Page 33 of A Brother At My Back

“A what?”

He laughed a little and said, “A condom.”

“Oh, no.”

He made a slightly frustrated growl and breathed along the side of my neck, kissing me at my pulse point in a way that made me shiver.

“It’s not like I bring my work home with me,” I said half sarcastically, half defensively. “You’re the first man I’ve ever let into my apartment.”

He pulled back, dark eyes alight with desire, searching my face. Satisfied with what he saw there, he gave me a reckless grin and said, “I like that, makes a bloke feel special.”

I laughed slightly and he touched light fingertips to the corner of my smile, a sweet one echoing on his own full lips.

“Go get a hot shower, find the warmest whatever you have to sleep in. I want to hold you if that’s alright?”

“I’d like that,” I murmured. “You’re seriously okay with just that, though?”

“’Course I am, I suggested it, eh.”

I pressed my lips, swollen from his kiss together and gave a short nod. I really liked the sound of what he was offering. There was sex and then there was intimacy. I needed the latter like I needed the sun, like I needed air to breathe, and the sincerity in his gaze as he followed my movements around the room even as he made himself at home, hanging his jacket on the back of one of my little two-seater table’s chairs… It was everything I’d longed for.

Maybe I was letting myself be fooled like Delia seemed to think, but the look in his eyes, his easy posture… something told me to follow my heart and my heart was very nearly weeping in relief.

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