Page 27 of The Truth of Our Past

I wake up in the pitch-dark, covered with a blanket. I search blindly for my phone but can’t find it. My brain is working at a snail’s speed and on the verge of a hangover.

I should go home.

I remember taking my phone out of my pocket in the bathroom.

There’s a light under his bedroom door, and I knock quietly.

Von calls, “Come in,” and he’s propped up on top of the covers reading. His hair is piled up in a topknot, his gray sweats mold to his legs, and I drag my eyes away from his bulge.

Suddenly, reading tops my list of erotic fantasies.

“Are you okay?” Von asks since I’ve been standing mute in the doorway.

“Do you mind?” I point to the bathroom.

Von motions for me to go ahead and I use the bathroom, but my phone isn’t where I thought I left it.

“Hey, do…” I freeze with the door halfway open. Von is topless, shedding his sweats. “Sorry.” I slam the door so he doesn’t see my instant hard-on. Our kiss still confuses me. He ran away and I can’t expect him to be a one-off fuck.

Von chuckles on the other side of the door. Tonight, the man has been a friend and a godsend to put up with my parents. It’s inappropriate to repay him by drooling over his body because he can obviously resist mine.

“You saw me the other day. I didn’t think it would bother you.” Von opens the door, still in his underwear.

“Are you trying to kill me?” I’m tired and my brain can’t find its filter as my eyes drink in his smooth skin and muscles. I’m a man, not a saint.

“Americans really are sexually repressed. I’m not sure what to do with you.” Von sighs. He steps back and leans against his dresser. I get a peek of a tattoo on his shoulder and I’m dying to know what it is.

“Anything you want,” I say, and it’s not a pickup line or flirting. It’s the truth.

“The things that come out of that mouth of yours.” He stalks toward me and pins me against the wall with our foreheads touching. He’s no twink that I can toss around. I’ve never been with someone as physically strong as Von.

My entire body’s ravenous to press against him and make him forget the reasons he thinks sex with me is a bad idea.

Why I think it’s a bad idea.

His body is incredible. He has to be an athlete. His muscles haven’t been sculpted in the gym a few times a week. His body has been honed by hours and hours of hard work and punishing workouts. And I’m preoccupied with the punishing workout I can give him. But I can’t be the only one who wants it. Von has made it clear he doesn’t.

His breath hitches as his eyes close and we taste the air between us. When his eyes pop open, they’re blue fire, and I know this man could burn me alive, but I don’t care.

“I am desperate to kiss you.” The admission sounds dragged from the depth of his soul. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask last time. That’s not who I am—forcing myself on you.”

I’m frozen with indecision. I’m fearful he’ll regret me or change his mind. He can’t want me after my breakdown and meeting my parents. But I’m not thinking with the right head, so I say, “Don’t ever apologize for the kiss I was dying for.”

“I don’t understand you.” He presses his head harder against mine.

A laugh tumbles out of me. “Viking, you’re the most confusing person I’ve ever met.”

He’s such a contradiction and I’m obsessed.

Chapter thirteen

Von

No One Like You by Scorpion

His laugh causes a quake in my knees, making it hard to stand as it fills every crevice in the room, cracking my emotions wide open. I imagine filling myself with his joy. It’s mindboggling how he laughs so heartily after the inhumanity of his parents.

“You are not what I thought when I met you.”

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