"Hey." He runs his fingers through my wet hair. They skim my ear. My neck. My shoulder. It's impossibly soft. Like he's trying to drive me crazy.
"Hey yourself." I lean into his touch. My eyelids flutter together. Fuck, that feels good. He feels good. All of this—I can't lose it.
But I can't keep hiding this.
I need him to know.
It should be simple. I need Brendon to know. So I tell him.
But my mouth is sticky.
My hands are numb.
Everything is heavy.
"Your grandma?" He traces a line down my arm, all the way to the tip of my index finger, then back up to my shoulder. It's slow. Sweet. Affectionate.
He does it again, only this time he traces my middle finger.
Then my ring.
Then my pinkie.
We lie in silence for minutes. Until I can't feel the bliss of his touch. Until I can't feel anything but the weight of this secret crushing my chest.
It's everywhere. In the air. In the moonlight. In the soft cotton sheets. In his fingertips.
On my lips.
"Kay." His lips brush my ear. My neck. "Whatever it is, you don't have to talk about it."
I nod.
He kisses me again. It's a sweet kiss. Not I want you or I need you or I'm going to fuck you again.
It's I love you.
"But you can." He draws circles on my shoulder. "Anything."
"I want to." I do. Really, I do. My desire is so big and bright it's casting everything else in glare. Every single one of my thoughts is tuned to this frequency.
"Yeah?" He plants a kiss on my shoulder.
"But I don't want you to look at me differently."
"I won't."
"How can you promise that?"
"Did you kill someone?"
"No."
"Do you really want to fuck Dean?"
My laugh breaks up the tension in my shoulders. "Murder and lust for Dean are equally bad in your eyes?"
"Fuck no." He presses his palm into my stomach to pull me closer. "Lust for Dean is a million times worse."