Page 10 of Wilde Shorts

The question startled me, but I’d saidanything. So, I’d be real with him, even if it scared him off. At least I’d know I’d given it—him,us—one last try.

I took a breath and laid my heart on the table between us. “I havebeen in love with the same man since I was fifteen. I would say fourteen, but I actually hated you a little at first. My father’s spy. The fun police. It wasn’t until I accidentally saw you with your shirt off that I realized how hard I could fall for a fun-killing prick.”

Jon swallowed. “You hardly knew me.”

“Don’t,” I snarled low. I didn’t want to make a scene, but I wouldn’t allow him to minimize what I felt for him. “I knew you. I’ve already proven that. I know you still.”

His eyes widened, but he didn’t argue. I continued. “You were happy to escape the army, get away from your family, lick your wounds where only a bunch of rich kids could see. I know you had nightmares from Iraq, saw things you wish you could erase from your memory. I loved you for that. For caring. For fighting. For being honest about it breaking you.”

I met his eyes. “Then I watched you come back from it. I knew you talked to someone when we moved to Cambridge. You became lighter somehow. You smiled.”

Jon looked back at the damned fork. “I shouldn’t have told you any of that.”

“Bullshit. You taught me that a man could define his own life. That I shouldn’t compromise. I came out because of you. Found my passion because of you. You helped me build a life worth living. How could I not fall in love with you, Jon, even if I thought you’d never love me back?”

Jon sucked in a breath but still didn’t meet my eyes, so I kept talking.

“I’ve been so terrified of scaring you off that I’ve tried my damnedest to put space between us. Even put space between me and every person who’d ask me about you. I’ve pretended to be carefree when I’m dying inside, to be sleeping around when I haven’t fucked anyone inmonthsbecause none of them are you. But you left anyway. And I realized it’s not a life worth living if I can’t be myself. If I can’t have the man I love. So I’m not sorry that we’re both on this train. I’m not sorry that I get a chance to tell you these things. Because youshould know that you have my heart, even if you don’t… if you can’t…”

Jon’s hand tightened around the fork, and I realized I was losing. Panicked, I blurted, “What would it take to convince you my feelings for you are real? That I know what I want?”

Jon looked up at last, and I was taken aback by the honesty in his eyes.

He wasn’t ignoring me. He was terrified.

“You would have to stay with me forever and promise me you would never leave.”

Tears simmered behind my eyes, threatening to fall. Could this be real? Was this happening?

After twenty fucking years, was Jonathan Banks finally going to give me a chance?

6

JON

Iggy stoodand grabbed my hand, nearly tipping the table. Without sparing a glance at the diners around us or the poor servers who would have to deal with our aborted meal, he dragged me down the narrow corridor back to our train car.

Once he’d yanked me through the door to my suite, which was fractionally closer, he shoved me against the closed door. “Tell me this is real. Tell me you truly want this.”

Before I could say yes,fuck yes, he added, “Tell me you’re not going to have regrets,” in a broken voice.

Emotion vibrated off him. Fear, concern…love.

Iggy didn’t lie. He didn’t change his mind when it came to the things that mattered most in his life. If he said he’d been months without sex, he had been. And if he said I had his heart…

I brought my hands up to caress the sides of his face. “I have been in love with you since you were nineteen years old. I would say eighteen, but I actually hated you a little at first. You were a spoiled brat with a big mouth.”

Iggy’s laugh sounded like a sob. “You still think that about me.”

“True.” I smirked. “But when you turned nineteen, you finally had the body of a man to make me forget.”

He lunged forward then, crushing my mouth with his. I made an embarrassing sound, the kind someone makes after two decades of wanting something he couldn’t have.

The kiss was every-fucking-thing. Power and raw hunger, tenderness and delicate care, and jaw-dropping love in every single breath.

His lips were firm and warm, and he tasted of crisp gin and lime. I wanted more of it. I wanted to sip at his lips and swallow entire moments of this.

My hands gripped the front of his dinner jacket, the fabric smooth and familiar against my fingers. How many times had I fantasized about this while smoothing his lapels?