Page 34 of Catch Me (Becoming Us #4)

Travis

It was afternoon when I got back to the house.

Even though I’d changed into dry clothes, I was freezing, but my head hadn’t been in the right place for me to go home right away.

It didn’t really feel like it was now either.

My knuckles hurt from hitting a tree, which was a stupid thing to do and didn’t make me feel any better.

As I walked inside, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be a mess today.

Roman’s door was closed, and I didn’t feel like checking to see if he’d left, so I took a shower instead. I’d spent the last few hours convincing myself to stand by what I’d told him. It was probably best if he’d gone home.

I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how. He’d been repressed for a long time, but he hadn’t been through conversion like Sen. Did that make the whole thing easier? I had no clue.

All I knew was that I’d wanted to keep kissing him. I wanted to do it again, to tear down that barrier he clung to, just like I had in the woods. He’d discarded it immediately, and for a second, it felt like he was mine .

It was complicated, though. For one, he lived in Chicago. Two, I didn’t know what he wanted from me.

There was the repression, which was a beast all its own.

Part of me didn’t believe that he would come out, which was why he needed someone who could actually help him with that.

If he actually felt something for me, it would be a bad idea for him to pursue it.

I was openly gay and in the public eye. That was a horrible place for someone who was hiding their sexuality.

There were too many ways he could be outed.

I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. It was just a kiss.

After I dried off, I changed into basketball shorts and a t-shirt, then headed into the kitchen. I knew that I was hungry, but I didn’t feel like eating, so I just made myself some tea. I paused when I saw Roman’s tablet on the island. He wouldn’t have forgotten it, so he must’ve still been here.

My eyes shifted to the hallway, but I forced myself not to check on him. It wouldn’t do either of us any good.

I thought about all of those drawings. He said I was a good subject, but now I realized there was more to it.

He’d been drawing me for almost as long as he’d been here.

Even when he was working on the illustration to showcase the direction of the project, he said that he couldn’t get something right with my picture.

He was never satisfied with the way he drew my eyes.

Taking a seat at the island, I turned on the tablet and typed in his passcode. I’d seen him use it enough times by now.

My eyes widened when I saw that he’d started more of them. Jesus, there were dozens of me.

Why did I have some sort of effect on him, strong enough that he was trying to change after all this time? He said I was nice, but plenty of people were nice. It wasn’t a big enough reason to feel whatever it was that he was feeling.

In the newest one, I was lying on my side, facing him. It was from the tent on Sunday when we woke up and stared at each other. I was still blown away by the way he captured things. He saw so much, searched for the beauty in what was around him. I wished he would find it within himself.

He’d written a note on the sketch. A question.

Will I ever find what’s in your eyes?

Threading my fingers together, I leaned my forehead on them .

What did he see in my eyes that he couldn’t recreate? Maybe it was his imagination. Had anyone else seen something in my eyes? What was he fucking looking for?

Scooting the stool back, I got to my feet. Tessa lifted her head from the couch and watched me without getting up.

I should’ve knocked, but I didn’t. I shouldn’t have walked over to the bed, but I did.

“Are you awake?” I asked.

Without a word, he turned over to lie on his other side and looked at me.

“We should talk.”

He dropped his gaze. When he didn’t respond, I climbed into the bed and laid on my side. Taking his chin, I lifted his head so he would look at me.

“What do you see in my eyes, Roman?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look.”

His dark eyes met mine, and I suddenly wished I could identify what was in them, just like he wanted to.

“Right now, danger.”

I smiled a little. “Danger?”

“Yeah, you make me afraid.”

“The good kind?”

“I think so. Depends how I look at it. If I want to go home and do what I’ve been doing my whole life, it’s a bad danger. If I want more, then it’s a good danger.”

“What do you want?”

When he scooted closer, I took a heavy breath. It was strange how a man who looked like he could kick my ass stared at me with something tender in his eyes.

“I don’t want to be who I was,” he replied. “But I have no idea how to be someone different.”

“You have been for weeks.”

“Because of you.”

I shook my head. “When you go back to your life, it’ll be harder.”

“Can I just not go back?” He laughed, but it sounded forced.

“If only things were so simple. Do you like who you’ve been here? ”

He nodded. His fingers touched my abdomen over my shirt, then trailed downward. I was going to stop him, but he went back up. For a minute, I just focused on that touch as it traveled the same path repeatedly.

“When you tried to kiss me,” I began. He started to pull his hand away, so I caught his wrist and brought it back to my chest. “Was it the same feeling as when you were with the others?”

“No.”

“It’s different?”

“I’ve never kissed anyone.”

I blinked a few times. “No one? Not even women?”

He shook his head. I thought about that day in Camp Dumont.

Sen was my first kiss, and it solidified who I was.

Apparently, I was Roman’s first kiss, and I wondered if it felt the same.

Did he suddenly feel whole like I had at fifteen?

Did it feel like things finally made sense?

Did it make him feel brave for a second, then afraid when it ended?

When his fingers dipped under my shirt, I met his eyes. I didn’t move as he felt up to my chest, then moved around to my side. He reached my hip, and it was torture.

I grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the bed as I rolled to my knees. His lips parted, and God, I wanted to feel them again, but I just moved one of my legs to his other side and hovered over him.

“Are you gonna run away from this?” He shook his head. “Will you push it all back down when you get home?” When he shook his head again, I bent down. “Use your words.”

“I like you,” he said, the words a whisper that somehow sounded confident. “I’m not gonna go back to how it was. I can’t.”

Loosening my grip on his wrist, I slid my hand upward and threaded our fingers.

I dropped down and kissed him, this time with no intention of walking away.

I had no idea where this would go, and there was a whole lot we needed to learn about each other, but I was interested in doing that, which hadn’t been the case in a long time.

I pulled him into a sitting position and removed his shirt, then pushed him down again. He made a small sound when my lips met his. I nudged them apart, moving slowly so that he had time to explore what he liked .

His tongue tentatively touched mine, and I abandoned the idea of going slow. I let more of my weight settle on him as I tilted my head and kissed him deeper, faster, more desperately.

The need that raged through me was exactly why I didn’t do hookups or casual encounters.

I didn’t date, and I didn’t jump into things like I used to.

It wasn’t a fear of commitment. I just got attached way too fucking easily and I was impulsive, so unless I found myself really interested in someone, I didn’t allow myself to entertain ideas of romance.

Even though I knew that I’d started to feel something for Roman, I’d been content to keep it at bay and let it fade when he left. But he tried to kiss me in that water, and it blew the entire plan to pieces.

Breaking away from his mouth, I kissed his jaw, then his neck.

His hands went under my shirt, so I pulled it off.

He arched upward and sealed his lips around my nipple, circling it with his tongue before he moved to my sternum.

I pushed him down with my hands on his shoulders and trailed open-mouthed kisses down his body, tracing the tattoos on his collarbone, then the definition of his abs.

When I reached his hip bone, he groaned. I looked up and met his eyes, then bit down hard. He kicked out at me, making me laugh as I returned to his mouth. I lifted his thigh to lock his leg around my hip before I ground my dick against his.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

“Are you okay with this?”

“Yeah. I want more.”

“We can take things slow. You’re leaving and...”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to regret anything or freak out,” I admitted.

“It’s not my first time, you know.” When I frowned, he touched my lips. “I’m not gonna freak out.”

“You don’t know that. This is different.”

Taking the back of my neck, he pulled me closer. “How about I just talk to you if I feel some type of way. That’s what you told me to do before, but instead, I tried to kiss you.”

“Before?”

He grimaced. “Um, my middle name is Asher.”

“Shut up. You did not call me to talk to me about me, then not listen to me. ”

Looking a little sheepish, he shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Roman Asher Valdez. It’s nice.”

“Mhm. Are we done talking?”

“Not at all, but maybe we can take a break.”

His fingers brushed through my hair, but instead of kissing me, he just stared. I did the same, allowing myself to unabashedly admire him for the first time without feeling like I was overstepping.

“I wish you could stay longer,” I said softly. “Or that you’d given into this earlier so we could figure it out more.”

His lips pulled to the side. I traced them until his expression smoothed out again.

“What if I stay the weekend?”

I shook my head. “You have to go home.”