But right now,want is winning.By a landslide.
We stay that way for a long time, making out like teenagers in my office chair. His hands explore me everywhere—my chest, my stomach, dipping low to tease the waistband of my pajama pants without ever quite goinginside. Every touch feels reverent and filthy at the same time, and my heart is racing so fast I think I’m going to die. Actually, I’m already dead, because this is heaven. It has to be.
I’m shaking by the time he finally pulls back, lips swollen and eyes dark.
“We should get out of here, like I said earlier,” he says, voice rough. “Go somewhere. Talk. Actually talk.”
I blink, dazed. “Okay?”
A small smile tugs at his mouth. “Yes, Cade. We are leaving your house for neutral ground, where we are forced to keep our clothes on and use our mouths for conversation and eatingonly.” We both smirk. “Dinner. A walk. Something where you can’t hide behind grading papers or run to another room.”
My instinct is to protest, to find another excuse to stay inside these safe walls. But his hands are still cupping myface, and the sincerity in his eyes cracks every defense I have left.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Let me… get dressed.”
Noah kisses my forehead, lingering. “We’ll get dressed together.”
A crowded baris not what I had in mind. But once we arrive, the place is brimming with energy, voices spilling over half-drank glasses, plates of finger foods being shared over stories of horrid bosses and dates gone wrong. It’s loud. It’s congested. There’s laughter, and shrieks, all in the same. But as we sneak into two seats at the bar in the center of the lower level, I understand why he chose here.
It’s loud. It’s congested. It’s the perfect place to say things that could be hard to say. It’s padded here. Safe, protected by noise that could possibly drown out fears.
It’s the first time we’ve been out together in this new space, in theafter.His skin is so warm, even though our legs don’t touch, I feel his near mine beneath the cover of the bar top. I close my eyes for a second, enjoying the hum of voices, the heat of his body, and knowing that I chose to come here, with Noah, and that everything is different now.
A good different. As nerve-wracking as it may be.
“Hey.” The gentle way that he says it, the way hisfingertips only very slowly and cautiously dust my bicep, like his hesitancy is for my comfort, it allows me to let out a deep, held sigh.
“Hey.” I smile, and don’t bother nudging my glasses up my nose. Noah’s lips curve, and mine do too. He fingers the end of my cable knit, giving it a little private tug before placing his hands on the bar top, strong fingers laced together. I stare at his hands as he quietly asks, “you okay? Is this too much?”
Those hands that I love, that I’ve now seen cum drip down, that I’ve seen splayed across my bare body, those hands that have urged me on and shown me new, fucking insane pleasures. My breathing picks up and I force my gaze to another place I love—Noah’s eyes.
“It’s a lot. I’m… processing. But no,” I say definitively, holding his eyes with a seriousness I’m not sure I’ve possessed outwardly. Not yet. But it’s been pinging around my chest, making my belly soft and warm, and it’s time to share that with Noah. “No, it’s not too much because it’s… the right step. The next step.”
His hazel-whiskey eyes rest against mine as he catches his chin in his hand, relaxing into the bar. “Talk to me. Tell me about what’s going on with you.” It’s the tenderness in his expression that suddenly makes it feel possible. And maybe a little bit the crowded restaurant, too.
Over two club sodas and a plate of parmesan fries, I open up, and spread my feelings out for him to see, every single one of them.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
NOAH
I’msurprised when Cade starts opening up. I think he’s going to launch into his explanations as to why he believed he was asexual, but instead, he gives me so much more.
I dunk a french fry in the aioli, and moan when I discover the combination is incredible. I dunk another, and bring it to Cade’s mouth, and enjoy the subtle twitch of his lips before he opens and lets me feed him.
He likes this. He just isn’t used to it. But that’s why he has me.
“So, you said you went to private elementary school, keep going. I want to know everything.”
He nudges his glasses up and my insides go wobbly at a flash of me slowly taking them off of his face, both of us naked, a hot shower running nearby. God I love thosefucking glasses, and I love the version of him without them, too, the vulnerable, naked, only for me side.
“Yeah,” he nods, sipping the second drink the bartender has left for us, completely oblivious to how desperate I am for him, how every word he speaks is a cliff for me to dangle from until the next cliff he gives me. “Private school. And uh,” he clears his throat, and lifts his eyes from his napkin, where he carefully blots the grease off of his fingertips. “When I was about eight, my mom died.”
“Cade.” I want to pull him into me, because even though that loss was years, and years ago—a lifetime ago, even—I understand that it is the type of loss that rattles you every single day, no matter how much time has passed. “I’m so sorry. I… didn’t know.”
I’ve read a lot about Ford Mercer in the papers, in magazines. I’ve seen him on talk shows and celebrity “are they or aren’t they” lists, canoodling with much younger women. I know he’s wealthy, and owns a series of high-end speakeasy bars. I also know his sister is a thriving real estate agent working for his even more successful uncle. His family is full of flash and success.
