Page 105 of Level Up for Love

His expression is gentle and wondering, even as his eyes grow distant. He traces his thumbnail against one of the inked thorns of the rose tattooed on my shoulder. “I still don’t believe that you invited me up here solely for an academic discussion.” He tweaks my chin. “As much as I enjoy having them with you.”

“Are you going to make me say it?” I murmur, slipping my hand underneath his shirt. “That I just wanted to see you? That I missed you?”

My playful tone seems to only push him further away. Even as his fingers curl against my neck, his eyes drift away from mine. “I don’t know. Are you only ever going to say it in the dark?”

My hand stills against his stomach.

His gaze returns to my face, and even in the darkness, I see shadows ringing his eyes.

His voice is small. “Do we really have to keep playing? Pretending?”

I hear the questions he’s not asking. Pretending that we’re okay with hiding this? Pretending that this doesn’t mean anything?

I release a long sigh into my pillow. “It’s what we’ve always done.”

“But is that how it always has to be? Always games between us?”

I can’t hold his stare. I curl inward, squeezing my eyes shut as I fold into Wesley’s chest. He wraps an arm around me, pulling me tightly to him for a long moment before his hold goes slack. Taking my silence for an answer, he presses his lips to the crown of my head before he slides out of bed.

Some tender part of my chest cracks—and breaks.

I could let him go, and he’d understand. He wouldn’t let my decision affect how the rest of the campaign plays out, and he would treat me with perfect respect as we push to finish our NEWT demos before the January deadline. But fear sinks like a stone in my stomach. I feel like if I let him go this time, everything will be different between us. If I let him go…

He won’t come back.

And I want him to stay.

At the last moment, I reach forward and touch his arm.

He hesitates, and I say, “No. No, it doesn’t.” I swallow. “No more games. No more hiding.”

His voice is so soft I almost don’t hear it. “I want to believe you.”

“I want you to believe me, too.”

His gaze searches mine. He’s not trying to walk away anymore—but he’s not moving closer, either.

Gently, I draw him back down and cup the side of his face with my hand. “Trust me tonight.” My voice wavers with how hard it is to let the words out, to drop the wall I’d built for years. But it comes out stronger when I speak again. “Trust me that things could be different tomorrow.”

Cool air glides across my skin as Wesley pulls back the comforter and sinks into bed next to me again. He watches me carefully, and when I realize he’s waiting for me, I press my lips firmly to his.

We move slower, far slower than the pace we’ve grown used to. Wesley follows my lead this time, leaning into my palm when I lift it to cup his jaw, raising his arms when I tug up the hem of his shirt so I can draw it over his shoulders. Each touch is gentle and searching, an ask and an answer. As we take turns undressing each other, Wesley clings to me in the moments in between, like I might disappear in the dark, like he’s worried my words are just a fragment of an imagined dream.

Against the skin of my neck, he murmurs, “Is this really what you want?”

“Wesley, I want you.”

I want to do more than tell him—I want to show him all the ways I mean it, both tonight and after. For now, tonight will have to be enough.

I kiss him with a tenderness that I’ve never let anyone else see from me, and he murmurs my name against my lips as his mouth glides against mine. There’s something newly reverent in the way his fingers thread into my hair and how he presses his forehead to my temple. As I press my body to his and our legs tangle together, I feel my chest swell with an emotion I can’t name, the pressure of it building behind my sternum and suffusing my limbs with an ache so sharp it steals the breath from my lungs.

I feel him hard against my stomach—not where I want it. I want him closer still. I need him closer.

Suddenly, I sit up, and Wesley makes a noise of protest low in his throat as I pull back. He pushes himself onto an elbow, but I gently press him back down with a hand on his shoulder.

“Stay,” I murmur. “Please.”

Slowly, he lies back down, and I lift my leg to straddle his thighs. I reach to palm him in my hand, and I’m rewarded with his sharp intake of breath and his fingers digging into my knees where they rest to either side of his hips. But it’s not enough to hear and feel him tensing underneath me. I want to see more than just our silhouettes and shadows in the dark.