“Oh yeah?Yeah?God, I’m so fucking happy for you,” Nate said, and he was pulling Ramsey into his arms before Ramsey could take a step back. Before Ramsey could be smart about this after all.
But maybe like their first meeting, this was all predestined, and there’d been no way to avoid it, not really.
Not when Ramsey fit into Nate’s embrace like he’d been designed for that purpose, only. Nate’s big strong arms around him like that first breathless step on the ice. Like a snipe from the blue line that went right over the goalie’s shoulder pad. Like a perfectly blocked shot. Like the bone-deep satisfaction of waking up every morning and knowing that his life was arranged exactly as he wanted it to be and nobody else but him knew how he’d done it.
Nate tipped his head down but didn’t let go, and their eyes caught.
Ramsey’s pulse thumped unevenly. He should say something; make a joke. But the last thing he felt like doing was laughing. Not when Nate’s dark eyes were so intent on him and then his grip tightened around Ramsey’s waist. Not onlynotletting go, but holding on tighter.
“Nathaniel,” Ramsey murmured breathily. Not sure, for the first time in what felt like forever, how on earth he even intended to finish that sentence. What it evenmeant.
“I told myself I wouldn’t do this—” Nate broke off with an abrupt head shake and that was all the warning Ramsey got before Nate dipped his head and kissed him.
It was the kiss version of that smile. A kiss that tasted like joy, flavored with inevitability. Softer and sweeter than he’d anticipated but somehow even better than it had been before.
They’d kissed in June and that had been good. So good, Ramsey had thought about it long after he should’ve forgotten about it.
But this was even better.
Nate made a muffled noise in his throat, fingers digging into the sweatshirt fabric pooling at his waist, and something wild and new flared inside Ramsey’s stomach.
It had been awhile for him—after June, he hadn’t felt like going out and picking up, though he’d steadfastly ignored what that meant and why he was blowing off guys who approachedhim—and that had to be the reason it felt this way.
Both urgent, like if he didn’t drag Nate to his bedroom, he might combust, and easy, like they had all the time in the world this time.
Like it wasn’t just going to be once, but enough that maybe in a million years, all of this wouldn’t feel like he was being remade from the inside out.
Nate kissed him deeper, and Ramsey let himself get lost in the kiss. In the perfect interplay of his mouth and Nate’s mouth, and the way his tongue curled around Ramsey’s, like it not only belonged in Ramsey’s mouth, but that itownedRamsey’s mouth.
Normally that might not be a turn-on but everything about Nate did it for him.
Always had.
Which was why he hadn’t been able to leave him alone, even when he thought Nate was dangerous to not just his peace of mind, but the way he’d carefully and deliberately constructed his life. Even when he thought Nate would resent him forever for leaving how he had in June.
None of that had ever mattered.
Nate broke off, as the back of Ramsey’s head tipped back against the wall. He was breathing hard. They werebothbreathing hard.
Ramsey wanted to gather him in closer. Pull him back. Lock him in so he’d never stop kissing him.
“I told myself—”
“You’re gonna give me a complex about how you don’t want me,” Ramsey teased, because it was easier than saying it for real. Than questioning,why are you still fighting this?
He didn’t want Nate to put the brakes on now. Didn’t think theycould, but Nate was deliciously stubborn. He might still try and Ramsey wasn’t going to survive that. Didn’t he know that Ramsey and his normally exceptional self-control was hanging on by a thread here?
Nate laughed, eyes crinkling, like he couldn’t imagine a world in which that was actually true. “Ikissedyou.”
“Both times,” Ramsey reminded him. Remindedhimself.
“Shouldn’tIbe the one bragging about that?” Nate wondered. His hand had found Ramsey’s hair and was currently ruffling through it affectionately. But there was a hint of something more in the touch. Like it would only take a moment for the vibe to change completely. For Nate to bury his fingers in Ramsey’s curls andyank.
“I don’t know, shouldn’t you be?” It was hard not to smirk. Not to feel a real kind of way about that. Lots of guys—more than Ramsey really could count, or remember, even—had wanted him over the years, but he’d never felt like that was anything special. Not until Nate had chased him out of the bar.
“I don’t take it for granted. Having you, like this,” Nate murmured and kissed him again, soft and lush.
He wouldn’t. Hedidn’t.
