Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5)(79)

“Just what I want to hear with a blade at my neck: you’re feeling inspired by a murderous singing barber.”

His grin widens, eyes on his task still, his grip on my jaw firm and steady as he drags the blade up my neck. “For someone who ‘doesn’t like musicals,’ you know an awful lot about them.”

I fight the urge to swallow but can’t help it. The nervous need overwhelms me. “After that first game, when we watched Hamilton…”

Oliver pauses shaving me, meeting my eyes. “After Hamilton…?”

“I…” Another nervous swallow. “You said Lin-Manuel Miranda was Sondheim and Shakespeare. High praise. I love poetry, love Shakespeare’s sonnets. So…I started poking around Sondheim musicals. Found a few I liked.”

His hand falters. Now it’s his turn to swallow thickly. “Which ones?”

“Sweeney Todd. Such a bizarre story, but ‘Johanna,’ that first stanza, the lyricism… Then Into the Woods. Weird but rather deliciously dark and catchy. Company. Delightfully irreverent. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Fucking hilarious. And, of course, West Side Story. Which definitely did not, as the youths say, ‘get me in my feels.’”

Oliver bites his lip. “You cried like a baby when Tony sang ‘Maria’ didn’t you?”

“I did no such thing.”

He rolls his eyes, returning back to shaving my neck.

“I may have shed a few brief, manly tears.”

He snorts. “Manly tears. As if our masculinity’s threatened when we weep freely and feel feelings, or worse, learn how to articulate them. The horror!”

I laugh quietly. “It’s horse shit.”

“That it is,” he says, gently tipping my chin down, starting on the edge of my beard along my cheek.

“Your dad didn’t raise you that way?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Nope. My dad hugs me just as much as he hugs my sisters, just as hard and long as my mom does. Actually, often longer.” He laughs quietly. “Kisses my head still every time he says goodbye. Wouldn’t change it for the world.”

I stare at him, recognizing another yawning gap, another world of difference between us. “You’re very lucky.”

Oliver nods, eyes on his task. “Don’t I know it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s scary as hell when he’s mad, but that has lots more to do with him being my height, broad as a house, than with him getting particularly loud, and never rough physically. He’s a giant teddy bear, really, who I’ve always been desperately afraid to disappoint.”

I roll my eyes. “Like you ever disappointed him.”

Oliver glances up. His face guarded. “Hayes, the pranks I played on you, that’s nothing compared to what I was capable of when I was younger. I mean, I was a mischief-making pain in the ass. That halo over my head?” He points to the head in question. “A recent turn of events. Just since I signed with the Galaxy. Figured I better clean up the act.”

“Hmm.” I peer down at him. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve liked it when your halo slipped a little. It’s good, you know. To not care quite so much, to not please everyone, all the time.”

He shrugs, dipping the razor in the water, rinsing it. “Yeah. I’m starting to figure that out. It just feels…safer to be what people need, to keep things positive rather than sharing the messy stuff. I hide behind that upbeat front. It’s not all purely good intentions.”

“Everyone hides,” I tell him. “One way or another. At least your way is kind. You see people in a way others don’t. You see the good in them. You make them feel special and appreciated. You hold on to hope in moments that are so easy to be cynical about. If that’s not bravery, nothing fucking is. Don’t discredit yourself.”

Oliver stares at me, eyes wide, a faint, warm pink on his cheeks. The razor clatters from his hand to the water bowl. He swallows thickly. “Hayes.”

Heat fills me, until I’m sure I’m as flushed as he is. I don’t regret what I said. But I do regret how exposed I feel. How aware I am that but for a few square inches of terry cloth covering the essential bits, I am naked, Oliver wedged between my thighs. “Bergman.”

He pushes up on his knees. Sets his hands gently on the edge of my seat. His eyes hold mine. “I’m having very unprofessional thoughts right now,” he admits.

Biting back a groan, I cup his neck. “Likewise.”

God, I’m desperate for him. To touch him, to make him feel and see in himself what I do, to move past pain and distance to share pleasure and closeness.

“You sure?” he whispers, his hand settling on my thigh, warm and heavy, his thumb tracing a circle that makes my heart pound, desire flood my body.

I nod, drawing him close. “Come here.”

He does. So gently, so slowly. He slides his other hand up my throat, cups my jaw, kisses me. I exhale into his mouth, sweet relief. There is nothing righter than kissing him.

Warmth, pleasure, fizz through my veins. That ache, that tight, furious knot, squeezes my heart, shortens its lead, draws us close, until he’s leaning into me, his mouth hot and silken, his tongue lazily stroking mine.

I moan into his mouth as he works his hand higher up my leg.

“Let me touch you?” he asks.