Lover (Court University 4)

He’d said that was what he wanted to do.

He’d wanted to bathe together, be together, and we hadn’t even had sex. We just were, and I’d be lying to say I wasn’t worried. His text messages had been so off, and we never met up in Maywood Heights. I had my reservations about it. Small town, people talked. True, people around here didn’t know me from Adam, but they knew him. A mere description and Evie would know exactly who had strolled down the sidewalk with him.

Went to his house.

I held him, hugging his chest. He’d been silent so long, smelled like heaven. I mouthed kisses across his neck, and something deep and carnal radiated from his chest. He held my hand, his forehead grazing my chin.

“I got in an argument with my mom today,” he said. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “A pretty bad one.”

My throat constricted and almost immediately. An argument?

With Evie?

Basically instantly, I thought the argument surrounded us. That maybe she found out about us somehow. We’d been careful. We didn’t even meet on campus. Just at his duplex and for our jogs, of course.

Had it been that?

All kinds of scenarios traveled in my head, and in my silence, Ramses tilted his head back. He cupped a hand to the entire right side of my face, his smile faint as he pushed it up into my hair. He was a complete god, skin moist from our bath and muscled frame oozing of sex. I was even getting used to his hair, which he still kept short. He shifted in the bath. “It wasn’t about us if that’s what you’re thinking.” He laughed light. “She doesn’t even know about us, Bri.”

He kissed me as if to assure me, and as my guard loosened and anxiety faded, I felt like a complete ass for even thinking that. For defaulting to that. He’d said he and his mom got into an argument, and freaking immediately, I’d made whatever that regarded about me.

I was an ass.

I was selfish and definitely when it came to him. I had him all to myself, in my own little world with him like I had that right.

“I’m sorry.” I nudged his cheek with my nose, because I was sorry. So damn sorry for being selfish. I gripped my wrist around his front. “What happened? I mean…”

I had no right to that information either, to butt in, especially when it came to the private relationship he had with his mom. Neither was me knowing appropriate, either. She was my friend, and I had to draw the line somewhere.

I lifted my hand. “You don’t have to tell me. That’s private.”

He sat with that, the candles he’d lit flickering waves across his golden skin. He’d lined the tub with them, this whole thing romantic, soothing. I wasn’t quite sure he’d been aiming for the former. The ambiance brought this whole room peace and maybe that’d been something he needed. We could only see each other through the warm light with the lights off.

Like stated, all this was incredibly intimate.

The conversation somehow embed that way as well. Ramses’s hand circled my arm. He ran it up and down, sliding along my damp flesh.

“Ask me about it.” He angled a look up at me again. “Ask and I’ll tell you. I want to tell you.”

He did?

We definitely didn’t operate that way. In fact, when we told each other stuff, it simply spilled out like word vomit. It’d never been by choice. Like the need to tell each other our innermost thoughts and secrets just pulled from each other. Like our bodies knew to trust the other.

Even when our brains didn’t.

This was a new level, actually initiating that trust without frenzy or panic. I touched my chin to his shoulder. “I only want to know if you want to tell me.”

He extended his neck, staring up at the ceiling. He shifted and the water sloshed, loo

king at me. “I want to tell you. So, ask me.”

Something scared me about his statement. I didn’t know why, but it did.

It reminded me of that day I’d caught December at his house, this feeling of impending doom I couldn’t identify.

In this case, fight or flight surrounding something more internal. That something was happening here, and I wasn’t sure if I should stop it.

Or if I wanted to.