Page 40 of Lost in the Current of You

“I mean, yeah?” Was all I could come up with.

His frown melted, and he chewed his lip, running a hand through his hair. “You know, for the past few days, I haven’t been able to go a moment without thinking about it. I haven’t been able to close my eyes without seeing the way your eyes fluttered when my lips grazed yours. I haven’t gone a moment without feeling the ghost of your fingers fisting my shirt like you wanted to pull me closer.” He stepped closer as I released a shaky breath at his confession.

“You know, any room that I walk in, I always find myself searching for you, and tonight wasn’t any different. But you just slipped away any time I had a chance to talk to you. It was frustrating as hell. But I knew why. I understood why. And maybe I should have left you alone.”

Another step closer. “But, I couldn’t help but want to run after you and pull you in. I tried to tell myself that nothing ever happened between us because of everything fighting against us. Our friendship. Nate and Liam. But if lying to myself, and you, has you running away from me, then I don’t want that. I can’t do that.”

He shook his head with one final step until he was inches in front of me, toes touching, chests brushing with every inhale, and his intoxicating cologne invading all my senses, taking control of my mind.

It was hard to find oxygen when he pulled it straight out of my lungs and out of reach with every word he spun. He knew how to reel me in, to sing me the sweetest songs. I was a sucker for his words.

“This could ruin our friendship, though. That isn’t something I’ve ever wanted to do. I almost lost you once before, Reece.”

His hand curled around the nape of my neck, and lightning zapped under my skin at his touch, coiling its way around my heart like it had its own direct line of electrical current that could trigger my heart to pump.

“I don’t think I could ever live a life without you in it. I want you in any way, I can have you. So this. This will not ruin anything. Because I will not let it. Trust me on that.”

“And baseball? You’ve always said you can’t afford distractions during the season.”

I may have enquired on one of our many nights spent by the river about his dating life.

After much teasing about it being my subtle way of asking if he was seeing someone, he stated that he didn’t have time to date and couldn’t afford distractions from his dream in baseball.

Why I didn’t connect him and Liam then when he mentioned baseball, I wasn’t quite sure. But that was the only night he mentioned baseball.

He shook his head, his frown slotting back into place. “Don’t put words in my mouth. Yeah, I’ve said I don’t like distractions during the season, but that never applied to you. You are not a distraction. Every time I’m around you, I feel like myself. I can be myself. I feel like I can breathe easier when I’m with you.”

I watched as his throat bobbed, and he took a step closer to me, my back hitting the basin. “In that moment at the river, I did not think about them or baseball or anything on the outside. All I thought about was you. All I saw was you. Exactly what I see in this moment. With this need to kiss you. Because it’s all I’ve ever felt when I’m around you since the first moment I met you.”

I couldn’t breathe. Once again, he stole all the oxygen out of the room. I felt warmth rush to my cheeks and my head felt fuzzy. I would have palmed it off as just the alcohol running through my veins, but looking into the darkening green of his eyes, I couldn’t deny the fact that word by word he was the one seeping through my veins, drawing me in as he leaned closer.

“Now, I should ask you,” he started, leaning over me with his hands resting on the basin on either side of my hips. His lips brushed my ear and my eyes fluttered closed. “Do you really think it was a mistake?”

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth, opening my eyes and watching as he pulled away just a fraction. His eyes tracked the movement of my lips before he lifted his gaze back to mine.

Waiting for my answer. Pleading for it to be the same as his.

There wasn’t a universe out there, I believed, where I denied this feeling.

I breathed my answer. “No.”

He was so close that I could see the spark in his eyes when he registered what I said. It was like all the barriers between us crumbled to dust in that moment and we threw all consequences to the wind.

It started off slow. The rough callouses of his hands brushed against my cheek, framing my face before he tucked my hair behind my ears. His eyes danced over my face like he was trying to imprint this moment, and the way I looked, into his brain. I knew because I was doing the same thing. It felt like a fever dream. The whole build-up. The anticipation of something I thought had been out of reach, now only a hair’s breadth away.

Every sound and thought blurred around us. All I saw was him, and my heart felt like it might have leaped out of my chest.

He tilted my chin up with the press of his thumbs underneath before he trailed one hand behind my neck.

He paused just above my lips, enough to whisper, “I didn’t lie when I said I’ve wanted this for a long time. But if you tell me to stop, I will.”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t handle the anticipation anymore. My hand roped around his neck, and I pulled his lips the rest of the way down. The feeling exploded all the way through my body, right down to my toes. The feeling of his lips pressed to mine and the tightening of his hand around the back of my neck. It was all-consuming as his breath came out in one long sigh like his body had expelled all the stress out of his body with a single touch of our lips, and he leaned further into me.

My hands found purchase on either side of his hips, fisting his shirt between my fingers and pulling him closer. I needed to be closer to him, to feel him everywhere. I think he felt the same because the next thing I knew, his hands had travelled down my body to wrap around the backs of my thighs, and then he lifted me onto the basin. He pushed his body between them, and I sighed at how well we fit together. His caresses burned their way through my clothes to my skin, making me yearn for more.

Once our lips touched, we didn’t want to come up for air. Lust clouded the room and consumed us. It became us. It was a mess of clumsy hands, bruising kisses, clothes on the floor, and exploring eyes. He peeled every piece of clothing off me, leaving me in my bra and underwear. His hand trailed from my neck, down my collarbone, before making its torturous path between my breast and over my stomach until it skimmed the top of my underwear, lighting my skin on fire in its wake. I nodded my head as his eyes flicked between mine, giving him permission to touch me where I so desperately wanted him.

My underwear was bunched to the side as he slid a finger down the centre of me, drawing a whine from my lips that he captured with his mouth. I trailed my hand down the ridges and curves of his body, feeling the warmth he radiated, the steady beat of his heart, and the way his abdomen flexed when my fingers skimmed over them, reacting to the touch. When my eyes bounced back to his, they were ablaze with lust and urgency. With desire and appreciation.

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