Page 43 of Country Road Romance

Rather than responding to that, Jared just pulled him back up, resuming their kissing. Kissing was safe. Kissing didn’t require other things, the kind of vulnerability that he was very reluctant to share with any other man, no matter how handsome they were. There was a part of him–and an increasingly urgentand prominent part of him–that wanted to throw all of his caution to the wind, to just let Charlie Garrett do whatever he wanted to him.

Relax,he thought to himself.If you want to have sex, wouldn’t it be okay to do it with someone like Charlie? He looks like he knows what he’s doing, and he’s not an asshole. Even if this doesn’t go anywhere—and let’s be real, it’s not going to go anywhere–at least you can say that you actually slept withtheCharlie Garrett.

But didn’t Charlie deserve more than that?

Charlie immediately sensed that something was wrong. Rather than reacting with impatience or anger, he instead took Jared’s face gently in his hands and pressed a firm but loving kiss on his forehead, then looked into his eyes.

“Are you okay, Jared?”

Oh, how to answer that question? How to tell Charlie–sweet, adorable, compassionate and empathetic Charlie–about all of the things that were ricocheting inside of his mind? Why couldn’t he just let himself relax and enjoy this little erotic encounter without all of the other familiar emotional baggage coming up to bother him?

“I’m fine,” he said, not entirely convincingly, and made to start kissing Charlie again.

Charlie, to his credit, didn’t reciprocate, though he didn’t reject his overture outright. Instead, he gently deflected.

“Jared,” he said, voice serious, “I don’t ever want you to think that you have to do anything you don’t want to do. We’ll only go as far as you want to go and no further. I promise that I won’t try to pressure you, and I certainly won’t think less of you in any way.”

Jared wanted to roll his eyes at this display of sensitivity on Charlie’s part, but the truth was that he was actually quite touched by it. Every new thing he learned about Charlie Garrettmade him see him in a better and more positive light, and while that brought some complications with it, he was also glad that he was being made to re-evaluate his feelings.

“I’m really fine,” he said, this time more sure that he actually believed what he was saying. “It’s just, you’re one of the first guys that I’ve been with or had any kind of sexy times with in a long time, so it takes me a bit to, you know, kind of figure out how it goes. You know what I mean?”

Charlie smiled.

“Of course. It’s been a while for me, too.” He paused, and then he bit his lip in a very sexy way. “Do you want to keep going? Or would you rather stop?”

In answer, Jared reached up and pulled Charlie down again. He had no idea how this thing was going to end up or how far they would end up going and, for once in his life, Jared didn’t care.

They continued to explore one another’s bodies for several more moments. Jared quickly found out that Charliereallyliked it when someone nibbled on his earlobes, while Charlie continued to torture him by making love to his neck, until he was fairly certain that he was going to have several hickies that were going to take some explaining.

“Charlie! Jared!” his mother’s voice, once again interrupting at the worst possible time, floated up from down the hill. “Sorry to interrupt, but everyone’s leaving!”

“Your mother really does have the worst sense of timing, doesn’t she?” Charlie asked ruefully. “I thought she said she wasn’t going to bother you this time?”

Jared sighed. “Yeah, well, she’s a mom. That’s what they do: they walk in on you when you’re trying to be intimate.”

“You have a very skilled way of talking about sex without actually talking about sex. Or, for that matter, masturbation,” Charlie said. “I can see why you’re a writer.”

Jared scoffed at that as they got to their feet, smoothing out their clothes so that they at least wouldn’t look like they’d been having a literal roll in the hay. “I’m not a writer,” he said. “I wouldn’t even say that I’m an aspiring writer. That’s a part of my life that I put away.”

That hurt to admit out loud, but it was also freeing, in a way.

“I think that if you love writing and you do it for any length of time, then you’re a writer. Like, even if I gave up acting I would still feel like I’m an actor. It’s just a part of who I am, and nothing I’m ever going to do is going to change that.”

Jared didn’t want to get into this particular argument with Charlie. Besides which, maybe Charlie was right. Maybe the only thing standing in the way of his success was himself.

That, in turn, made him wonder if the same might be true of Charlie. He didn’t want to admit it–not yet, anyway–but there was something taking shape between the two of them. He couldn’t yet see what that shape was, and he most certainly didn’t know if there was anything even resembling a future between the two of them but, for a split second as they stood there on the hill that had been one of his sanctuaries as a gay teen, he allowed himself to think of what it might be like to actuallydoall of the things that he thought about doing, rather than just letting them sit in his mind as ideas.

As they made their way back down the hill, Jared’s hand kept itching to reach out and take Charlie’s, and though he might have imagined it he thought Charlie wanted to do the same.

Just hold his hand, Jared.

But he didn’t, and he was saved from having to think any more about it by their arrival back at the house, where his mother was already standing there waiting for them.

“Welcome back to the madhouse,” Jared said with a wry smile.

CHAPTER 14

Even though Charlie enjoyed being made to feel that he was genuinely a part of Jared’s family, he wished he could have had at least a few more private minutes to share with him. He’d been on the brink of a breakthrough with him–physical, emotional, hell maybe even spiritual–but then Joyce had called out to them and interrupted the whole thing.

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