad Luca avoided that fate. “Good. Now you know my dark past, why I am the way I am. I’ve closed myself off for twenty years, afraid someone would come along and hurt me like Seb. Then you showed up, the opposite of him, and made me happier than I’ve been in my life. Thank you, Luca.”
His smile is slow and sweet, his eyes soft and full of an emotion I’m too afraid to name. “I’d do anything for you, Maddox.”
He seals his promise with a kiss, and my heart makes more room for him than it already holds.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
LUCA
Things have beendifferent since Maddox told me about his ex… It’s like the walls between us came tumbling down, and suddenly we’re really seeing each other for the first time.
We’ve been careful—dancing around everything—and suddenly all I want is to know everything about him.
And he’s telling me.
I know his favorite color, and his favorite movie growing up. He knows that I love chocolate chip cookies even though I never get to eat them, and all I’ve wanted my entire life is to do something that will make a difference in the world.
It’s been a week of me sneaking out of the dorm room and showing up at his house—a week of him taking me apart, and me falling asleep in his arms to the soft rumble of his voice while we actually get to know one another.
It’s…
Nice.
And it’s another block tied around my ankle making me sink deeper into the ocean of feelings I have for him… feelings that I’m not trying to fight.
It’s a morning just like that when we’re talking about our high school experiences, and I blush when I admit a truth that makes me squirm.
“I’ve never been on a date.” My head tilts, and I grin shyly as I add, “Unless you count what we did at Mask.”
He stares at me long enough that I worry about the bacon he’s cooking. The longer he looks, the redder I can feel my face getting, until I’m pretty sure the bacon and I arebothburning.
“What?” I finally squeak out, and his brows dip.
“We’re going out tonight.”
There’s no question, no choice. This is the first time since I met Maddox Levine that he’s demanding something from me, and it makes me a little breathless.
