Page 58 of Laken's longing

“Listen, I truly am sorry.” Isley’s eyes glistened like stars in a cloudless sky, and Laken frowned in confusion. He realized Isley thought the sounds he’d made had something to do with him.

It did, just not in the way he supposed. “I had a go at Jupiter… accused him of some things—”

“Oh no. You smelled me on him, didn’t you?”

His cheeks were a beautiful shade of pink, staring down into his coffee cup, avoiding meeting Laken’s gaze head on. He reached out and touched Isley’s hand, getting him to shift his attention back to him. “I didn’t, my animal smelled you on Jupiter. Your scent coming from me, what does that mean?”

“What can you smell that’s different about yourself?” Isley asked, all curious big eyes.

“When there’s distance between us, like in different buildings, I can still smell the undertones of cinnamon and citrus I get from you, lingering around me. Like it’s in my skin.”

The adorable blush deepened, and Isley nodded. “That would be our scent. I’m so—”

“Don’t say it again.” Laken rubbed at his bearded chin, working through the layers of tiredness to say the right thing to ease Isley’s obvious guilt. “I’ve felt an attraction for you from themoment I laid eyes on you,” he confessed in a rush, to get it out before he changed his mind.

“You did?” Isley’s hopeful smile always did him in. It upped the level of attractiveness from adorable to stunning.

Laken nodded, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I told myself that it would never work out after hearing you tell Wilder what a grump I was and working with me was worse than having a tooth extraction.”

“You heard that!” Isley cried in mortification, burying his head in his hands, then peeking through his spread fingers. “That was just after the first time we worked together, and I tried everything to please you, and all you did was that curt nod thing, not even bothering to acknowledge me.”

“Self-preservation, pure and simple,” he confessed, hoping to get Isley to stop hiding.

It worked when the hands dropped to the counter and he squeaked, “It was?”

Perversely, Laken found he was enjoying himself, loving how alluring Isley was when he blushed so hard his skin glowed, causing the blue of his eyes to deepen.

“Yep. It’s true. I was grumpy because your scent drove me to distraction. I didn’t do a lick of work the whole week we worked on those shipping contracts,” Laken confessed with more humor than he’d felt at the time, as he recalled.

Isley’s starry-eyed look was irresistible, and Laken came forward and kissed those silky soft lips, capturing the whimper of need. The sound resonated like a tuning fork against his dick. There was an underlying sweetness that was pure Isley and the ever present citrus and cinnamon. He traced his tongue delicately over the plumper lower lip, feeling the quiver as he slowly drew back from temptation, coming to a decision.

Quick pants hit his cheeks as their gazes met, and the longing he’d pretended wasn’t there, could no longer be denied. It wouldbe easy to tumble into bed and have the hot, sweaty sex he’d thought about while Isley lay on top of him.

There were so many missteps in his life of late, he didn’t want whatever this was between them to be one of them.

“We have to work today, but this weekend, do you want to do something?” He kept it casual, shrugging like it didn’t matter when it really did. “Maybe a meal out, the movies, something like that?”

The lopsided grin from last night appeared as Isley clapped his hands together and bounced on his seat. “Yes. Yes. Yes, to all of it.”

Laken hadn’t lost the stupid grin all the way home to get showered and changed for work. His damn face ached because of it, and wasn’t that a kicker when he’d completely forgotten about what had brought him to Isley’s door. A door he’d struggled to leave through after Isley had sweetly asked for a goodbye kiss, all shy and charming.

He had left reluctantly, wanting to give them both what they deserved—time to find out if the feelings roaming free were indeed more than lust.

Of course, they are.

Laken didn’t disagree. Isley had done something to the part of his heart which had been trampled on by the stampeding rejection his family had done all those years earlier. He just needed to know what. Isley deserved that and so did he.

Slipping inside the house, he listened out for any sounds before creeping up the stairs going to his bedroom. He didn’t breathe easily until he had his hand on the handle.

“So you sorted it out between you?” Jupiter drawled, leaning against the wall just two feet from Laken.

Laken’s hand went to his chest as he glanced at Jupiter, who hadn’t been there a mere second ago. His pulse was irregularand pumped hard enough Laken considered Jupiter had just frightened ten years off his life.

“Have you been lurking, waiting for me to come home?” he questioned, a little breathless, eyeing Jupiter’s sleep attire and the dark circles under his eyes.

Guilt swamped him, a feeling he was responsible for those dark circles swimming unpleasantly in his gut. It was not a feeling he liked, and he was sorry for acting like a jerk. Jupiter didn’t deserve it. The problem was, jealousy was an ugly emotion that Laken wasn’t used to feeling. His attraction to Isley messed with his head and his usual calm demeanor. It was all he had for his explosion at Jupiter.

Laken opened his bedroom door, motioning Jupiter inside, not wanting to have to eat humble pie in front of an audience when Laken wasn’t sure who was home. Of late, there seemed to be fewer occasions when they were all in the house together.