Chapter 12 Tate
Twelve
Tate
Holy shit. I just had sex with Kellan.
And it was incredible.
My body still hummed with the aftershocks as I slowly came back to myself. I managed to pry open my eyes, blinking away the drops of water that clung to my lashes. Kellan’s gaze met mine, intense and unreadable. I’d never seen this look from him before, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Carefully, he eased out of me and lowered me until my feet touched the shower floor.
His hands lingered on my hips, as if to make sure I was steady before he reached back to turn off the water that was headed toward cool.
The sudden deafening silence was broken only by our ragged breaths.
He grabbed a towel from the rack, wrapping it around me with a tenderness that made my heart twist in my chest. Then he grabbed one for himself, hastily wiping down before draping it around his hips.
Before I could utter a single word, he scooped me into his arms, bride-style. I let out a yelp of surprise, clutching the towel to keep it from falling, though I had no idea why. He’d just been inside me minutes ago. There were no more secrets between us.
Oh God.
He carried me down the hall as if I weighed nothing, his stride sure and steady. Our eyes locked, and there was a question in his gaze, one I absolutely wasn’t ready to answer.
He shouldered open the door to my bedroom, striding over to the bed and gently setting me down on the covers.
Then he stretched out beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me close, until my back pressed against his chest. His heart beat strong and steady against my skin.
Something about it soothed the faint edge of panic trying to claw its way up my throat.
He buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply. I had a fleeting moment to think I hadn’t actually finished the soap and shampoo portion of my shower. But my body wasn’t interested in practicalities. It melted into Kellan’s embrace.
This was uncharted territory for us, a line we’d never crossed before.
His lips brushed my bare shoulder. “Are you going to freak out now?”
A little bubble of hysterical laughter swelled in my throat. “I have no idea. I don’t know what to do with all of this.”
“I mean, I was thinking about doing it all over again.” I could hear the joke in his voice, but the evidence of the truth was already poking against my backside.
“Don’t you feel weird about all of this?”
“No.” No hesitation. Just quiet confidence.
“Why not?”
He inhaled a breath, kissed my shoulder again. “Because I’ve wanted this with you for a long, long time.”
Kellan had wanted to have sex with me? Before the fake engagement and all this forced proximity and PDA? I tried to wrap my brain around that. “You have? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want to fuck up our friendship.”
I understood that. I was deathly afraid of what all this meant for us. “What changed?”
He stayed silent for long enough that I nearly turned over to face him.
“Nearly died on this deployment. It put some shit in perspective for me.”
My entire body went cold despite Kellan’s warmth pressed against me. I twisted in his arms to face him. “What do you mean you nearly died?” My voice cracked on the last word.
His jaw tightened. “Camp got attacked.”
“When?” The word came out as barely more than a whisper.
“Couple months ago.” His fingers traced circles on my hip, like he was trying to ground himself. “We got ambushed. Lost two guys.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them. Two months ago I’d been going about my life, waiting for the article to come out, not knowing the mess I’d just made for myself, while Kellan had been fighting for his life halfway around the world. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Couldn’t. Communications blackout after. Then...” He brushed away my tears with his thumb. “Didn’t want to worry you when I was already okay.”
I pressed my face into his chest, breathing in the clean scent of his skin. My fingers curled against his shoulders as if I could somehow keep him here, keep him safe. “You could’ve died, and I wouldn’t have known. I could’ve lost you without ever...” The words stuck in my throat.
“Hey.” He tilted my chin up, making me meet his eyes. “I’m right here. I made it through. But it made me want to stop putting off going after what I wanted.”
My brain finally moved past the threat he’d faced to what he was really saying. “So when you came home to this whole fake engagement thing…”
“I figured it would be a good way to see if you were on the same page.” He paused again, stroking the hair back from my face. “Are we?”
“Kellan, we just had sex.”
“Really stupendous sex,” he pointed out.
No arguments there.
“With each other,” I pressed.
One corner of his mouth quirked up, and those blue eyes I loved so damned much sparked. “Yes, I noticed that part.”
He totally wasn’t getting this. “You’re my best friend.”
“And?”
“Surely I’m not supposed to find you hot as hell?” Because seeing him like this after more than twenty years was really making my brain explode.
“Why not? Where is that in the best friend handbook?”
“I don’t know! But this is confusing!” I honestly had no idea what had come over me in that bathroom.
Lust, Cavanaugh. The answer is lust. Not an emotion I was accustomed to feeling about this man. But, deep down, I knew it was more than that. I was catching real feelings for him, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Is it? Think about the fact that nobody seems surprised by this. Maybe everybody else saw something we’re just coming to ourselves.”
I considered. He wasn’t wrong. There’d been so many remarks from people that they’d seen this coming.
But I’d just assumed it was the usual small town gossip and nobody wanting to admit something had happened that they didn’t know about or people’s general assumptions that friends of the opposite sex didn’t work.
Because nothing in life was this simple and easy.
But what if all those people had been serious?
“Maybe?” I qualified.
One hand squeezed my hip. “Then why don’t you give us a chance to see?”
I searched his face, stroking a hand along the scruff on his jaw. “I can do that. I want to do that.” Even though it scared the ever loving shit out of me. “But what about our engagement?”
He jerked one shoulder in a shrug. “No reason to make a big thing of calling it off until we know for sure this isn’t what we want.”
Was it that simple? I kinda thought it was lunacy to stay “engaged” while we figured out what we were to each other now. But I’d said I’d give us a chance, and I’d meant it.
I blew out a breath. “Okay. Then I guess we’re doing this thing.” I hesitated, catching my lip between my teeth. “And… maybe we could do that other thing all over again?”
Kellan grinned, and like some kind of magician, yanked both our towels away. “As you wish.” Then he rolled me beneath him.