He brings his hands up and slides them through my hair, brushing his thumbs across my cheeks. He inhales a shaky breath while looking down at my mouth. “You make it so hard to breathe.”
He punctuates his sentence with his kiss, bringing his lips over mine. Every remaining part of me that had yet to melt in his presence is now liquefied like the rest of me. I try to recall a time when a man’s mouth felt this good against mine. His tongue slides across my lips, then dips inside, tasting me, filling me, claiming me.
Oh . . . my.
I.
Love.
His.
Mouth.
I tilt my head so I can taste more of it. He tilts his to taste more of mine. His tongue has a great memory, because it knows exactly how to do this. He drops his injured hand and rests it on my thigh, while his other hand grips the back of my head, crushing our lips together. My hands no longer have hold of his shirt. They’re exploring his arms, his neck, his back, his hair.
I moan softly, and the sound causes him to press into me, pulling me several inches closer to the edge of the bar.
“Well, you’re definitely not gay,” someone says from behind us.
Oh, my God.
Dad.
Dad!
Shit.
Miles. Pulling away.
Me. Jumping off the bar.
Dad. Walking past us.
He opens the refrigerator and grabs a bottle of water, like he walks in on his daughter being felt up by his houseguest every single night. He turns around and faces us, then takes a long drink. When he’s finished, he puts the lid back on the bottle of water and puts it back in the fridge. He closes the refrigerator and walks toward us, passing between us, putting even more space there.
“Go to bed, Tate,” he says as he exits the kitchen.
I cover my mouth with my hand. Miles covers his face with his. We’re both completely mortified. He more so than I, I’m sure.
“We should go to sleep,” he says.
I agree with him.
We walk out of the kitchen without touching. We reach my bedroom door first, so I pause and turn around and face him. He pauses, too.
He looks to his left, then briefly to his right, to make sure we’re alone in the hallway. He takes a step forward and steals another kiss. My back meets my bedroom door, but he’s somehow able to pull his mouth away.
“You sure this is okay?” he asks, searching my eyes for doubt.
I don’t know if this is okay. It feels good, and he tastes good, and I can’t think of anything I want more than being with him. However, the reasons behind his six years of abstinence are what I’m concerned about.
“You worry too much,” I say with a forced smile. “Would it help if we had rules?”
He studies me quietly before taking a step back. “It might,” he says. “I can only think of two right now.”
“What are they?”
His eyes focus on mine for several seconds. “Don’t ask about my past,” he says firmly. “And never expect a future.”
I absolutely don’t like either of those rules. They both make me want to change my mind about this arrangement and turn and run away, but instead, I’m nodding. I’m nodding because I’ll take what I can get. I’m not Tate when I’m near Miles. I’m liquid, and liquid doesn’t know how to be firm or stand up for itself. Liquid flows. That’s all I want to do with Miles.
Flow.
“Well, I only have one rule,” I say quietly. He waits for my rule. I can’t think of a rule. I don’t have any rules. Why don’t I have rules? He’s still waiting. “I don’t know what it is yet. But when I think of it, you have to follow it.”
Miles laughs. He leans forward and kisses me on the forehead, then walks toward his room. He opens the door but glances back at me for a brief second before disappearing into the room.
I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure the expression I just saw on his face was fear. I just wish I knew what he was scared of, because Lord knows I know exactly what I’m afraid of.
I’m afraid of how this is going to end.
chapter ten
MILES
Six years earlier
Ian knows.
I had to tell him. After the first week of school, he knew
everything became Rachel.
Rachel knows Ian knows. Rachel knows he won’t say
anything.
I give Rachel my room when she moves in, and I take the
spare bedroom. My room is the only spare bedroom with its
own bathroom. I want Rachel to have the better room.
“Do you want this box in here?” Ian asks Rachel. Rachel asks
what it is, and he tells her it’s all her bras and underwear. “I
thought maybe I should just go ahead and put it in Miles’s
room.”
Rachel rolls her eyes at Ian. “Hush,” she tells him. He laughs.
He likes that he’s in on such a private thing. That’s why he
would never tell. He knows the power of secrets.
Ian leaves after all the boxes are unloaded. My father passes
me in the hallway and pauses. His pause means I should
pause, too.
“Thank you, Miles.”
He thinks I’m okay with this. With the fact that he’s allowing
another woman to push out the last reminders of my mother.
I’m not okay with it.
I’m just pretending to be okay with it, because none of it
matters. Rachel matters.
Not him.
“No problem,” I say.
He begins walking, then pauses again. He tells me he
appreciates that I’m being nice to Rachel. He says he wishes he
and Mom could have given me a sibling when I was younger.
He says I make a good brother.
Words are awful when they come out of his mouth.
I walk back to Rachel’s room. I close the door.
It’s just the two of us.
We smile.
I walk to her and wrap my arms around her, then I kiss her
neck. It’s been three weeks since the first night I kissed her.
I can count the times I’ve kissed her since then. We can’t
interact like this at school. We can’t interact like this in public.
We can’t interact like this in front of our parents. I can only
touch her when we’re alone, and we haven’t been able to be
alone much in the last three weeks.
Now?
Now I kiss her.
“We need a few guidelines so we don’t get ourselves in
trouble,” she says. She separates herself from me. She sits at my
desk, and I sit on my bed.
Well . . . she sits at her desk, and I sit on her bed.
“First,” she says, “no making out when they’re home. It’s too
risky.”
I don’t want to agree to that rule, but I’m nodding my head.
“Second, no sex.”
I’m not nodding anymore.
“Ever?” I ask her.
She’s nodding. Oh, I really hate that nod.
“Why?”
She sighs heavily. “Sex will make it that much harder when our
time is up. You know that.”
She’s right. She’s also completely wrong, but I have a feeling
she’ll figure that out later.
“Can I ask what rule number three is before I agree to rule