Boston Boys [01] - A Life Without You by Erica Pike Page B

where his spine turns into a tailbone. My other hand is pressed against his shoulder blade, and I’m pulling him tightly against my chest so that he can’t tear himself free.

    80 Erica Pike
    “Adam,” he whispers. I can barely detect the moan he’s forcing back down his throat. He wants it so badly. His body is smoldering hot, just like mine. I want to yank off my clothes to be as close to him as I can, but I’m pretty sure that’s past the hands-off boundaries he’s set me.
    “Adam, just talk to me, okay?”
    “About what?” I whisper into his hair, my own voice deep with desire.
    “Just, anything.”
    “Anything?” I ask, trying to focus on anything other than Jesse’s intoxicating presence and his hard cock piercing my hip.
    I can’t think of anything. “How about you breaking up with Anne?” slips out before I can stop it. As much as I try to suppress the subject it’s always foremost in my mind. I close my eyes and sigh through my nose.
    “I don’t want to argue tonight,” he says after a moment of silence.
    “Then can we talk about it without arguing?” I suggest, removing my hand from the small of his back to rest securely between his shoulder blades.
    “Fine,” he says with a defeated sigh. “But it’s not gonna do any good. I’m not breaking up with her and I won’t cheat on her again.”
    “Technically you aren’t, since she only makes you promise not to touch other girls,” I point out with a curl of my lips.
    I hear the smile in Jesse’s breath. “It’s cheating. That first kiss thing was a dare, that bathroom thing just sort of happened, but a week ago…was deliberate on my part. I consciously cheated and I feel like shit about it. It’s just that I never thought I’d be the unfaithful type.”
    “And if I dare you to let me suck you again?” His reply is a brief burst of a laugh.
    “Would you have kissed a girl if Eric dared you to that night at the party?” I continue.

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    “No, that would have been different,” says Jesse.
    “How so?”
    “I don’t know…it just feels more like cheating than kissing a guy.”
    “So you wouldn’t be cheating if you were with me, right?”
    “Nice try,” he laughs. “This has gone so much further than just cheating, Adam. It’s a bad thing to cheat by having sex with someone else but a whole other thing when you start having feelings for that person.”
    I tighten my grip on his body while he continues.
    “I just feel so guilty. I don’t even know if I should tell her I’ve been messing around with someone… She’d go nuts. I’d go nuts if the shoe was on the other foot.”
    “If she cheated on you with a girl?”
    Jesse opens his mouth against my shirt to answer but closes it again.
    “Tell her, Jesse,” I whisper into his hair, but change tactic when I feel his body tense up for protest. “Tell her that you’ve been fooling around with a guy,” I say, going in for a tease.
    His body relaxes for a moment before he shakes again with giggles. “Yeah right. No way in hell will those words ever pass my lips.”
    I laugh with him, but no matter how often he says that it stings every time. He makes the idea of us being in an open relationship sound so unnatural and dirty.
    “I know I’m being a jerk to you, Adam, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
    I don’t answer. I just move my hand to stroke his cheek tenderly. He doesn’t see that he’s not just being a jerk to me; he’s being a jerk to himself if he truly loves me. He’s also being a jerk to Chirpy for planning to marry her without being in love with her.
    We lie still for a long time before he speaks again.

    82 Erica Pike
    “I’m so sorry you don’t have a family to go to over Christmas,” he whispers. “Is it okay to ask how your parents died?”
    “Yeah, it’s fine,” I say into his hair. “My dad left when I was little, so it was always just me, my mom, and my grandma. I was eight when my drunken mom was crossing