“Pet peeve, I know. I think you’re fighting a losing battle with that one, but obviously I’m completely on your side and think this is an important distinction. One of the pillars of the English language, even.”
“You’re making fun of me,” I said, smiling fondly at him. I didn’t normally take being made fun of well, but it was different when Simon did it. I knewhedid it because he was comfortable around me, and he knew I was comfortable around him. “And trying to avoid the subject. What happened?”
Simon shrugged. “Nothing happened,” he said. “I just spent the morning surrounded by beautiful people. I don’t really want to be one of them, it’s just?—”
“You don’t think you’re beautiful?” I interrupted, brow raised.
Simon raised the opposite brow, one corner of his mouth quirking up wryly. As though the answer was obvious. As though it was that hedidn’tthink he was beautiful.
I’d never thought of Simon as insecure about the way he looked. To me, he always seemed supremely confident. The most at home in his own skin of anyone I’d ever known.
Although, that wasn’t quite the same, was it? You could be comfortable with anything.
Even believing, despite being the most beautiful man in the world, that you weren’t.
“I think you’re beautiful,” I said. I’d never said it aloud in all the time I’d known Simon, too afraid of revealing too much, but I couldn’t stand the idea that he didn’t know. That not knowing might hurt him.
He’d said it to me enough times, casually, like it was an obvious fact of the universe. I’d thought he knew.
His brow rose another notch.
Wow. He reallydidn’tknow. This was a surprise to him.
“Simon...” I began, looking over his face. “You’re... you’re the most beautiful person I know,” I said, struggling to gather my thoughts. How did you put a decade’s worth of being in awe of someone into words?
This was why I was an editor and not a writer. I could make someone else’s words clearer, sharper, but I needed something to start from.
“You’re...” I started again, taking a deep breath. “Youglow. You light up any room you walk into. When you smile, it’s like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. You’re so kind and sweet andgood,and all of that is written all over your face. Why do you think people flock to you? Youarebeautiful.”
I could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn’t really believe me. That it wasn’t getting through to him.
I’d run out of words. All I could do was...
Simon made a surprised squeak when I kissed him, which was fair, given how fast I’d surged forward. His glasses bumped against my brow—his, too, probably—and his hands tightened on my waist, as though he’d been startled into holding me tighter.
I raised my hands to his face again, pulling back just far enough to remove his glasses. I paused for a moment to look him in the eyes, soft and unfocused now, before setting the glasses aside and leaning in again.
I could show him like this. Show him how gorgeous he was, how unbearably sexy, how much I wanted him.
He made another sound of surprise as I slipped a hand between us, tugging up the hem of his shirt and splaying my fingers over his skin. I smiled against his mouth, wriggling closer, grinding against him. I wasn’t hard, yet, but just touching Simon, knowing Icould, was enough to send blood rushing south.
“Youcan’tbe serious,” Simon murmured.
I froze, fingers flexing against his stomach.
“Can’t I?” I asked cautiously, too afraid to pull back. Too afraid of what the look on his face might be.
I was asking too much. I’d thought I wasofferingsomething, something that might make Simon feel a little better about himself, but I wasn’t, was I?
I wasmaking the most of this. Taking advantage. The thing I tried so hard not to do with Simon, of all people, because I knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for me.
Like letting me sink into the fantasy of being his boyfriend.
“I mean, I suppose?—”
“This a private party, or is anyone invited?” Corey’s absolutely,positivelyunwanted voice came from behind us.
I pulled back, taking a breath to respond—only to be stopped by a firm squeeze of my hip.
