“Stop thinking,” I murmur against his mouth. I nip his bottom lip, then soothe it with my tongue. “Just feel me. Feelustogether.”
He nods shakily, eyes darkened behind wet lashes. I grab the soap and lather my hands, sliding them over his shoulders, down his arms, across the lean planes of his stomach. Touching him after wanting him for so long makes my chest tight, and I didn’t expect that.
“I like you like this,” I say, voice low under the shower’s soft spray. “All flushed and overwhelmed. I like how your breath catches when I touch you here—” I wrap a soapy hand around his half-hard cock and stroke once, slow. He jerks, hips moving forward. “Yeah. Just like that.”
Cade’s head falls back against the tile. I kiss along his throat, licking water from his pulse point, loving how it thuds against my lips.
“I like your mind, Cade. The way you get lost in books and lecture notes like the rest of the world disappears. I like how when you’re nervous, you push your glasses up with that little frown. I’ve been half in love with that frown for a while.”
He makes a broken sound. I drop the soap and pull him flush against me, our cocks sliding together in the slick heat. We rock slowly, kissing like we have all the time in the world and none at all.
“I like how shy you are,” I continue, biting gently at his jaw, knowing he needs to hear these things. He needs to know that I want him, and that I’ve wanted him. He deserves to know. “How you follow every rule until I make you want to break them. I like the way you looked at me in the office when you finally let yourself see me.” My next kiss is so slow I nearly come. “I want to be the answer to the question you’ve been asking yourself.”
Water pounds my back as I turn us, pressing his front to the tile now so I can kiss down his spine. My hands grip his hips, holding him steady while I grind against his ass, teasing. My cock has never been so hard, and I’ve never shown as much restraint as I am now.
“I like your body. How sensitive you are right here—” I reach around and circle his nipple again. “And how you tremble when I suck you. I like your voice when it cracks saying my name. I like how you tried so hard to run and couldn’t. Because you want this. You wantme.”
Cade turns in my arms, eyes glassy, water dripping from his hair. He cups my face with both hands and kissesme desperately, tongue sliding against mine like he’s handing over his every fear for me to make right. I kiss him back harder, one hand fisting in his wet hair, the other stroking us together in tight, perfect pulls. We’re both so thick, so long, so hard, we feel like we were meant to be pressed together like this.
“I like you, Cade Mercer,” I rasp between kisses. “All of you. The anxious professor, the secret romantic, the man who just discovered he wantsmycock and still blushes about it. I like every confused, brilliant, terrified piece of you.”And I’ve slowly been falling in love with you, and if you let me, I will.
He whimpers, hips stuttering into my fist. I hold him through it, kissing him until the water starts to cool and his body us trembling for an entirely different reason.
When we finally step out, wrapped in towels and each other, I know he’s still anxious. Nerves and indecision and unsaid things pool in dark crescents beneath his blue-gray eyes. But for the first time, he doesn’t pull away. He leans into me instead, forehead against my shoulder, breathing me in like I’m home.
And fuck if that doesn’t make me fall even harder.
“Come on,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I’m cooking. Real food. You’ll need it.”
I pull things from my bag and get dressed as Cade drags things from his dresser and does the same. We both end up in low-slung sweats, and university t-shirts, his promoting the writing center and mine promoting the football team.
Cade looks around his room, wet towels on the floor, our clothes strewn over the bathroom tile, hair mussed and glasses nowhere in sight. He looks debauched and edible. “You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” I reach for his glasses and find them, closing the distance between us until we’re toe to toe. Carefully, I slide them up the bridge of his nose, taking care to tuck each arm delicately behind his ears. His smile is shy but appreciative, and my cock loves that little smile. “Those fucking slutty little glasses,” I whisper, then steal a kiss from his lips. Before he can argue, I link our hands, fingers woven, and drag him down to the kitchen. “Come on. Food. And conversation.”
I throw together a simple pasta—garlic,olive oil, chili flakes, fresh parmesan I find in his fridge. Domestic as hell for two busy professionals who eat out most of the time. When he finally appears, he hovers in the doorway like he’s not sure he’s allowed in his own kitchen.
He hooks an unsure thumb over his shoulder. “I put some music on. And started the fire. Cracked the door for a breeze.” He glances at the food I’m plating, and says, “that looks incredible.”
I eye him in his comfortable clothes, and remember all the access to his perfect body I never had before, and tellhim the truth. “You look incredible in sweats.” I nod to his plate. “Come on, get your plate.”
He obeys, and that’s hot, too. Though at this juncture, I’m not sure there’s a single thing Cade Mercer could do that wouldn’t ruin me.
We eat at the small table. The silence stretches, comfortable at first as we doctor our plates with pepper and hot sauce, then heavy as the meal ends. I don’t need a preamble, and I respect him too much to do that. Instead, I spear a piece of pasta while watching him, and get to the reason why we’re here. “Have you always struggled talking about this stuff? Relationships. Sex. Wanting someone.”
Cade’s fork stills. He nods once, eyes on his plate. “Yes. Always.” I think that’s all I’m going to get but then his eyes lift, and settle on mine, and I’m gifted, finally, with more. “My whole life I thought the romantic, relationship, sexual side of me was turned off. Broken. I thought I was a guy who just didn’t have that part of it in me.”
I rub my calf slowly against his under the table. His breath catches. Those long lashes flutter, eyes closing for a second like the simple touch is overwhelming him. Fuck, he’s beautiful when he lets himself feel it. He finishes his sentence, and it almost makes me want to cry. “Until you.”
I abandon my food, chair scraping as I scoot closer. My hand finds his thigh. “Tell me more.”
He exhales shakily. “I didn’t know. About me. I thought I was just not a relationship or sex person. I dated a woman in grad school. It was fine. Comfortable. But thesex wasn’t— I couldn’t get—” He sighs, deciding finally on, “I knew it wasn’t right. But you…” His voice drops. “You happened. And everything I thought I knew just… evaporated. I’ve been spiraling since that kiss in the closet. Replaying every interaction we’ve ever had. Wondering why I noticed the way your shirts stretch across your shoulders, how you smell, what food you like, your habits… I never let myself name it.”
My chest aches. I cup his jaw, thumb stroking his cheek. “That’s why you kept pulling away.”
He nods, leaning into my touch despite himself. “I didn’t know myself until recently. And now that I do, I’m terrified I’ll disappoint you. You’re bisexual, you said. You’ve been with men, women—people who know what they’re doing. I’m… inexperienced. With this. With everything. I’ve only ever touched myself and… one woman, years ago. That’s it. And now I’m sitting here wanting you so fucking badly I can’t think.” He pauses, likely sorting through it all in his mind. But when he looks up at me again, I see his concern. I dust my lips against his, and continue the soft stroking of his cheek until he spills. “What if I’m terrible at it? What if I can’t give you what you need?”
The vulnerability in his voice guts me. I pull him into a kiss, slow and deep, tasting the fear and the desire warring inside him. When I break it, I take his hand and press it firmly against the hard line of my cock straining through my sweatpants. Cade groans, a little low, a little helpless, fingers flexing instinctively against the ridge of me.
