AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I closed the distance between us immediately and pressed my lips to his. It was the first time I’d kissed him without any sexual undertones. I wasn’t even hard, although I knew if I kept kissing him, that might be inevitable.
I’d kissed him because I knew heneededit.
Because I cared about him. A lot more deeply than I’d even known until this moment.
And that made my world shift on its axis.
The way Kace responded also confirmed my decision the moment my lips were on his. He sighed against me, relenting, and coming closer. His arms were around my shoulders a moment later, pulling me in tighter, as if he needed the closeness as much as I’d imagined he did. I kissed him slowly, taking all of the time in the world.
Something was cracking inside me. Or, maybe, it had already cracked long ago, and I’d just been too damn slow to realize it was there all along, waiting for me to see it.
I didn’t want to be Kace’s friend.
Deep down, I was starting to think I wanted a whole fucking lot more than that.
“I want this,” I murmured now against his lips, sliding my hands around to the small of his back and squeezing him. Words came out of me like a dam had broken, urgent and clear. “I want this all of the time, Kace. I’ve never felt like I feel around you—”
His arms tightened around me, and he leaned his head into the crook of my neck. “Don’t say things like that,” he whispered, and the depth of his voice only made me want him more. “You’re making me want more than I should want, and I don’t think you get that, Nathan.”
“I fucking want it, too,” I said, emphasizing every word. Heat was rising in me now, some sense ofneedthat I couldn’t express.
Just then a voice rang out from behind me. “Nathan? Is that you?”
I pulled away from Kace immediately, flipping around to see who it was. Shawn was there, with Charlie close behind, and I moved away from Kace faster than lightning when I saw that the TV crew wasn’t far behind, either.
“I was, uh, just congratulating Kace on his show,” I said, clearing my throat. I smoothed out my hair and shirt, trying to look somewhat composed. Kace had a reputation to uphold, and I wasn’t about to let him get caught doing something with me if he didn’t want people to know about it. The last thing Kace needed right now was another public narrative about him that he couldn’t control.
“Tonight has been fucking awesome,” Charlie said. I thought for sure that Charlie must have seen what Kace and I had been doing, but he didn’t seem surprised. Had he already pieced together that the guy I’d been texting was Kace? He clearly was still on cloud nine from all the attention he’d been getting.
When I glanced back at Shawn, though, I wondered. Shawn had no idea. As far as I knew, he still thought I was one hundred percent straight, even though he had always been observant.
The moment hung, still, in the air between us.
“Right,” Kace said. His face was like a locked steel cage again, unreadable. “I’ve got to head back. You guys have a good night.”
Kace pushed past, heading back toward the pool. The cameras followed him and left the path.
My heart dropped immediately. He was upset, and this time, I knew it. This time, I wasn’t going to wait for days to find out what went wrong.
“We’re heading out,” Shawn was saying to me. “You coming with us, or staying here?”
There was definitely something charged in Shawn’s voice. He’d seen something. And miraculously, any part of me that still worried about what other people might think had just evaporated like water in the sun.
All I cared about at this moment was making sure Kace was okay.
“I’m staying,” I said, resolute. Words came out so easily it was almost surreal. “And I have to go find Kace again, because I have a massive crush on him, and I’m not quite sure if he knows that.”
Shawn’s face was blank for a moment. He didn’t know how to process what I’d just said, and I could tell.
“Crush?” was all he said, still looking like he was trying to piece together a puzzle.
“I’ve… I’ve always had some curiosity in me, even if I didn’t show it. Even if it wasn’t enough for me to ever do something about it,” I told my brother. “Kace reached in and yanked the curiosity right out. I really,reallyfucking like him, Shawn.”
“Holy shit, thank God,” Shawn said, the relief on his face so clear. “You have acrush. You like him.”
Charlie started to smile wide too. “Jax and I had thought through every possibility of who you might have been texting, and never once considered the fact that it could be him,” he said, marveling.
“You knew?Jaxknew?” Shawn said, clearly hurt. “I’m your brother, Nathan.”
