Friendship on Fire(21)

“Lust is definitely real.” And very much alive in me for you.

“But what role does it play in love?” She scooted closer to him.

“I think there’s lust in love. I mean, how boring would it be without a bit of tawdry lust?”

“And desire? Different from lust?” she asked.

“You are full of questions. I think so. Desire is a want, a craving, an urge, and it can be felt for anything. I can desire ice cream or I can desire you.” He touched her cheek. “While lust goes way beyond, and to me, lust encompasses only a sexual urge. I don’t lust for a run in the park, but I lust for your naked body beneath me.” Even now, in the park.

“And”—she lowered her voice to almost a whisper—“do you think what your parents had included those attributes, or were they just in love? I think there’s a difference. Like with my parents, I know they’re in love. I can see it in the way they look at each other across the room, but I’m not so sure about desire or lust. I think what they have is comfortable, and maybe that happens after so many years. I don’t know. But I’d like to think that desire and lust can be part of love forever.”

Josh thought of the look in his father’s eyes when he was down by the barn, taking care of his mother’s horse, Hope, and he had no doubt that what his parents had included all forms of love. “I think it can be, but I’m not naive. Life gets in the way of lust and desire sometimes, and I can see how after coming home to someone night after night it might be hard to leave the stress of the office behind, but that doesn’t mean that desire or lust is gone.” He looked at the water and realized that he had never thought about these things until just now. “I think it takes effort to recognize that outside stress can take over if you let it. Couples need to make time to be intimate and maybe do things that are outside of the norm to spice things up every few years, but yeah, I think desire and lust can remain if you help them.”

Riley nodded and leaned her chin on her arms. “You might be right.”

“What’s worrying you?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Really, Ri, I sincerely want to know. Remember, I’m that guy who likes to talk. I love sex as much as the next guy, but not in place of really knowing someone.”

“It’s just…I see how happy and committed Rex and Jade are, and believe me, neither of us saw that relationship coming.” She smiled. “I just hope I can have that someday.”

“Rex is a very passionate guy, always has been. He protects the things he loves fiercely. He stands up for what he believes in and fights what he doesn’t.” Josh had spent his life feeling less manly than Rex, the brother he saw as the epitome of masculine and heroic, and he wanted to be honest with Riley, even if it was embarrassing. If she wanted a Rex, that wasn’t him.

“Ri, I’m not Rex, and I never will be. I don’t have that same outwardly apparent level of anger, or passion, or whatever it is that he has that makes him so…macho. I have the same level of love and passion, and I stand up in my own way, but I’m not someone who will get into a fistfight. I’m the guy who works things out with methodical, rational thought. I’m big and I’m strong, but I just don’t handle myself in that way. I never have, and I probably never will.”

“That’s one of the things I admire most about you,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “I don’t want someone like Rex. I hope that someday I’ll be loved to the ends of the earth the way Jade is, in whatever form it comes. And I’m not asking you to love me, Josh. I’m just talking. You asked; I answered. I’m not under any weird illusions or trying to pressure our relationship into being anything more than it is.” She shrugged.

“I don’t know how any man could not love you to the ends of the earth.” The words were on the tip of his tongue. I love you. It was too soon. He’d scare her away if he said them aloud. Hell, it even scared him a little to think about saying them so soon. Instead, he took her hand in his and took a deep breath in preparation for sharing part of what had been nagging at him all afternoon. He’d get to Claudia soon enough, but first he needed Riley to understand the type of man he really was.

“Ri, I’m not really like any of my brothers. I’ve been thinking a lot about Treat, and I’m probably more like Treat than Rex, but I know myself, and I could never give up my career the way he did for Max, no matter how much I loved the person. I enjoy what I do too much, and I know that sounds self-centered. When you fall in love, you’re supposed to be willing to give up everything for the other person. I’m just being honest with you.”

Riley sat up straighter. “Why would you even think to say that? I’d never want you to give up your career, any more than I’d expect you to want me to give up mine.”

He’d expected her response, which opened the door for him to continue. He knew what he was saying was true, and Riley deserved to know it, too.

“Look at Rex and Jade. They weren’t able to keep their relationship a secret for very long, and I just want to be sure you know what you’re getting into if you get involved with me,” he explained.

“If I get involved with you?”

“You know what I mean. Involved for the long term.” The conversation was becoming too heavy, and there was much more to say and much more he wanted to know about Riley. He took a deep breath and said, “I just want you to know where I stand. I’m not trying to scare you off, Riley. God, that’s the last thing I want. You deserve to know.”

Riley looked away, and tension filled the silence.

“Do you want to walk a bit?” Josh offered.

They threw away the remains of their subs and he reached for her hand. Holding in his thoughts was making Josh’s stomach ache. He needed to get the rest of what he had to say out in the open. Now. “I need to tell you something,” he said.

“Sounds serious.”

“I’m an honest guy. I just don’t know how to be any other way, not with the people I care about. And I want to be honest with you.” He stopped walking and placed his hands gently on her arms. “There was an incident with Claudia tonight.” He felt her stiffen beneath his touch. “She came into my office and made it very clear that she wanted to be with me. Sexually.”

He watched Riley swallow that chunky, awful pill.

“I made it clear to her that it would never happen, and I told her I was involved with someone. I didn’t tell her who, and I’d never do so without your consent, but I don’t want her pawing after me on any level. And I made it quite clear to her that she’s not to take my denial out on the office staff. There’s no way she didn’t understand what I said.”

Riley looked down, but not before Josh spotted the worried shadows within her eyes. “Josh, you don’t have—”

“Yes, I do. I don’t know where you and I are headed, but I want to go wherever it is for however long it lasts, and we can’t do that if Claudia is always undermining our relationship. I never want you to worry, especially about her.” Josh felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. That was only the first step in a long line of things that would need to happen to clear the way for them to have a relationship, but it was a start.

“Thank you for that,” Riley said.

They walked in silence, and as Josh opened his mouth to break it, Riley beat him to it.

“I can’t blame her, really. I mean you are charming, even if a little too handsome.”

“Too handsome?” He grinned. He’d never met a woman who could take a threatening situation and turn it into a joke. “What does that even mean?”

“Oh please.” Riley laughed. “It’s like walking around with a Photoshopped model. I love it, but whew, I can’t take my eyes off of you, so how can I expect anyone else to?”

She laughed, and Josh shook his head. He knew that women found him attractive. He’d graced magazine covers and been told how handsome he was all of his life, but that didn’t mean Josh gave it any credence. Hearing it from Riley—that drove it home and meant more to him than any magazine cover ever would.

“I want you to know, to really understand and believe, that as long as we’re together, I’m fully committed. You’ll never have to worry about me straying with anyone else. Especially Claudia. There is something I need to ask you,” he said.

“Go ahead, but the answers are no, I won’t wear edible underwear, yes, I will make out in a movie theater, and…well…we’ll leave the rest up to your imagination.”

I’m the luckiest guy on the planet. “Damn, no edible underwear?”

“Well, maybe you can convince me,” she teased.

“While I think about you in edible underwear, we probably need to come up with a backup plan in case—or for when—people find out about us. I’ve always thought of myself as a patient guy, but I’m not so sure I can publicly deny my feelings for you for very long, and I know it may mean hell for you to pay. Even if I do talk to Claudia, she’s just the tip of the iceberg. You probably will encounter gossip about sleeping with the boss, which hurts me to admit, but…So I think we should try to come up with a strategy for how we’ll handle things if and when people find out. A way that will protect you as best we can.”