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“You left her domain. Made Boston your permanent residence after graduating. That took some balls if you ask me.”
“Guess I grew a pair after you left.” He sounded proud of himself, and I couldn’t help giving him a little squeeze.
“So tell me about college,” I said. “Did you come out of your shell? Party hard? Get some action?”
“Some, no, and—a little.”
It took me a second to put the answers to the questions I’d tossed out in order to know him as I used to. “What’s a little action?” I asked with a teasing lilt to my voice.
“I lost my virginity,” he stated blandly, “and I wasn’t impressed.”
Jealousy erupted in my stomach like singeing fire.
Oh, the questions wanting to spill from my lips and the need to punch something. Rage in possessive obsession over what I could never have owned my heart. I flushed with heat, my guts tightening into knots.
“How about you?” he asked before temptation to speak my feelings landed me in shark-infested waters that would reveal way too fucking much. “You’ve never had a shell you needed to escape from, but what about the rest?”
I realized he referred to my inquiry about his college days and inhaled a slow, deep breath to calm myself.
“I partied pretty hard,” I admitted, focusing on memories of me and Sean doing keg stands. I’d hit the slow-motion chug faster than him every goddamned time, even though I’d had an easy sixty pounds on his ass that year.
“Women?”
I actually chuckled, trying to think of what to say. “No.”
“Men?” Preston didn’t hesitate to follow up.
Shit.
I rubbed my free hand along my jaw. Guess we were going there—but same as with Dad, I could trust Preston. “Would you be grossed out if I said yeah?”
He whipped his head off my shoulder, emerald eyes wide. “Why would you think that?” he asked rather than scowling or curling his lip.
“Because of your mom’s stance on the LGBTQ community.”
“Jacqueline’s,” he corrected me. “And her thoughts are not mine. Surely you know that.”
I managed a stilted nod.
“What else?” he asked, his tone pushy for a change.
“What do you mean?”
“You said grossed out—not just wrong as Jacqueline would think. Why?”
I shrugged, my heart beating a little faster. “Because of how affectionate, handsy, I’ve always been with you.” I squeezed his shoulder to remind him how close we sat.
He didn’t pull away, which made my pulse thrum harder. “You’re the only person in my life since Nancy moved out who has shown me any type of physical touch, Drake.” Preston rested his soft palm against my cheek, his eyes luminous, fucking beautiful in the fake light shining down on us. “I love it. Gone too long without it.”
Yearning swept through my body, tightening my chest to the point my eyes stung. Tension rose between us, the obvious sexual sort that couldn’t be denied. The same desire I had for him shone in those glorious emeralds I wanted to own as much as I did the rest of his body.
My heart bounced against my ribs. Tingles raced over my skin, leaving bumps in their wake.
“Preston,” I murmured his name, not exactly sure what I asked, what I ought to say in that moment. Question how he felt about me? Bring up the fact that us crossing a line would only rouse trouble? Ask if he’d been with anyone since college—I guessed guy—and the bad experience that made me want to smash shit?
Preston tore his gaze away first. He clasped his hands on his lap and stared at them, his face a gorgeous shade of pink.
“Talk to me, Preston,” I begged, needing more. So much fucking more.
