RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(24)

“My Dad used to read a lot,” I said. “Before he became super busy at work, he’d read everything, but mostly classics. I’ve actually thought about this question a few times, about why I love reading so much. For the longest time I thought it was just because Dad reads, and that was it. But now I think it’s something else. It might sound silly,” I warned him.

“It won’t,” he said.

“My earliest memory is of holding a book in my hand. I had no idea what it was at the time. All I remember thinking was that it smelled nice. I liked the smell. I don’t even know what the book was, but I held onto it like other kids hold onto their favorite toys. I remember, once, I was crying like crazy. I can’t even remember why. Maybe I’d fallen over or something. Dad reached into his pocket and brought out the book – my book – and gave it to me. I stopped crying. I held it to my face, felt the pages on my skin, smelled it, and stopped crying.”

It felt strange to be telling another person this, but not so strange that I wouldn’t tell him. It was a small thing, perhaps—this story—but it marked a drastic change in how much I was willing to tell someone. Eli had made me open up, and he couldn’t know how much it meant to me.

“That’s incredible,” he said, with no hint of sarcasm in his voice, as I had imagined the listener would respond when I’d thought about telling somebody this story. They would laugh, or call me weird. But Eli only smiled, looked at me with complete trust and openness, and then moved his fingers over my cheek, tickling my skin. “And then what? What happened when you were old enough to learn to read?”

“Oh, it was normal after that,” I said. “I walked into a library, and the smell of books was instantly familiar. I remember Dad kneeling down and telling me: ‘In each one of these is a whole world you can lose yourself in.’ I didn’t believe him at first. I couldn’t believe that in something as simple as paper there could be an entire world. But then I read my first book, and he was proved right. I demolished books on a weekly basis, dragging Dad to the library and then going alone when I was old enough.” I laughed ruefully. “I didn’t have many friends.” I could laugh about it now, but at the time it was horrible. I don’t know if I read so much because nobody liked me, or nobody liked me because I read so much. All I know is that reading made school tolerable.

“Thank God for college,” Eli said, “where reading that much is a bonus.”

“Yep,” I agreed. “That is one benefit of college. All my embarrassing traits became advantages.”

He laughed. It felt good to make him laugh. “What about the future?” he asked. “Do you think about it?”

He was prying into things I usually kept private. He was delving into my deepest desires and hopes, desires and hopes which I had previously been too embarrassed to share with anybody for fear that they would dismiss them as childish. I took a deep breath, preparing myself to share my innermost secrets. “I’d like to have two children,” I said, hardly believing I was saying the words. “A boy and a girl. I hadn’t met anybody who I’d want to have children with, until—” I stopped. I’d been about to say until I met you. But that was too much, too fast. It would scare him. Just because I wanted these things, it didn’t mean that he did, too.

For the first time since entering these woods, I felt the anxiety threaten to return. But it was only for a moment. When I looked into his eyes, I saw that they were light, happy, and not worried or judgmental at all. “Two children, that’s odd. I’d always wanted two children. A boy and a girl.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. I knew that if somebody had been hiding in the bushes, they would’ve looked at us like young fools, talking of children when they hardly knew each other. But they wouldn’t have had access to our feelings, to the deep emotions that spurred on our words. It had started as sex, this was true. It had started as masked, hidden sex. And now it was moving forward into something else. When I looked at him I didn’t see the lion anymore. I saw the man with whom—if I were lucky—I would spend the rest of my life.

He leaned forward, and I leaned with him.

Our lips touched.





Eli



I was drunk on happiness as we sat together in the clearing. We kissed long and hard. I breathed her in, and when she moaned my cock went rock-hard. I could’ve fucked her right there, but I knew there were people on the path just up ahead, and I didn’t want to ruin the day by being caught fucking in a public place. But I probably would have tried, anyway (my body overriding my mind, as is so often the case) if Jessica hadn’t broke off the kiss.

“Let’s do the Lindy Hop!” she said, jumping to her feet before I could respond. She looked so alive, then, so vivacious. It was the most excited I had ever seen her. There was a healthy glow to her cheeks, what I recognized as a post-orgasm glow, which made her young and beautiful—or, rather, enhanced her youth and her beauty. “Come on!” she laughed, grabbing my hands and pulling. She wasn’t strong enough to pull me to my feet if I fought her, but after a moment I didn’t fight her.

She was too magnetic, too excited. It would be like pushing a loving puppy away to push her away in that moment. We still had the clearing to ourselves, I saw when I looked toward the path. I remembered the wolf, the damn hot wolf with her pale, thin legs and her soft moans. I remembered the way the wolf and I had danced that day, the way the wolf and I had fallen for each other with the Lindy Hop.