Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“We weren’t thinking straight,” Damon finished—rapidly, as if rushing to get the words out and fill that space between them with easy explanations, dismissals they could both accept. “No. I get it. I’m...glad we were there for each other, too. But we’re getting ourselves so worked up like Chris is our kid, and it’s affecting our judgment.”
“Something like that, yes.” Rian pressed his lips together. “So it’s... I just...” Deep breath, shaky, ragged. “I don’t...want to hurt you because we made a mistake when we were looking for some kind of connection to ease the pain. You and I...we...we’ve already made it clear we can barely get along. So maybe we should just call a truce and do our best to figure things out with Chris.”
“Seems sensible enough, yeah.” It almost hurt that Damon agreed so easily, so readily, before he offered a smile that...that...
That Rian had seen far too many times in the mirror.
Shallow, guarded, careful, completely surface.
And now Rian wondered if other people had felt this bolt of awful, gut-ripping hurt every time they’d seen it from him.
Karma sure as hell was something.
But that smile remained on Damon’s face as he touched the back of Rian’s clasped hands lightly, tentatively, and asked, “No hard feelings?”
Rian bit his tongue, just looking at Damon, and telling himself this was the way it had to go.
Because people who fought the way he and Damon did only became lovers in books.
They didn’t fit.
They didn’t work.
They were too different, and he couldn’t ask Damon to hurt himself to try something with Rian when Rian selfishly wanted to give it a shot anyway and...and...
Hope.
Hope that maybe, just maybe...
There was something to those stories after all.
No, things didn’t work out the way they did in books. And so he only smiled as best he could, as brightly as he could, and turned his hand to squeeze Damon’s briefly. “None,” he said, and pushed himself up, propping himself on one hand, raking his hair back from his face. “So why don’t we get up and give calling Chris’s parents another shot?”
* * *
As he pulled his jeans up around his hips, Damon cursed himself up, down, side to side, and a little upside down just for good measure.
Why the hell had he let things go like that?
Why the hell had he let Rian smile at him so blankly, so emptily, and then accepted it when Rian had written that whole damned mess last night off as if it was goddamned well nothing when it sure as hell hadn’t felt like nothing to Damon?
Because he’d known that was exactly how Rian would respond.
That was damned well why.
Because deep down, even as he’d pulled Rian close and kissed him, whispered tell me what you want, felt something hot and needy claw inside him with a desperation that went beyond lust as he bit Rian and stroked over smooth skin and groaned and shuddered at the tight heat of his body...
He’d known it was a fucking mistake.
He’d known it was a fucking mistake, because Rian was going to put on that polite frozen smile and act like he’d made some kind of lapse in judgment, forgetting his goddamned manners to do something so crass and pointless and illogical as fucking Damon in a moment of emotional weakness.
Fuck, maybe it had been emotional weakness for Damon, too.
Because by the light of day, he was wondering what the hell he’d been thinking, expecting any goddamned thing different when this whole thing shook out.
But he just didn’t have the heart to fight it out.
He didn’t think he could take turning it into another snappish, snarling exchange of insults and cold deflections when he could still feel the faint burn of Rian’s nails in his back; still feel that lithe body moving under him in slow undulations; still taste how luscious Rian had been gasping Damon, Damon, Damon.
Maybe it hadn’t meant a damned thing.
But he didn’t want to turn it sour in his memory, nonetheless.
Not when for a few quiet moments last night...
It had been sweet, and still, and all the comfort he had needed to make him feel not so very alone.
So he held his tongue while he and Rian awkwardly slipped into their clothing; Damon just stuck with the jeans he’d worn last night, and he’d just shower and change on his own time after Rian left—while Rian tugged on his discarded caftan and linen pants, moving shyly and as if trying not to expose too much of his body, while Damon politely kept his back turned as if they were strangers and hadn’t clutched at each other and crashed themselves together until Damon knew what Rian felt like from the inside in the most breathless, intimate way.
Stop thinking about it.
He zipped his jeans, then turned to find Rian standing in the middle of the floor, clutching his hand against one arm and glancing toward the window, eyes distant, closed over. Damon took a deep breath, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth and reminding himself to just...