Page 38 of The Little Shop of Curiosities, The Music Box Part 2

“What?” I ask.

“I feel awful that you don’t have a proper place to live, and that you’re struggling to get your business back up and running after having to drop everything to help your mum.”

I shrug again. “It is what it is, Prickles, but it won’t be this way forever. I’ll figure it out, I always do. Trust me, with an absent father and an alcoholic mother, I learned to take care of myself pretty early on.”

He continues to frown, and I lift my hand to smooth the furrow between his brows. “Don’t worry about it,” I murmur. “It’ll all be fine in the end.”

“I feel bad.”

“Don’t,” I say easily. “It’s not the end of the world. And I should know since we very nearly had that during the eclipse.”

“I feel like I should ask you to stay here, but⁠—”

“But you’re not ready”—I grip his chin gently in my fingers—“and neither am I. I like what we’ve got going on. I want us to take our time getting to know each other, Prickles, because I feel like we could be standing at the edge of something pretty incredible and don’t want to rush it.”

“Something incredible?” he repeats. His eyes when he meets my gaze are so blue that I can’t look away.

“I like you, Harrison.”

His reply is so quiet I almost miss it. “I like you too.”

Lying here in the warm water, the heady scent of my bath herbs scenting the air, makes me feel strangely boneless. With Sam, I’m safe and wanted and somehow whole. Like he’s given me the piece of me I didn’t know was missing.

I’m not ready to admit to myself why that is. We spent months getting to know each other over the phone while he was up north, and although we still snipe at each other in front of the others, we’ve formed a deep friendship. Except it’s not just friendship, and I don’t think it ever was. There’s always been something more there, just waiting for us to unravel it.

This is the worst possible timing.

“What are you thinking about?” Sam’s voice rumbles against my ear.

“You,” I exhale.

“What’s bothering you, Prickles? Is it what I said?”

I go back to tracing the veins on the back of his hand so I don’t have to look at his beautiful dark eyes. “No, but there are so many things I haven’t told you about me. Things I should tell you.”

He grips my chin with wet fingers, tilting my head so I can meet gaze.

God, he’s so gorgeous.

“There’s time,” he murmurs as he leans down, his lips hovering just above mine. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

When his soft, warm lips touch mine, I can’t help but give in to my desires. Somewhere at the back of my mind, my own personal Jiminy Cricket is probably pointing out that I should tell Sam the truth before we go any further, but I can’t hear him if he is. He’s being drowned out by my libido, which is wide awake and giving Sam a twenty-one-gun salute.

It may make me a terrible person, but I want him so badly that it’s smothering any good sense I may have. Instead, my arm snakes up over my head and wraps around his neck, anchoring him to me while he devours my mouth.

My loud groan of arousal echoes around the bathroom, and I don’t even have it in me to be embarrassed. His kisses are deep and drugging, making me lightheaded. My fingers tangle in his long hair, and his stubble scrapes against my chin.

I want more.

My hand covers his as it rests against my chest, and I guide him down my wet torso to where my cock is lying hard and aching against my stomach. He doesn’t need any more invitation. I greedily swallow the satisfied moan he lets loose against my mouth as his fingers wrap around the length of me with the perfect grip.

I can’t help my gasp when he slides my foreskin back and thumbs my leaking slit.

“Fuck, Prickles,” he mutters against my mouth. He begins to stroke me firmly, and I groan again.

His hard cock presses against the small of my back, and I ache to have him buried deep inside me.

“Wait, wait.” I reach down and still his hand.