Page 4 of The Year of Us: April

“I know it’s not my place to ask, though it kind of is since we’ve been together without protection more than once?—”

I rolled onto my side and dropped my hand on top of his chest. His heart hammered against my palm, and for the briefest moment I imagined holding it in my hand.

“She’s my best friend,” I said. “And she is generally not terribly discerning about who she takes to bed, except it’s never been me.”

I would have sworn to God his fucking heart skipped. Flexing my fingers against his chest, I slid my hand lower toward his stomach, appreciating the way his skin softened and offered up more hair for me to touch below his navel.

“Why didn’t you introduce her to me?” he asked next.

My fingers’ descent stalled, and I switched to drawing lazy swirls across the few inches below his navel and above his dick. His skin was warm and sticky from his orgasm, and I wanted totake him into the shower and clean him off so I could defile him again later.

“I didn’t think we were at the meeting-the-friends stage of things yet,” I said, glancing at his face for a hint of emotion I wasn’t sure his features would provide. “Was I mistaken?”

“We haven’t really talked about that kind of thing.”

“We haven’t talked about much besides limits and travel plans.”

Not that I minded, but my relationship with Cory could hardly be called a relationship. We were two men who had amazing chemistry together, who met up at hotels to fuck, and sexted each other during the in between times. A relationship, and the things that came with it, had never been on the table, or so I thought.

Before I could push the subject, Cory cleared his throat and sat up in bed, stretching his arms above his head. It wasn’t avoidant per se, but it was treacherously close.

“I’m starving,” he announced, cracking his neck. “Let’s get room service.”

CHAPTER 4

Cory

“What if wedidn’t order room service?” Reese said. “What if I took you to Santa Monica to this little place that sells nearly orgasmic-level breakfast burritos?” Reese dragged his knowing gaze through my soul. “Do you ever explore the cities you visit?”

“Sure. Sometimes I end up in little bars with hot bartenders and subpar whiskey.”

He made a sound that might have been disapproval.

“Sometimes the job calls for a bit of sight-seeing. But I don’t usually plan to have time just for personal explorations, no.”

“Okay, get up,” Reese said as he kicked the covers off and climbed out of bed. He stepped into the pants he’d worn yesterday and pulled them up. “We’re going for breakfast.”

If it wouldn’t have sent him reeling, I might have tossed out a yes, sir,” but Reese was the most settled I’d seen him since we met and I wanted to see more of that side of him. I wanted to see the city he lived in through his eyes.

Thirty minutes later, Reese parked his car in Santa Monica and I fell into step beside him as he led the way to what he told me was his favorite place to get breakfast. He seemed to have an affinity for small spaces. First his studio, then his favoriterestaurant, which was little more than a hut, but when I realized that most people got their food to go and headed in the direction of the water, it made more sense.

“It smells different in LA,” I said to him after he’d ordered our food.

Reese looked at me, sunglasses hiding his eyes from me, but I saw the way his lips twitched. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. It’s less like hotdogs and traffic fumes and more like the ocean.”

“There’s definitely worse places to live.” Reese paid for our breakfast, collected the burritos, and steered us away from the line of people waiting behind us. He passed me one of the burritos and I tore the wrapper open the way he did so it still covered the bottom half.

The first bite made me let out an almost embarrassingly loud moan. Reese laughed at me and gently bumped his shoulder against mine as we walked.

“Told you they were good.”

“Are these even legal? They don’t taste like they should be legal. These are amazing,” I said after swallowing the first bite and before going in for the second, much larger bite.

“Where’s your favorite place to eat in New York?”

I cut him a bit of side eye. “You’re going to laugh at me.”