Page 14 of Tastes of Him

Now I did look up. I had known him for years, and I could tell not only when he was lying but when he was trying not to reveal the truth. He was hiding something, and I needed to know what that was.

“You were angry. I could tell by the look on your face, and the tension for the past few days seems to suggest it as well. There’s nothing else that happened, right?” Sean’s expression didn’t change, but his smile did drop.

“I wasn’t angry,” he replied finally. When I kept looking at him, he finally gave in, rolling his eyes before speaking. “Fine. I was perhaps a little hurt.”

“Hurt? Why were you hurt? Was it something that I said?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Rod, maybe it’s the fact that you acted like sleeping in bed with me was a way to catch some type of disease.” He raised an eyebrow at me, gaze going sharp. “If you didn’t want to share a bed with me, I could have just gotten a hotel room.”

Fuck, Brody was right,I thought to myself. I hadn’t thought that my words would be misinterpreted like this. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant to imply. I just didn’t want you to feel pressured into sharing a bed with me when there were other options.”

Sean put his fork down. “Now, when have you known me to feel pressured into anything?”

“Cameran convinces you to do things all the time,” I pointed out. “I mean, you did get on a plane to get here.”

He pursed his lips. “That was…different.”

“Why?” The question, in my opinion, was a simple one, but I saw him struggle to answer. Finally, he seemed to deflate and looked away.

“Because I wanted to come see you.” My silence must not have been what he was expecting, but I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t end with me on my fucking knees asking him for forever. “And that wasn’t pressuring me since I wanted to be here. So, don’t sleep on the couch tonight.”

I swallowed hard. “Sean, are you—”

“If you ask me if I am sure one more fucking time, I swear you will catch these hands.”

I held my hands up in surrender, but I couldn’t help the wide smile that stretched my lips. Lying beside him was going to be another special type of hell, but one I was looking forward to. The warmth of him that I only briefly got to experience with our hug when he first got in had been playing on repeat in my mind. A pillow was a poor substitute for the real weight of having him in my arms.

Not that he will be in my arms. We’re just platonically sharing a bed. No big deal.

Even the thought of not fully having him in my arms couldn’t dim my smile, and I was warmed to see it echoed in his own. Dinner was forgotten as I stared into his dark brown eyes. The waning light from outside the window painted the room in a haze of deep reds and soft violets, casting inviting colors over his skin. The need to touch was strong, and something must have shifted behind my eyes because Sean’s went half-lidded. His gaze slowly drifted down until I was sure he was looking at my mouth. I leaned toward him, wanting nothing more than to feel the soft push of his lips against mine. What would it be like to slide between them and taste the heat of him on my tongue? It was a question that had plagued me for years, and now everything in me was screaming to reach and find out.

Before I could bridge those last few inches, the slam of the front door hitting the wall jerked me out of the moment, and my stomach dropped when Sean’s eyes widened as he leaned away. I could have howled at the moment shattering like glass on the floor, if not for the way Cameran bounded into the room.

“What the hell?”

“Jesus, Cameran! Why are you—”

“We’re engaged!”

CHAPTER NINE

Sean

The water pressure was perfect in this place, and I was going to miss it. Still, even the heat of it wasn’t enough to wash away my frustration at dinner being interrupted the way it was.

Then again, who knows what would have happened if Cameran and Julie hadn’t come in?

No, I knew what would have happened—a fucking mess.

A mess of fucking?

The way Rod had been looking at me was enough to make my dick want to stand up and take notice. There was no mistaking that if the girls had been a few minutes later, I would have gone against my better judgment and let myself fall into the temptation that was Rod and his fucking ‘kiss me’ ass lips. The man could be in a lip gloss ad with a mouth like that…or on the Hub. Still, it didn’t help that I had fallen under the spell of the right lighting and some alone time.

I had told myself that I would talk to Rod about things and get it all out there so we could move on and continue the way we always had. Even if I wanted more, what we had could be enough. It had been for years. I didn’t need to be romantically involved with him to be happy being in his life.

But it wouldn’t hurt.

No. Rod was a genuinely nice guy, and he deserved someone who was just as nice as him, who would concede more than control. I was self-aware enough to know I would probably bulldoze things until our relationship reached its inevitable end, and then where would that leave us?

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