Page 60 of Courageous Hearts

“The sunrises are more beautiful here,” I note softly.

“You’ll have to bring me sometime,” they say.

I smudge a kiss against the side of their head. “Deal.”

Another five, ten minutes pass before I sigh.

“Ready to head back?” I ask. It’s getting cold and dark, after all.

The noise Bo makes sounds less than thrilled, but they nod nonetheless. “Suppose so.”

“We can come back again,” I assure them.

They give me a little smile at that.

Standing up, I help Bo to rise. Our palms fit to one another easily, and we grab our shoes and socks before making our way back up the dune.

“Where to?” I ask once we get to my car, not wanting to presume they’ll spend the night, even though they did bring a bag over to my place earlier.

But Bo looks over, eyes shining in the moonlight. “Take me back to your place, Jamie.”

I won’t say no to that.

Chapter 18

Bo

Brushing my fingers over the sheer fabric running down my sides, I check my reflection in the mirror. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s just sex, and Jameson and I have had sex before. But not this kind, assuming he still wants to fuck me. He said he did, so, theoretically, I have nothing to worry about. And yet I can’t help but wonder what he’ll think when he sees me.

I’ve never been particularly shy when it comes to sex and my body. It’s everything else, all the little intimacies of relationships and friendships, that don’t come easy to me. My family was never affectionate. We didn’t touch much—apart from rough-and-tumble grappling I never particularly enjoyed. But we didn’t hug, and we didn’t tell each other how we felt.

Jameson does those things without reservation. And although I’ve been soaking up his attention like a flower bent toward the sun, putting myself out there is still scary. Getting off is easy. But asking for more? Accepting it? Trusting it won’t be ripped away just when I start to get comfortable?

Those are the things I have trouble with.

So here I am, a little nervous as I stand in Jameson’s bathroom dressed in a silky lace negligee after having washed everywhere. My hair is an artful, tousled mess, there’s the tiniest amount of shimmery shadow above my eyes that gives me a nice glow, and my lips are shiny with gloss. The soft white of the lingerie contrasts nicely with the darkness of my hair, and it looks almost innocent, all pristine and delicate. Except for the fact that it’s anything but.

The top of the negligee is see-through lace, woven lightly enough that my nipples are clearly visible through the fabric. Below that, it falls loosely down to the top of my thighs in sheer, overlapping layers. And under that is the jockstrap, lacy and see-through, just like the top. The underwear barely hides a thing, the soft fabric cupping my cock and balls for show more than anything else.

And it is a show, the whole thing. It’s a show for Jameson. I’m used to being up on stage for myself. Maybe that’s why it’s always been so easy for me, getting dressed up and performing in front of an audience, often in revealing things. Because I don’t care what people think when I do it.

It’s for me.

But this? I want Jameson to like it—to like me—and that’s the difference.

I’m putting myself out there. Even if he doesn’t realize it, this is me giving him one of those vulnerable pieces of myself.

I only hope he handles it with care.

Taking one last breath, I grab my backpack off the floor and step out of the bathroom. Jameson is waiting in the bedroom where I left him almost twenty minutes prior, and I set my backpack down in the hall before following the light to his room.

He looks up when I step in, the phone in his hand wilting like a dehydrated dandelion. His mouth drops open, and his eyes ping up to mine before running all over my body. He sits upright, his chest rising and falling as he takes me in, the brown of his irises turning dark, nearly black. There’s so much transparent want in his gaze that when he husks out “Blue,” all those worries floating around in my head, all those trembling insecurities, snap away under the steel band of resolve he’s giving me. My doubts flit away, and I step fully inside the room.

“You like it?” I ask, even though now, I’m confident he does.

He nods, blinking a couple times. I’m hard from anticipation and his reaction alone—my semi having gone full-mast quickly under the heat of his gaze—and a quick check tells me Jameson is just as affected. There’s a nice bulge front and center under the sweats he changed into when we got to his house.

I love those dang sweats.

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