Page 56 of 72 Hours

The towel lay an arm’s length away from him on the floor, discarded after he’d used it to wipe us both down. A stray bead of sweat ran down his upper arm, but he ignored it now. His sigh was small but satisfied.

“Niall. You said something this morning.”

He leaned back on the couch cushion and looked up at me. “Yes?”

When he licked his lips, my cock stirred gently on its bed of curls, maybe in anticipation. What the fuck are you doing, Tanner, opening up these wounds again? “You said about falling for me.”

He nodded. It made his body nudge deliciously against mine. “It’s true. It always has been, I just never told you properly. I should have told you a whole lot more, but it was never my forte. I admit I didn’t try hard enough.” He sighed into my lap.

I watched my pubic hairs stir with his breath, and goose bumps rose across my lower belly. This was where I wanted to be, right? Who I wanted to be with. I should never have let myself lose it all. “And I should have told you a whole lot less,” I said, hesitantly. “I should have learned when to keep my mouth shut.”

“But that’s not your way, Tanner. If you weren’t talking—”

“—we were fucking. Yeah, right.”

He grunted. “It’s not that simple.”

“I fucked up.” That’s simple, right?

“No. We both made mistakes. Get over it, Tanner. Trust me.”

“I do,” I protested, but not totally convincingly. “I accused you of things I’m so fucking ashamed of I can’t even bring myself to apologise for them. I let you down when you needed me.”

Abruptly, he braced himself on the couch and knelt up. He was almost face to face with me, his eyes dark and angry. “This is what really pisses me off, Tanner. I never blamed you for those things, not like you seemed to think. I was angry with you. Yes, a hell of a lot of times! Especially at that stupid fight. I punched you, right? You were talking such crap—I was talking such crap—but I didn’t know how else to stop it. But my anger didn’t come anywhere near, did it? Nowhere near the anger you had for yourself.”

“I... what the fuck do you mean? I didn’t—”

“Yes, you fucking did!” His body shook with his exclamation. “Will you trust me on this too?” He touched my jaw, as if tracing the shape of where he’d marked me all those months ago. “You’re fine as you are. You’re good. You’re so good! I fell for you just as you were, and I stayed with you because of what I knew you could be. That’s all I ever wanted. I never went seeking anyone else in bed, I’m telling you the truth. But not just there. I never wanted anyone else, period.”

“Niall....”

“I tried to make it work with us. I tried, but badly, and I blame myself for what I did wrong, but I want to make it good again.” He flushed. “You probably didn’t know what to think of me.”

I had to laugh at that. “I thought you were the greatest thing that had ever happened to my life.” Fuck, didn’t I ever tell him that?

He frowned. “I thought you said things like that for fun. I thought it was all just a game to you.”

“No,” I protested, but more gently now. His vehemence shamed me. I’d been wallowing, all right. Shit, I’d turned my humiliation and misery into a career in itself. Everything had sunk into self, self, self. But now—well, now I had another body, mind, and soul to consider, didn’t I? I shifted around to be able to touch him better, but I was damned careful not to push him away. I could feel the gentle stirrings of his cock against my leg. “Maybe that’s how I played it at first. I said I talked a lot of shit, right? But some of it was true. It just got... lost.”

“The way we felt... it was strong stuff.”

His hand cupped my face, and I nuzzled up against it. “Strong stuff? Fuck, we were in each other’s trousers before we even knew how many sugars we took in our tea or what newspapers we read.”

Now it was his turn to smile. “How should the game have been played, then? I think we both needed guidance.”

“Got none.”

“No,” he agreed.

Our eyes met. “More of a partnership, I guess,” I hazarded.

“Like we have been these last couple of days? Like we’re facing up to this crisis now?”

“Yeah. We’re pretty damned good at that, aren’t we?”

“Pretty damned good,” he echoed. “When we’re not fucking, of course.”

I started to shake my head at him, laughing again, but he reached to nibble at my ear and I kind of forgot the plot.