Silas

My throat tightened with the threat of tears. No, I wasn’t going to think about all that now. I was going to think about what George and I were doing, and how good it felt, and how I could make him tremble as much as he did me.

The momentary distraction did have the benefit of pulling me away from the edge; I was still turned on beyond belief, but I wasn’t about to turn into a minuteman after all.

“George,” I murmured. “Come up… Come up here. Please.”

His mouth was off my dick so fast it made me gasp, but then he was over me again, and I didn’t think I’d ever needed someone’s kiss like I needed his right then. I wrapped my arms around him, squeezing his hips between my thighs, and we made out like we hadn’t in years. He pushed his uninjured arm under my back and held me to him, and his soft whimper melted both my heart and my spine.

Deep down, I was aware of how much I wanted to hate him for what he’d done to us.

But right then, I loved him so much it hurt, and I didn’t want to stop. The past didn’t matter. The how and the why and the who and the when—I didn’t fucking care. Maybe it made me an idiot, but I wanted to believe him when he told me he was sorry and that he regretted what he’d done. If I couldn’t trust his words, I could believe his touch, and my God, this man hadn’t held me this tight or kissed me this passionately in years.

Does this mean we can go back?

No! He cheated!

But… I loved him. I love him.

Fuck. What do I do?

I decided that was for future Silas and George to figure out. Right now, I just needed us to be as close as possible until we were breathing too hard to say anything about the past or present.

I dragged my nails over his shoulders. George broke the kiss with a gasp and a shudder, throwing his head back. “Jesus…”

You are so damn hot.

“Fuck me,” I whispered.

His eyes flew open and met mine. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “Please?”

He swept his tongue across his lips. Then his expression turned a little shy. “Do you, um…” He cleared his throat. “Do you have condoms?”

“I…” Huh. That was a good question. We’d stopped using them years ago. If I did have any, they’d be in the nightstand drawer, so I motioned in that direction.

George rolled away to look. Shaking his head, he met my gaze again, and he looked both disappointed and… perplexed?

I understood the confusion. I was confused too. Outside of a monogamous relationship, I was religious about using condoms. Which meant I probably hadn’t had sex—at least not in the condo—since we’d split up.

“I guess I haven’t…” I bit my lip, not sure how to finish that.

He offered a faint half-shrug. “I haven’t either, to tell you the truth.”

I stiffened. “You haven’t?”

George shook his head and cut his eyes away from me. “No. Just, um…” He swallowed hard. “Haven’t put myself out there.”

Our eyes locked.

I swallowed as I sat up. “Did you use one when…”

Color bloomed in his cheeks, and he looked away from me. “Yes. Of course.”

My heart pounded. The mood was on the brink of dying away, but I wasn’t about to let it. I just wasn’t sure if…

“You get tested for everything under the sun at work, don’t you?”

He looked at me again, eyebrows up as if he hadn’t heard me right. “I… yes? And I got tested after Toronto just because—” He dropped his gaze and shook his head. “I’m not going to ask you to trust me enough to—”

I cut him off with a kiss. He tensed at first, but only for a second. His hand materialized on my face, then slid into my hair, and his soft moan chased away any remnants of awkwardness or discomfort. It had taken some serious convincing for me to believe George wasn’t lying when he said he regretted cheating, but I believed to my core that he wouldn’t lie to me about STI tests. Yeah, he’d fucked up, and while I hadn’t ever imagined cheating was something he could do, it didn’t shake my trust in his refusal to put someone’s health at risk. Not mine, not his, and not that of the man in Toronto. Even if I had doubts there, it sure as hell wasn’t something he would do when he was desperately trying to atone for the past.

Maybe that made me an utter fool who was asking to be screwed over again, but there it was.

“Grab the lube,” I murmured. “I want you. Now.”

His ragged breath gusted past my lips. “Are you sure? I mean, without…?”

“Yes.”

He drew back enough to look in my eyes, and the shame in his only solidified my stance.

“Yes,” I said again. “Please.”

George licked his lips. Then he nodded and reached for the nightstand again. He returned with a bottle of lube, and I bit my lip as I watched him pop open the top.

“How do you want it?” he asked, shakily pouring lube on his hand.

“Just like this.” I pushed a pillow under my lower back. “I want to see you.”

Uncertainty flickered across his face, but it was quickly replaced by hunger. Trailing fingertips along my inner thigh, he raked his gaze over me, and when they landed on mine, his eyes were full of heat and shame and love and regret. When he spoke, his voice echoed all those emotions, “You’ve always looked hot as hell like this.”

My throat tightened around my breath. He was the very picture of the man I’d loved right up until I’d stopped remembering, and he was also raw with the twin desires to have me like this and to go back in time and undo all the reasons we hadn’t touched in way too long.

I believe you, I wanted to say, because oh my God, right then, I did believe him. Whether that made me gullible, whether it meant I was signing up to get hurt again, I didn’t care. I wanted him, I needed him, I had him, and I loved him.

Lifting myself up on my elbow, I reached for his face. He came down to meet me halfway, and this kiss was soft and tender. Nothing like any kiss we’d shared since we’d come stumbling into the condo. Something closer to the one outside the restaurant.

I still didn’t know if we could truly come back from where we’d been, only that I wanted to. Taking a break from talking to make love instead felt like a damn good start.