“There’s nothing convenient about Huntington’s,” I said, attempting to sound stern. Instead, I sounded about as stern as a mewing kitten.
“I know there’s not.” His eyes were playful, his smile holding. “At least until it comes to having to explain why your body starts to shake whenever I come close.”
His head dropped, his mouth moving just outside of my ear. “Why do I make you uncomfortable, Ryan?”
His voice, his body. His words, his touch. He was wrecking my resolve, one moment at a time, until I could feel the last of it about to crumble.
“It’s been a long day, Grant.”
“It has.” His head nodded beside mine. “Let’s keep up this trend and make it a long night too.”
My heart started to echo in my eardrums as a growing ache pulsed inside me. The last man I’d been with was Grant. Having a child had a way of sending the guys running, not that that mattered anyway. I knew enough about the way Grant had made me feel when we’d been intimate to know that no one else could ever hope to live up to the standard he’d set. Sex with him hadn’t been just a colliding of bodies, but a joining of souls. It had transcended reality and given me a glimpse of the other side.
“We should get to bed.” My voice was trembling now too.
“We should.” His head dropped lower to my neck. He took in a long breath, like he was trying to take me inside him. “Yours or mine?”
Despite my resolve, I smiled. “They’re all yours technically.”
“They’re whatever you want them to be just as long as you say which one you want me to carry you into. Or feel free to point in the general area too. I can figure it out.”
My body was spiraling out of control, but my smile continued to grow. As adept at making my eyes fall back into my head as he was, he was just as capable of making me smile at the same time. “I’m sure you could.”
His face nudged against my neck, bringing goose bumps to the surface. “I could figure out a way to fix the global warming issue with a roll of duct tape if the reward was getting to crawl into bed with you again.”
Right then, feeling the way I was, wanting him the way I did, I felt the same way. Like I’d do anything for the reward of having him climb over me in bed.
But the voice in the back of my head chose that time to speak up, reminding me of the consequences if I let that happen. I knew Grant well enough to know we could never just do casual sex. We’d shared too much history and had too many memories tied to each other to ever pretend we could maintain a strictly physical relationship.
Which meant feelings would come into play if we did this. Connections would be reestablished. Hearts would get reinvested and emotions involved. That was what one expected when they started down the relationship path, but this was different. Because I knew where this path ended.
At the edge of a cliff. A cliff that I went over and he toed the precipice of.
And then all of those feelings and connections would be raw and open all over again. I’d caused Grant enough pain for one lifetime. I wasn’t going to be responsible for any more, especially when I knew that was all he could expect if he fell for me again.
“I can’t do this to you again,” I whispered, lowering my eyes, so I didn’t have to meet his.
“You can’t do what again to me? Let me fall for you?” He exhaled sharply, keeping me close. “I fell for you forever ago and there’s nothing you’ve done since that moment that has changed that. There’s nothing you could do to change that. When a person falls, they don’t just get up, dust themselves off, and keep going. If they fell right, if they fell good and hard the first time, there’s no getting up from that fall because they landed right where they were supposed to.”
To keep the tears I could feel forming from falling, I closed my eyes. All that did was ensure their spilling. “No, Grant. I won’t let you do this.”
His grip around my elbows tightened just enough that I could feel the impressive strength he possessed. “I’ve already done it.”
“Then undo it.”
“The only way to undo it would be for me to find some way to travel back in time to the moment you first looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. The first time anyone had told me they loved me. The first time someone showed me they loved me.” Grant’s voice seemed to echo off of the walls. “Fuck, Ryan, you were the first person who ever told me they loved a piece of shit like me. Do you know what that does to a person? It changes them. It becomes a part of them. It starts to define who they are and the choices they make. You changed me forever the moment you said those three words to me, and it’s because of those words I’m the man I am today, standing in front of you. I’m who I am because you loved me.”