AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He is also your friend, yes?”
Snort. “Most of the time.” A sobering look, when seeing he didn’t—or chose not to—get it. “Yes. He’s also my friend.”
“And he also is gay?”
“Yes. But what the hell does that have to—”
“And you accept him that way?”
Now I straightened, pushing up until my back rammed the headboard. “What the hell kind of a question is that?”
“An honest one.” His posture stayed so straight, I almost imagined him in one of those fancy conference rooms in the other wing, serenely pacing the room—while eviscerating a business associate. “You accept Ezra Lowe as a leader and as a friend, as well as the fact that he is gay, right?”
Glower. It felt more than justified. “I don’t just ‘accept’ Ezra. I love him. He’s a little nuts around the edges,”—subject matter for a different time and place—“but he wouldn’t be him without all of that. He’s talented, funny, creative, challenging, honest—”
“And gay.”
I pushed into the same position as him. The move made the sheet slip down. My breasts spilled out like a pair of plumped muffins, making him glance down. Good. I hope he’d gotten a huge eyeful—because right now, the lord and master wasn’t getting these goods.
“What the hell is your point?” I bit out. “Ezra’s actually bi, if you really need to know, but you don’t. Not really. It’s nobody’s business except his lovers.”
Well. Nothing wrong with my verbal diarrhea tonight. As soon as the spew was finished, a blush invaded my face—exacerbated by the man’s cocky head tilt and boardroom arrogance. Yeah, even now. Yeah, even buck naked and beautiful in front of me.
“Hmmm. Bisexual,” he murmured. “That is even more interesting.”
“And your point is what?” I shot back.
“Just that it is interesting.”
He was baiting me. I could feel it—but the burn in my psyche made it impossible not to jump at the lure. “But why does it have to be ‘interesting’? Why does it have to be anything?”
“Why indeed?”
“He’s bisexual, Shiraz. It’s just another facet to him, like he has green eyes, a shellfish allergy, and the ability to score the best tan during the first week of summer.” Which always turned me three shades of envious, but we all had crosses to bear. “Why you’re fixating on it is beyond me.”
He cocked his head the other direction. “So qualifying someone on their preference for certain…passions…is not right?”
“No!” I volleyed. “Passions are passions. People are just wired the way they’re wired, and—” I literally choked myself to a stop. Fell back against the headboard with a cushioned whump. “Shit.” Blinked once. Twice.
Before the tears burst up, then overflowed.
“Shit,” I repeated.
“Tupulai,” he sighed.
“Shit!” I gasped, as he surged over, tucking me against his chest. Even with that amazing anchor of muscle and warmth, my psyche tilted then slid as if Tilda Swinton in swami clothes had just punched me into a glowing astral plane and altered my gravity, my reality, my sanity.
Shiraz just kept holding me. His silent strength kept me grounded, threading me back to reality a little at a time, until I sniffed back snot with embarrassing volume. There was nothing to be done with the remaining wetness on my cheeks, though—especially when he tugged gently on the back of my head, all but ordering my face to lift.
His gaze was waiting, brilliant and perfect as the morning sea, before his thick lashes lowered, and he dipped toward me…
But not to kiss my lips.
To wick the rest of the salty drops from my skin. One by one, he tenderly took them away, at last licking them from his lips with a swipe of his tongue so slow and intent, it became carnal. Or maybe it was just me. The new, mind-blown me. The me slowly beginning to realize that maybe I wasn’t the “too intense”, “too passionate”, “too crazy”, “too needy” one. That maybe there was nothing “too anything” about me at all.
That maybe I’d just not met anyone enough for me.
That maybe, I finally had.
