On a Roll by Beth Bolden (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

when he heard something next to him. A quiet, rumbling noise.

Not obtrusive, but somehow, comforting.

Sean opened his eyes and smiled as Gabriel slept away next to him.

Maybe the nuts could wait for the next day. Tonight? He was going to get all the touch he needed.

Chapter Ten

“So you just . . . stayed . . .” Ren gaped at Gabriel as he poured coffee into his travel mug.

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “Is that a problem?”

“Well, yeah,” Ren said as he grabbed his favorite jean jacket from the chair by the door. “I thought you were trying to follow the hookup guidelines I gave you.”

“It was his idea,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. “Not even mine.”

Technically, of course, Sean hadn’t suggested outright that he stay the night, but he’d kept him from leaving, and he’d hardly kicked him out of bed when he’d fallen asleep in it.

“You are playing with fire,” Ren muttered darkly. “And it might not turn out very well.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabriel said, taking a big gulp of coffee. Except he totally did.

Usually he slept like crap in beds that weren’t his own, but cuddled up next to Sean? He’d slept like a goddamned baby, and he wasn’t stupid enough to deny why that was.

He had real feelings for Sean. Real, deepening feelings. Sometimes he still wanted to smack him, sometimes he still made him halfway to crazy with his deliberate obtuseness or his stubbornness, but the truth was, when it came down to it, none of that mattered.

He might even love him.

“Yes, you do,” Ren said as he closed and locked the door behind them. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. And it’s going to end up in a huge fucking mess. You thought the meatball missile was bad? The war to come is gonna make that look like child’s play.”

“That’s your opinion,” Gabriel said as they took the stairs down to the ground floor.

“No,” Ren said, “that’s my experience.”

“It’s . . . he’s a little screwed up about relationships,” Gabe said. He pushed open the front door to their building. It was a gorgeous morning. A fucking amazing morning, no matter how much crap Ren kept giving him.

“No, he told you that he didn’t want a relationship. That’s not being screwed up about relationships,” Ren said, like he knew exactly what Sean meant. He didn’t, because he didn’t know the whole story, but it did make Gabriel wonder what it was that happened to Ren to screw him up about relationships. He’d always assumed that Ren didn’t have some big sob story in his background, making him always stick to hookups, but just because he’d never heard about it didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

He knew Sean’s story, but he didn’t think that when Sean had told him, that it gave him permission to tell anyone else.

Still, he could at least try, without any of the details, to explain to Ren why Sean was so certain that all they were doing was fucking.

“It’s not that he doesn’t want a relationship,” Gabe said carefully as they walked down the street. It was really a gorgeous day—sunny and not too hot yet, with the most beautiful cloud-free blue sky overhead—and he couldn’t even attribute any of that to the fact that he’d spent the last night in Sean’s bed. “He got out of a really serious relationship a few years back, and I think he expects to feel a certain way when he’s romantically interested in someone, because of that relationship.”

Ren frowned. “It must have been pretty serious.”

Sean and Milo had been married. At a fairly young age. There was no way it had not been extremely, life-changingly serious.

“Yeah, I think so,” Gabriel said. “So that’s why he thinks we’re just going to hook up.”

“He really believes that he just wants you?” Ren sounded skeptical. And frankly the same skepticism was echoed in Gabriel’s own mind. He knew that what they were sharing wasn’t just sex. The only difficulty was continuing to have that really good sex, while also carefully cluing Sean in to the fact that they weren’t just friends with fucking awesome benefits.

“Yeah, it’s complicated,” Gabriel admitted.

“Complicated is trying to decide whose house you’re going to hook up at. Or whether you’re going to give a blowjob or a handjob, or whether you’re going to get serious enough to actually fuck,” Ren said. “This isn’t just complicated. And it will blow up in your face.”

Gabriel didn’t want to believe Ren was right, especially when it had been going pretty good so far. They’d even made it mostly past Tony’s speed bump without it derailing them. In fact, Gabe thought the necessity of working together had actually made Sean want him more.

Not that he was going to inform Tony of this fact; he was insufferable enough as it was.

“Maybe I can get him to fall in love with me back, before it does,” Gabriel said optimistically.

Ren stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Back? Back? Back?” He sounded horrified. “Please do not mean what I think you mean.”

The more he did think about it, the more right Gabriel thought it felt. Of course he loved Sean. He’d probably loved him for a long time. Maybe he didn’t have a wealth of experience in this area, but he had been in love before, and while this didn’t feel exactly the same as that, there was no denying that it felt deeper and stronger and the tug towards Sean so inevitable that it was amazing he hadn’t realized it before now.

“I think I do,” Gabriel said. “And it’s not like you didn’t know this was coming. You did. I did, now that I think about it. I never wanted it to be about just sex, and you said, hook up with him, because it’s hard to make it just sex. Well, you were right.”

Ren threw up his hands. “Officially, I give up on you.”

“I kind of thought you gave up on me ages ago,” Gabriel said