“Honestly?” He took a step closer, into the shade, close enough that I could see the sea salt drying pale at his hairline and the gold shimmering in his eyes. “I’ve wanted to do one thing since you walked upto me on that pool deck and told me my light was wrong. I just figured a man who measures everything would want to take his time getting there.”
“I’ve been told I’m slow.”
“You’re not slow. You’re careful.” He tilted his head. His grin came, but smaller, with the heat underneath it now instead of on top. “There’s a difference. I’ve watched you be careful all week. It’s one of the better things I’ve ever watched.”
The space between us was about a foot and a half.
I was aware of every inch of it the way you’re aware of the drop when you stand too close to an edge.
“I keep measuring it,” I admitted. “The distance, I mean. It’s a foot and a half. I don’t know why I do it.”
“I do.” He didn’t move, but everything about him leaned in. “It’s so you know exactly how far you’d have to go. You’ve already done the math, Mark. You did it days ago. You’re just waiting for permission to act on it.” His voice dropped. “So I give you permission to close it.”
“What?”
“The distance.” He breathed it, barely above the sound of the water. “Close it.”
I hesitated, blinking, my heart somehow seizing and racing simultaneously.
Then I stepped forward.
I closed the foot and a half I’d been measuring all week, and I kissed him, right there in the shade, with the warm rock at our backs and the impossible blue water in front of us. Every calculation I’d ever made about who would want me—or the look of me—drifted quietly out with the tide.
Wes made a sound against my mouth like he’d been waiting on this longer than a few days, like maybe his whole moving life had been the long way around to a cove he hadn’t known he was walking toward. His hand came up into my beard, and held me there like he had no intention of ever giving the sensible answer about anything again.
A few laps of the waves later, he pulled back just far enough to speak, his forehead against mine, both of us breathing like we’d swum a distance.
“Took you long enough, Mark Apparently.”
I didn’t bother answering that.
My mouth closed the distance again instead.
This time neither of us came up for a good long while.
The camera stayed in the bag.
The light went gold and then receded.
For once, Wes Calloway didn’t seem to care about missing the shot at all.
Chapter 9
The water was warm, but the moment Wes’s lean frame pressed into mine, it felt like someone had set the cove to boil.
His kisses grew greedy, aggressive in a way I never expected. His fingers dug into my beard, then found their way into my hair. Nails dug into my scalp, lighting my head on fire and driving a need, long buried, to the fore.
I grabbed him roughly, squeezing him against me, willing his body to become part of my own. He didn’t fight. Rather, he clung to me as though I was the last piece of floating safety from a shipwreck.
He bit my lip, and I tasted the tang of blood.
I didn’t fucking care.
Wes could have it all. I wanted him to have it all.
I kissed him back, harder, more aggressively. Our tongues met, wrapped, slid in and out. Each caress was a slick, beautiful exchange, a joining of us in ways I would only later understand.
I needed this man, all of him, and remarkably, he was giving himself to me.
