The water felt even colder after having sunned for a few minutes, but I hadn’t gotten past my shins when I heard Reid behind me.
“Ollie?”
I turned around to see him standing at the edge of the towel. “Yeah?”
He took a few steps forward, his stride purposeful and his hands coming up like he was going to reach out for me, but at the last second, he hesitated and dropped his arms by his sides.
There were one of two things I could do. One, I could pretend I hadn’t noticed what he’d been about to do, or two, I could say fuck it and go for it. After all, Reid wasn’t looking at me with indecision. No, he was looking at me like he was dying to make the first move but couldn’t figure out how to do it, and that was what made my decision for me: I fucking went for it.
I reached for him, my hands going to either side of his neck to bring his mouth to mine, and his lips instantly parted. I didn’t hold back as Reid’s arms wrapped tightly around me, keeping us crushed together, his short nails scouring my back like he couldn’t get close enough. My tongue dipped inside his mouth, and I savored my first taste of him like I’d never had a chance before.
It was like coming home. The way his body fit so perfectly against mine, the way we moved in sync to take greedy sucks and licks of each other…and I knew it would be the same way once he was back in my bed.
“Ollie,” he said, gripping my hair tight before diving in to tangle our tongues once more. His cock punched against mine, rock hard and begging for attention, but even though I was dying to get on my knees to suck him senseless, my self-restraint won out. I’d waited too long, had wanted him too much, and I wasn’t gonna fuck this up. He was too important to me to rush things, and I wanted him to be sure of me, not just caught up in the moment.
But one thing was for damn certain—Reid Valentine was mine.
thirty
REID
I COULDN’T SLEEP. I tossed and turned, kicking the covers off, throwing them back on. It was that antsy feeling of wanting something you couldn’t have as your mind raced to figure out a way to make it happen.
With every day I spent with Ollie, it was just another day of trying not to reach for him. I was guessing he felt the same, since he’d kept our outings public, never taking me back to his place or coming to mine. Our time at the waterfall the weekend before still weighed heavily on my mind, my lips still tingling from the kiss I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
But he hadn’t kissed me again. Not during dinner on Monday, or at the movie theater Tuesday. He’d kept his hands to himself while we jogged beside each other Wednesday, and not seeing him on Thursday when he had to work overtime had been torture. And tonight?
I let out a frustrated sigh and rolled over. The clock on my nightstand said it was one thirty. He’d dropped me off only a couple of hours earlier after round two of bowling, in which I’d fared only slightly better than the last time, but already I missed him. That emotion was something I was coming to terms with—ImissedOllie when he wasn’t around. I missed the way helaughed. The shy way he ducked his head when I gave him a compliment. The way he was so damn nice to everyone we came across, from waiters to random people we passed on the street to my parents, who’d come out to say hello on our jog.
Even when he didn’t say a word, his presence was a constant comfort, and I wished there was a way to tell him, to show him that I wanted him around. Ineededhim around, and that truth should’ve knocked me over like a ton of bricks, but instead, that revelation was…freeing. Falling for him again had been so effortless that I hadn’t even realized it was happening, and somehow I knew that even if I’d never remembered moments from our time together before, I would’ve still come to this conclusion right here, right now.
As I’d gotten to know him again, things had…changed. It didn’t matter that I’d never been with a guy before him. That no longer intimidated me or gave me pause. It wasn’t about his gender at all, even though I’d been surprised at first at how powerfully my body reacted to the very male parts of his, parts I now craved to feel and touch. To me, he was just Ollie, my Ollie, the person who lit up the world around him with vibrant color, and yet he had no idea the effect he had on others…on me. No clue how special he was. Hell, the only fault I found with him was the fact that he was giving me too much space, when all I wanted to do was get close to him. And if I’d learned anything over the past few months, it was that you never knew when your time was up or when your life would change. It felt like it had taken forever to get to this moment, but somehow, I’d fallen for Ollie again, and I didn’t want to waste another day without letting him know exactly what he had come to mean to me.
I reached for my phone and pulled up a new text message. He was probably sleeping, but if he wasn’t…
Are you awake?
Almost immediately, he wrote back:
You caught me. How are you still up?
Can’t sleep.
Everything okay?
Was thinking about you.
Ohh. Good thoughts?
VERY good thoughts…
Care to share?
Oh, I want to share, all right,I thought, as an idea took hold. I opened my Uber app to see there was a car less than five minutes away, so I hitconfirm pickupand threw on some shorts and a shirt. Then I quickly brushed my teeth and headed downstairs.
Did you fall back asleep? Damn tease.
Sorry. Got lost in those thoughts again.