LUKE
I let him win.
How could I not? Sam doesn’t know it, but he’s just gifted me something precious—an intimate moment where I could give him such pleasure. Where I could see him open up in ways I’ve never seen before, completely coming undone under my touch.
I let out a shaky breath as I lean back against the wall outside the bathroom. It was the most erotic moment of my life.
Oh God, and then watching him, feeling him giving me that back—it was all my dreams at once, and for a few moments, my world was just the way it should be. We were living together and had just come home from a day at work, and we were taking the opportunity to get busy while Jeremy wasn’t in the house.
My hand flies to my lips. They’re tender, and when I brush the pad of my finger over them, I’m taken back to our kisses.
Sam said he didn’t want in-between kisses, and while these weren’t that, technically, since we were caught up in the “experimenting” moment of it all, they felt . . . different. They spoke of more than sex—of our friendship, of how much we care for one another.
They were loving, and not just from my side. Sam meant them too. I know it.
I’m smiling when he comes out of the bathroom. He reddens as he looks up at me, and then shrugs as if to get rid of the slight awkwardness. “It’s free now,” he says, his gaze dipping quickly over me before darting to some fleck on the wall beside me.
I push off the wall and move to the bathroom, pausing at his side on the way. “I hope it was memorable for you.”
His gaze snaps to mine, and after a moment, his lips twitch into a grin. “Well, you know, it wasn’t a ten, but—”
I hit his arm and he feigns being hurt. But he’s doing a terrible job because he’s laughing.
“It was interesting,” he amends.
And I hate that word with a passion now.
“What about for you?” he asks. “Still feeling freaked out?”
I don’t want to lie about this, don’t want to reduce it to a joke. I meet his gaze squarely. “In some ways, yeah, I’m still freaked out.”—Because it’s you. Because this is what I want for us for real, and you don’t even know it—“But it felt amazing being with you, Sam. I enjoyed it a lot.” More than you could possibly imagine.
His grin falters and a small frown cuts into his brow. He nods once and shifts his weight to his other foot. Suddenly that fleck or whatever it is on my wall is extremely fascinating again.
I can’t stand waiting for a reaction. I’m too afraid I won’t like it, so I sweep past him and into the bathroom. Once the door is shut, I rest my forehead against the middle panel. How is it possible to feel such elation and such misery at once?
I give myself a hard laugh and clean up.
I expect Sam to have left when I’m done, so it surprises me to find him sitting on my couch, pressing the creases out of one of my cushions he has on his lap.
When he sees me, he lifts the cushion and tosses it over. I catch it and spin it between my hands.
“I think I’m gonna head home and crash,” he says, pushing himself to his feet, but I know he has more to say than that, else he would have left already.
I wait for it, and then he crosses the room to me, stopping just over the border of the bro-gap. “Thank you, Luke. Not just for the fun on your couch. But the date too. And just . . . you said if anyone, it should be you to help me with my list . . .”
His lashes, cast low as he talks, lift and Sam’s brown gaze is meshing with mine. “I like that. It fits.”
He looks at me longer than he usually would, and I want to read into it, but then he glances away and steps back. “Right. Well I’m off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” He smirks at me. “Maybe you can help me design a tattoo.”
He runs out of the house with me chasing him, telling him he’d better not do any such thing, and if he so much as even thinks about scarring his body again, I’ll lock him up and throw away the key.
I know he’s teasing me, though. And I’m glad for the way it breaks the leftover awkwardness between us.
When I go back inside, I get ready for bed. I take my laptop to bed with me, and put my thinking cap on for things Sam and I can do for this next week without Jeremy.
It doesn’t take me long to figure out what—though it takes a few hours more to organize it.
When I’m done, I shut my laptop, slip it onto my bedside table, and pick up my phone.
It rings three times before he picks up.
“Luke?” he says, surprised to hear from me, by the sound of it.
“You in bed?”
“Yeah. Reading. Just about finished this last book.”
“Good. Then catch some shuteye after.”
“Shuteye?”
My grin widens, and I wonder if he hears the excitement in my voice. “Yeah, because you’ll need your sleep. Tomorrow we have to get up early.”
“To get your car fixed?”
Oh shit, I’d forgotten about that. But the truck could wait. “No, not that. Something a little more . . . spontaneous.”