Page 29 of It’s Only Love

“Yes.” There’s a newfound serenity to his face, nothing but honesty in his eyes. “I want you to. Still.” Still. Such a small word for something that can potentially change my life.

I nod, licking my lips, the immensity of the moment not eluding me. I’ve never kissed anyone I’ve felt attracted to before. What if I fuck it up?

He smiles at me, heat dancing in his eyes. “You can’t fuck it up, Mike. It’s you,” he whispers reverently, reading my mind. I hope he’s right.

I keep my eyes on him, holding my breath, as I lean in. The scent of him engulfs me, the hint of ocean and forest, a scent that will always remind me of him and everything I hold close to my heart. It’s both my home and him .

“Mike,” he murmurs, and I erase the space between us and press my lips against his.

It’s chaste, and there’s still time to write this off as just a friendly kiss between two old friends.

Only I don’t want to. I don’t. I want this.

I’ve wanted this for such a long time. I tilt my head, pressing closer, and he whimpers against me, his hands moving from mine to my chest, fisting my T-shirt across my chest. His lips separate, and before I know it, his tongue dips out and connects with my bottom lip, all wet and warm, sweeping along the crease at the corner.

I open for him, my tongue chasing his with this overwhelming need to taste him.

To finally taste him, swallow him down, and make him a part of me.

When we meet, the taste of him explodes on my tongue, in my mouth, inside my entire body.

“Den.” His name spills from my lips, the sum of all my want for him entailed in that single syllable. “Den.”

The sweetest grunt bursts from his lips, the feel of his stubble scraping my skin doing things to me I have no name for.

Then he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth, his teeth grazing it, before his tongue finally invades my mouth.

And now I really am falling. Not into the tub but into something so foreign and unknown to me.

Something that has always been beyond my grasp.

Something that I never in a million years thought I would experience or have, and all this time the answer was right there in front of me.

I don’t think it was ever really me. It’s him.

I was never wrong . It’s just that everyone else I’ve kissed was never right.

Not like he is. Not like he is right for me.

It feels like hours that we sit like this, connected, exchanging something that should’ve been exchanged years ago, but that we probably weren’t ready for. Not like we’re ready now.

I think Dennis knows it, too, with the focus and intent that he kisses me with.

With abandon and hunger. That with every stroke of tongue against tongue, with every nip and suck, we are erasing the night on the beach and rewriting it with our mouths, our lips, our tongues, the way it should always have been written.

The kiss becomes less intense, softer, merely a brushing of lips against lips, yet we’re still connected, like we are both trying to draw this out.

Perhaps we’re both unsure of what comes after.

Eventually, we break apart, our combined breaths the only sound in the bathroom aside from the faucet dripping.

Please don’t say this was a mistake , plays on repeat in my head. Please.

“Wow,” Dennis finally pants, the first to break the silence. “I think you fried my brain, Mike.” He laughs, then bites his bottom lip, still bruised from earlier, looking all shy and irresistible.

I did that. My heart swells in my chest. I did that to him.

“What happens now?” He looks at me, his eyes swimming with want and something that looks an awful lot like happiness. I just laugh, so fucking happy, too. Happier than I’ve felt in a long time, really.

“What do you want to happen?”

He looks at me wide-eyed, just as surprised at this turn of events as I am. Never in a million years did I expect that when I woke up this morning, my day would end with me kissing Dennis. It’s clear he didn’t expect it either.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually, blinking at me. He looks tired and unsure. I realize the day has been one long emotional rollercoaster for him, with the incident at work and now this. He sucks in a breath. “But if this is just—”

“It’s not,” I rush out, reaching for him, my hand coming to a rest at the back of his neck, his hair so soft beneath my fingers.

“I’ve been wanting this for some time now.

” I dive in at the deep end because I guess there’s no easing into this.

Not with the way he’s looking at me right now. “ I . Want. This . ”

He nods, a frail smile tugging at his lips until it spreads to the rest of his face. For the first time since he came back home, the smile reaches his beautiful eyes, the brown coming alive before me. Then he laughs, the sound doing unmentionable things to my insides.

“You like me, Mike Tanner,” he singsongs, a teasing glimmer in his eyes. “You like me -like me.”

“Shhh,” I breathe. Tugging him toward me, I maul his face against my chest, and he laughs into my T-shirt, pretending to struggle in my hold.

Dennis laughing like that is the most amazing sound in the world.

It builds and moves through his body, the sound spreading to mine, echoing inside me, until a quiet lightness dances through my body, overtaking it.