Page 55 of Necessary Space

“I meant to ask how you were feeling,” Hendrix said. “After last night.”

Whether he meant last night as in the thorough and attentive fucking I gave him or the accidental admission of my being in love with him, I wasn’t sure, but I was only interested in pretending one of those two things hadn’t happened.

“The joints were well-greased,” I assured him. “Though if I tried to fuck you again, my cock might fall off.”

“We can’t have that,” he teased me with a soft smile. “I’m a fan of it being attached to your body.”

“If it was loose, you could just use it as you pleased.” I shrugged and drank some more coffee, the outside air cooling it down well enough. “All of the sex with 100% less ego.”

“Maybe I like the ego.”

Hendrix scooted closer and my breath hitched in my throat.

“Oh?”

He nodded, turning his head just barely toward me, those still kiss-swollen lips all but begging me to kiss them again.

“It had been so long since you said my name,” he whispered, leaning in closer. “I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like on your tongue.”

Was Hendrix trying to kill me?

Come to think of it, I didn’t even know what he did for work. He could be an assassin or a hit man and I’d have no way of knowing. I’d only just learned his last name.

“You told me not to use it,” I reminded him.

“What?”

“You told me to stop using your name once. So I did. I tried to stick with it, but last night…” I snapped my mouth closed. I had used his name in the same breath that I’d admitted I was in love with him.

“Don’t stop.”

I pinched the tip of my tongue between my teeth until it hurt. “You can’t have it both ways.”

He arched a brow.

“You can’t tell me you like the ego, then ask me shove it aside and do things like finish that thought process,” I muttered.

“I like the duality of it.” Hendrix readjusted the way he sat, taking a drink of his coffee and eyeing me expectantly. “It does a little something formyego, knowing I get both.”

“You hardly get the ego anymore.”

“That’s a shame.” He tutted his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“I didn’t think… I didn’t think a man like you existed,” I admitted, heat crawling up my throat, wrapping around my neck like an unwelcome hand.

“You’re going to givemean ego with talk like that, Miles.”

“Jesus.” My breath left me in a rush, the whole conversation too heavy, his use of my name landing like a steel spike through my chest. I touched both places, my chest and my throat, to make sure they were truly unencumbered.

“I never expected to meet a person like you, and now here you are, and…” I swirled my hand in front of my sternum. “Now you’re mixing up all these feelings and it’s a little complicated for me to work through.”

Hendrix snorted, leaning to the side and putting enough space between us that I could breathe again.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” I told him.

“Why? Was it a lie?”

“No.”