Page 90 of These Secret Years

“It doesn’t have to be. I’ll probably always think you’re sexy.”

And there’s that blush again. Fuck, why do I have to like him so much? Why can’t this last year have turned him into an asshole who wants to pay for a blow job and be done with it? Why does Knight Winters always have to be perfect?

Because he’s a dumb fantasy.

“Wow,” he says quietly. “Thanks.”

“So, there’s my confession. Where’s yours?” I ask, a poor attempt to play it off.

“I was just remembering last summer, I guess. I liked the time I spent with you, and not just the sex parts.”

“Yeah?”

He nods.

“Me, too.”

“Cool.” He stares down at the neck of his beer bottle like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.

“Is that why there’s so many blankets?”

He laughs softly. “Maybe.”

“You don’t have to get shy about it. It’s nice.”

“So, you don’t know if you’re gay? Or bi, I mean?”

I’m thrown by the subject change, but I shift deeper into the truck, dragging a pillow over to lean back on. “Not exactly. It’s complicated.”

“You always say that. Do you even like sex?” he asks.

I gulp, nearly choking on the small sip of beer I just took. “Uh…yeah. I think so.”

“You think so?”

“It hasn’t always been good, you know?”

His head shakes slightly. “Not really. It’s always been good for me.”

“Even when you’re with someone you don’t like? Like that girl?”

“I don’t count that.”

“It counts, though,” I say, and I’m kind of adamant about it. “Has anything like that happened again?”

“Almost, but I’ve managed to not wind up in another situation where I had to act like that.”

“Do people think you’re just super picky or what?”

“I don’t know what they think. Probably that I’m an asshole.”

I snort. “I can’t picture it.”

He arches one dark brow at me. “No?”

I grin and shake my head. “Not even a little.”

The silence between us is filled with the roar of springtime. Cicadas and birds and a breeze that has a lock of hair tickling my cheek. I want him. I really, really do, exactly the same way I ended up wanting him last summer.