“Something’s wrong.” He finally broached the subject when they were safe and sound inside his flat. “Something’s been wrong all day, I think.”
“It’s nothing,” Drew said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over the back of Lee’s couch. “Everything is fine now that we’re alone.”
He made his way over to Lee, desire replacing the hunted look in his eyes. Lee was too slow and too weak to back away. He let Drew pull him into an embrace, cupping his jaw, before leaning in for a hot kiss.
It was sinful and perfect and had Lee worked up within seconds. He kissed Drew back, slipping an arm around his waist. But the mood around them was still brittle. So much so that Lee couldn’t help but feel like Drew was trying to use sex as an escape mechanism.
“Wait, wait,” he said breathlessly, nudging Drew back so he could look directly into his eyes.
Those eyes held a storm of emotions, none of them matching what should have been the beginning of an intimate night. “What?” Drew asked, a little too harshly.
Lee took a bigger step back. “I get the feeling you’re not okay,” he said, praying he could find the right words for what he was picking up from Drew.
“I’m fine,” Drew repeated, trying to pull him back into the embrace.
Lee held his ground. “I don’t think you are, love,” he said, resting a hand on the side of Drew’s face. “I think you’re going through a lot and you haven’t processed it yet.”
Either that or he had shut himself off from feelings entirely and just wanted to use him for a release, like his mum had hinted.
But no, he wasn’t going to fall into the trap of letting someone who didn’t really know Drew or the situation poison what felt like a very good thing.
“Can we have sex first and talk later?” Drew asked, a little too peevishly. His attitude wasn’t doing anything to calm Lee’s growing worries about who the man was and why he wanted to be with him.
“I think we need to talk first, just to make sure the air is clear,” Lee said, fighting to resist the charm offensive that Drew was dialing up to full strength.
“I think we need to enjoy each other,” Drew countered, his eyes filled with passion as his gaze dropped to Lee’s lips. “I think sex would solve all our problems.”
The temptation was almost unbearable. Lee wanted nothing more than to have Drew pound him into the mattress as he explored his newfound sexuality. They’d been so good together the night before. Their chemistry had been magical.
But that was part of the problem. Everything was new. Everything was uncertain. They hadn’t really talked about them or redefined their relationship since they’d caught feelings for each other. As much as he wanted to spend the night in pound town, that was the road to an extremely unhealthy relationship.
So Lee did the only thing he could think of, even though he knew it was a low blow.
“How are you feeling about Jessica going back to L.A.?” he asked.
The effect was instantaneous. Drew went as stiff as stone. His gaze snapped to meet Lee’s eyes. Then he took a step back.
“Jessica doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he said curtly. “We broke up. She’s gone from my life.”
Lee’s eyes went wide. “Just like that? The woman you were with for years, before you became famous?” Dear god, what if his mum had been right about Drew’s character after all?
“I mean, no,” Drew huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes. “Of course I care about how Jessica’s doing after the break-up. Of course I still care about her. But the break-up was a long time coming, and I know she sees that underneath all her upset. I can’t spend all my free time worrying about her when I’m trying to figure myself out.”
Fuck. That was absolutely true. And from the sound of things, it was very much in character for the kind, sensible Drew Lee had come to know over the past few weeks.
“I’m not trying to make things difficult,” he said, no idea if he was the hero or the villain in the story all of a sudden. “I just want to keep things between us as healthy as possible. Rushing into sex as a means of escapism might not be the best thing right now.”
It was Drew’s turn to look incredulous. “Do you think I’m trying to get you into bed just so I can forget my troubles?Like I’ll walk out as soon as we’re done and not call you in the morning?”
Shit. The conversation wasn’t going at all the way Lee had intended it to. “No, I don’t think that at all,” he said, though he couldn’t deny the thought had occurred to him.
“That’s what you think of me.” Drew latched onto the worst way the conversation could go. “You think I’m shallow and only thinking about myself.”
There was so much in that statement that Lee had no idea how to unpack. Drew’s pain was on full display, along with a hefty dose of insecurity. It had Jessica written all over it, but Lee also thought he detected even older wounds from Drew’s life that he knew nothing about.
He needed to know so much more about the man he was falling in love with and messing it all up.
“There’s a lot going on here,” he said. “For both of us. I feel like I’ve stepped in poo and am spreading it around without being able to stop.”