Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Shane hummed. “You think Louis the Fourteenth had hot straight guys sucking him off?”
I snorted. “You never know. Nothing from history surprises me anymore.” I sat back down on the couch next to Shane, enjoying the fact that we were both still naked.
“Not going to lie, I don’t know much about history,” Shane said. “Or… math. Or science. Or literature. Really anything from school other than soccer.”
“So the truth comes out,” I said. “I was a total nerd and theater kid in school, and you were a jock.”
He screwed up his face. “I wasn’t a jock.”
I lifted an eyebrow as fast as lightning. “You don’t think so?”
“I just played sports,” he said, pondering. “I guess I played a lot of different ones. It’s not like I was the best at any of them, though. I’m telling you, I didn’t even feel athletic until way later in life.”
“Fine. Maybe not always a jock, but the jocky type.”
Finally Shane smiled, and a bit of tension was relieved. “Sure. Whatever that means.”
I made a point to hold his gaze. “I promise that whatever I say to you, it’s a compliment. Also, you look so fucking good naked it should be a crime.”
He groaned, reaching for a throw blanket and pulling it over his face. “Too many compliments. I’m going to self-destruct.”
I had butterflies in my chest as I watched him pull the blanket down and slowly reveal his eyes again. He was so masculine and yet so tender and vulnerable at the same time, and that combination was apparently like catnip to me. And to my dick.
“Better get used to it, if you’re going to hang out with me this season.”
He pulled in a slow breath, leaning back on the couch. It was nice that I felt like I was allowed to let my eyes roam, to linger on the parts of him that normally I wouldn’t let myself look at on another man.
The muscles along his chest. The slight V-shape that led downward on his lower stomach. And the way his cock looked good even now that it wasn’t hard anymore, laying against the inside of his thigh, still thick and impressive.
Shane already trusted me enough to share this moment with me.
I couldn’t believe how much that meant, after the year from hell that I’d been having.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked him softly. He was looking over at my Christmas tree, watching the ornaments slowly twirl back and forth.
“Not too much.”
“Is that the truth?”
He bit his lower lip, turning toward me. “Maybe. Not really, I guess.”
I reached out and smoothed his hair with my hand. “You can tell me the truth, Shane.”
He swallowed, looking at me slightly like he was a deer in headlights. He looked like he was trying to decide how much to tell me.
“I guess there’s something I want to ask you.”
Anything.
Everything.
I want to know you.
“Please,” I told him, letting my hand rest on his thigh.
“Why are you so nice to me?” he asked.
My heart nearly broke as I watched his eyes, so earnest and so vulnerable. My sternum ached.
Was he really not aware of how charming he was? How good it felt to be around him? How he was the perfect boy-next-door in Tennessee who had finally made my time here feel like it was worth something?
“Because I really like you,” I said simply. I wanted to pull him into the tightest hug. “It would be impossible not to like you, Shane.”
He looked down, putting his hand on top of mine and giving it a warm squeeze. “I think about sending off that video to the Fixer Brothers, and how I must seem like every other generic guy sending in a tape. Pick me, pick me, meanwhile, I’m nothing all that special.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I said automatically before I could put my filter on.
His eyes snapped up to meet mine again, slightly shocked.
“I’m just saying,” I continued, “you are absolutely insane if you don’t realize how special you really are.”
Finally the hesitation on his face disappeared. “No one has been this nice to me in so long. Years, maybe? Other than my sister and my late grandma, at least, and that’s a very different feeling.”
I puffed out a laugh. “Well, you deserve it.”
He stretched his arms high above his head, showcasing his perfect muscled arms. “I don’t know you all that well, Rowen, and I know you’ll be back in New York soon enough. You won’t tell me about your life all that much. But… I trust you.”
Guilt pooled in my chest, heavy as a rock.
You trust me even though you have no idea what happened back in the city.
Even though I come from two awful people, and have no name for myself, anymore.
I wanted to tell him everything. It was at the tip of my tongue, and part of me was waiting for the whole story to fall out of my mouth.