Page 85 of Perfect Storm
But before Aidan could take it back, Levi was leaning back against the counter, gloriously naked and apparently completely unashamed of that fact. Frankly, Aidan couldn’t blame him.
“Are you saying that because you feel like you should or because you want me to stay?” Levi asked. He added, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards, “Remember, I’m only going across the hall.”
Aidan knew that.
“I know,” Aidan said, licking his lips. “I want . . .” There was that hiccup again. If this had been football and he kept running into something that tripped him up, he’d work on it until he could do it without a single moment’s hesitation. Why was this any different?
He plowed ahead. Kept it simple. “I want you to stay.”
He ignored the voice inside him that shrieked that he was going to push Levi past his comfort zone. That he was going toend up pushing him away entirely. Logically, Levi didn’t look like he was going anywhere, but then Aidan had already figured out that voice was wrong more often than it was right.
Still didn’t mean it wasn’t loud.
Levi didn’t leave him waiting. “Okay,” he said, just as straightforward. “I’m gonna go grab some things. My phone charger.”
Aidan pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and the old ratty T-shirt he slept in and, while he waited for Levi to come in, paced in front of the bed.
He was being weird. He knew it, and he couldn’t even stop it.
Hewantedthis.
He wanted to keep this good feeling going, the heat he felt inside when Levi looked at him with those warm honey-brown eyes. He wanted to feel it when he woke up, too. It was the best thing he’d felt in ages. He was beginning to wonder if it was the best thing he’d felt, ever.
But no. That couldn’t be true.Mowas the best thing he’d ever felt, even though it had never ever, not once, been like this between them. They’d never shared a bed or a shower or their bodies.
That was the only reason it felt different now, Aidan justified. All that intimacy.
“Are you freaking out yet?” Levi asked as he reappeared in the doorway.
Aidan did not jump. Hedidstop pacing, at least. “What? Areyou?”
Levi rolled his eyes. “No.” He climbed right onto the bed, stretching his long legs out, like it was nothing.
That tracked. The only freak here was Aidan.
Gesturing to the bed next to him, Levi said, “If you ever want me gone, you just have to say the word. I won’t take it personally.”
Levi wouldn’t. It wasn’t like he didn’t care aboutanything—he very obviously did, though Aidan was uncertain where he fell on that particular list. It was more like he wasn’t struck down by the same affliction Aidan had: caring about all the wrong things, way too much.
Being neurotic, Riley would tell him, poking him gently in the side.Stop that, before you break your brain.
It was that thought that got him on the bed. They slipped under the covers. They were both big, but the bed was bigger, and there was still room between them. At least until Levi turned over and slung an arm over Aidan’s waist.
Aidan must’ve tensed—with surprise, more than anything else—because Levi asked in a quiet murmur, “Is this okay?”
He nodded.
“Good. ’Cause I like it.” Levi’s smile was soft, and that warmth in his eyes was flooding Aidan’s insides.
“Me too.” There, he’d said it.
Levi looked pleased. “That’s the idea. I set an alarm.”
“What time?”
Levi shot him a look, but told him, and Aidan frowned. “That’s too early,” he said. “We don’t have to be at practice until nine.”
Moving closer, Levi nudged his mouth with his own. It was so easy to slip into another kiss. Not heated, this time, but quiet, intimate. Kind of like falling asleep in the same bed and then waking up the same way. “I know,” he said, when he finally moved back. “But that gives us an extra half an hour.”
