Page 37 of Heart of the Race

Quick shrug of his shoulders. “Why vain?”

“You’re not everything. I have a life now.”

The quizzical arch of his eyebrow told me he wasn’t convinced.

“I do.”

“You fight so hard, Brian.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your life is fine, but it’s not great. How can it be great without me?”

I wanted to crow at him that he was so very full of himself, but it was the absolute, raw, soul-baring truth. I had missed him like crazy. My heart ached for him every single day.

“You always think there has to be some grand gesture, but really, there doesn’t even have to be words. Just knowing something should be all the truth you need.”

I felt completely exposed, as though my heart was on the outside of my chest, right there on display.

He stretched out on my bed, crossed his sock-clad feet, and grinned at me. “So are we sealing the deal or not?”

“What?”

“Am I getting laid?”

I crossed my arms. “That’s so romantic, how can I resist?”

“I dunno, how can you?” He waggled his eyebrows at me, and that combined with the rakish grin on his kiss-swollen lips and the dark wet eyes… who was I kidding? I tried to stifle the low moan, but it was out before I could.

“Yeah, you want me,” he growled, folding one of my pillows in half and shoving it under his head. “Come kiss me some more, ’cause that was hot.”

I could have played hard to get, but he looked so incredibly good on my bed, and I wanted all of him. I toed off my shoes and crawled onto the bed and over him to settle above his waist.

He chuckled as he lifted his hand to my face, and I realized every fantasy I’d ever had was not how things were going to happen between Varro and me. The whole torrid, hungry, desperate scene, the holding down and manhandling—that was not us.

Because he knew me. He really, truly, deeply knew me, and so it would be us, a joining, and it would change my life.

“I should have known just from your eyes,” he sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re so gorgeous all the time,” he whispered, tracing his fingertips over my eyebrows, my cheekbones, and finally my bottom lip. “But when you look at me, they shine.”

“Green eyes do it for you, do they?” I asked, shivering under his hands, my own finding his chest, holding tight as I moved against him like I had earlier, pressing my ass along the length of his erection outlined through the denim. He was so hard.

“Only yours, Brian. Everything about you is perfect because it’s you and you’re mine.”

“I’ve always been yours, Varro.”

His breath shook, coming out in puffs as it hitched and caught before I bent and ground my mouth down over his.

He rolled me fast to my back, and his arms went under and around me as my own coiled around his neck. I sucked on his tongue as it invaded my mouth, wanting more, whimpering and whining, writhing with the need to be closer.

“Brian,” he groaned against my lips, “get—what we… I think I know all we need, but I don’t wanna be wrong.”

“Hey.”

His eyes, clouded with passion, stared down at me.