Page 38 of Winning You

Lucas took a deep breath and realized he could still smell Frankie on him. The man had clearly just showered when Gage had thrown Lucas toward him and told him to hold him back.His hair was damp, and the scent of soap was clinging to his skin. He’d been so fucking warm and large and heavy against him.

And there was something else too. Something bright. Like fresh chopped cilantro or lemongrass. He couldn’t get enough of it. It had taken all of his self-control not to keep holding on or to beg for more.

“Do you think he noticed?” he chanced.

Gage laughed softly. “Uh, no. I think he’s too busy lusting after you to realize you’re lusting back.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m telling the truth. Sighted privilege,” Gage murmured. “I could see it all over his face.”

“He was soft in my arms,” Lucas admitted. “Like big and hard but soft. Is he…” He hesitated. He rarely asked what people looked like. He had zero frame of reference, and it rarely ever mattered. He knew damn well he could fall in love with the world’s ugliest man because to him, the man wouldn’t be ugly at all.

He’d be like Frankie. Cinnamon-spiced autumn, and fresh spring rain, and crackling winter fires. He could lie there and listen to Frankie speak to him for hours and hours and never once get tired of it.

“What does he look like?”

“He’s got dark hair,” Gage said. He started drawing lines up Lucas’s arm—something that always made him sleepy. “Bits of grey in it, but he doesn’t look that old, so it might be from stress. He’s older than you though. I’m pretty sure his brother is at least our age. He has a kind face.”

“How kind? Like real kind or bullshit kind?”

“Real. He looked like if you weren’t holding him back, he would have rearranged the shape of that dude’s body. You can tell he loves his brother more than anything.”

Lucas felt something in his stomach—a sort of twisting, turning sensation. It wasn’t envy or jealousy. It was more a hunger to be loved with the same ferocity—just differently. He wanted to be loved and to be wanted. He craved a man who fell apart simply by touching him.

Lucas couldn’t ignore the way that Frankie had gone from ready to pummel some asshole to calm and breathing steadily from nothing more than wrapping his arms around him. That had to mean something…didn’t it?

“How did he look at me?”

“Like you were the moon and he was the tide,” Gage murmured. He was drifting, and so was Lucas.

“You should be a poet.”

“And I don’t even know it,” Gage said, then burst into a fit of giggles, rolling into Lucas’s body. “His brother was gorgeous too.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm. Big eyes, floppy hair. Bet his skin was soft. Nice smile.”

Lucas held his friend tightly. “You okay?”

“Didn’t like to see another person get hurt. Couldn’t,” Gage murmured.

“You know you can’t save everyone, right?”

“Mm.”

“Maybe work on saving yourself for once. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Not going anywhere,” Gage said. He nestled closer, and the pattern of his breathing shifted toward sleep. Lucas laid his hand on Gage’s back, feeling the rise and fall of it, hearing it as it slowed, and he let that carry him off to his own version of sleep.

He was mostly done with the pancakes before there was a knock on the door. It was early, but he had a feeling that Frankie was going to be early. Gage was in the shower, so Lucas turned the burner off, then opened the door and smiled.

“Hungry?”

“Hi!” Ah, he recognized that little voice.

He reached down for her little walker but met nothing but air.