My eyes close. “Please stop.”
“Even if we part ways, and I meet some other nice guy, and we hit it off and become boyfriends … my heart is always gonna be yours, Lance. I’ll be the worst boyfriend to that perfectly nice guy, because my heart will always be yours. I’ve fallen for you, Lance.”
I kiss him again.
I kiss him to shut him up. I don’t want to hear anything else he wants to say. It hurts too much.
And it feels too fucking perfect to ignore.
The kiss ends with us holding each other, and mercifully, we are both out of words. The sun slowly begins to fall, and after a look into each other’s eyes, we wordlessly decide to head off, leaving our moment to the ducks and the twinkling water.
He traveled here with next to nothing.
I’m not sure if he was intending to stay, or if he really is the kind of guy who literally drops everything, buys a ticket, and hops on a plane without so much as a backpack.
“I mean, you could’ve at least packed a toothbrush,” I tell him as we climb the eight flights of stairs to my apartment.
Yes, the stupid elevators are still out of order.
Chad, just a few steps behind me, says, “Sorry. I can’t think of much of anythin’ with that cute ass of yours right in front of me.”
“Are you listening to anything I’m saying? I mean, you didn’t even bring a change of clothes. What’re you gonna sleep in?”
“Who says I gotta sleep in anything? Shit, have we met?”
“I would’ve at least packed a toothbrush.”
“Are we havin’ our first fight?” he asks tauntingly. “Is this our first fight? Aww, shit, this is cute. Seriously, though, that ass …”
I whip around on the stairs, grab hold of him, and tackle him to the wall with another fiery kiss. Chad melts into it, wraps his arms around me, and consumes me whole.
That’s how we crash into my apartment: our hands groping each other, our lips locked tight, and clothes clumsily peeling off our charged-up bodies in all directions.
We drop heavily onto my bed.
We skip the tour.
He doesn’t need one.
And for the next forty-eight minutes, we are just two horny men with needs that only the other one can fulfill. Our lips almost never separate, our hands grope every inch of our bodies, and our dicks are harder than steel.
When we come, we come together and while peering deeply into each other’s rich and longing eyes.
Then we lie there on the bed in one another’s arms.
Sweaty. Sticky.
And panting.
We’ve been here before—sweaty, sticky, and panting—and not one of us wanting to disturb the tranquil wreckage we’ve made of another innocent bed.
“Did you mean all of that earlier?” I ask softly as we cuddle each other, warm and naked. “What you said at the park? About how it’d be if you met someone else …?”
He strokes my back softly. “It’s the only thing I can imagine. Because I can’t even begin to picture bein’ with another man. Not after somethin’ so perfect as this.”
“This will pass. This fluttering excitement. This ‘honeymoon’ you’re swimming in. You’re new to this, Chad.”
“Not as new as you think. I told you, I’ve been with men. But I’ve never felt somethin’ like this.” His hand slowly rises up the back of my neck, then strokes my hair lovingly. “And I know that I won’t ever again. Are you about to tell me you feel differently?”
I press my lips together. The trouble is, I don’t. I feel exactly what he’s feeling. I have never been so moved, so touched, so affected by a man like I have with Chad.
He is truly one of a kind.
“But I’m not here to force you to be with me,” he says. “I ain’t about controllin’ your life, Lance. I’d never do that to you.”
“I know.”
“I just want you to … feel it.” He kisses the top of my head. “I want you to know it, so that what we have ain’t some doubt in your heart … but instead, it’s somethin’ real. It’s somethin’ tangible.”
“Tangible?”
“That time you spent with me out in Spruce … I wanted you to have that same feeling here, in Los Angeles. Because you need to know, Lance. You deserve to know.”
“Deserve to know what?”
He pulls away and brings his eyes level with mine. I’m locked to his gaze, entranced.
Chad says, “You deserve to know that it could be possible with us, no matter what you choose to do with your life.”
“I love you, too, Chad.”
His eyebrows lift, as if surprised by the words.
After a moment, I put a kiss on his nose—yes, his nose—and then I smirk at him. “Really? You acting like you didn’t know that? Wasn’t I the first one to say it?”
He snorts, a smile spreading over his face. “You were.”