“You aren’t protecting me right now, Trent. It isn’t my body that needs the safety. Just like you, it’s my heart, and it’s taking a beating right fucking now.” His eyes were stricken when I looked into them. “You’re the one throwing the punches.”
It was clear my declaration tormented him. The tone of his voice matched the look in his eyes. “Drew.”
I nodded like I wasn’t buckling under the weight of his inner struggle, like I didn’t feel guilty for adding to it.
But all was fair in love and war.
If I had to fight dirty to keep him, then I’d be the dirtiest motherfucker there ever was.
“So what’s it going to be, Trent?” I pressed. “Are you going to protect my heart and the love it holds for you, or are you going to walk away?”
Trent
Body or soul.
I wished it were that easy.
He made it sound that way. He made it feel that way.
God, I love him.
On the surface, it seemed like a simple choice, but matters of the heart rarely were.
“It’s not that black and white,” I said, my voice gravely and deep. The guilt I felt just then, the all-encompassing urge to pull Drew into my arms and say to hell with everything else, was like trying to hold back an orgasm when the release had already begun.
“You won’t let it be,” Drew argued.
I guess it had been too much to think we could take an entire night and not get into this. We’d been fooling ourselves. But wasn’t this what I wanted? Wasn’t I tired of pretending?
Thick silence pressed in around us. He’d tossed me the ball. He’d laid down one epic argument and left me with a choice. I glanced at the mark I’d put on his chest, so near his heart. The heart he so willingly offered me.
I’d give him anything… but how could I take from him? Yes, he was offering, but just because something was offered didn’t mean it was right to take.
But…
I was hurting him and I didn’t want that.
“It seems like no matter what I do, you’re going to get hurt,” I confessed.
“There’s only one kind of hurt for me that won’t ever heal.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled. “Stop saying shit like that.”
“Why? Because it bothers you? Because you know it’s true?” His voice was argumentative, matter-of-fact.
“Of course it bothers me!” I shot out. “You’re my weakness, Drew. You’re the one person in this entire world I would do anything for.”
“All I want is you.”
“You have me,” I said, weary, collapsing back against the headboard. I was exhausted and hurt in so many ways.
And I was naked.
This was a damn heavy conversation to be having without my drawers.
“Where’s my damn boxers,” I muttered.
“You don’t need them,” Drew replied.
I raised a brow. He lifted one back.
I fought a smile, but in the end, my lips curved upward.
The dimple in his cheek made an appearance, and I groaned.
“Please say you understand where I’m coming from,” I pleaded.
“I understand you’re an overprotective and bossy bastard.”
“You flatter me,” I quipped.
“We’re talking in circles.” Drew sighed. “I asked you a question.”
“Just because the people in this house accepted us doesn’t mean everyone out there will. How do I condemn you to that? How do I justify my love is worth the risk? It’s not just your body, Forrester, I’m trying to protect. But it’s your heart, too. What happens when you tell your father and he flips the fuck out? It’s gonna crush you. What happens if your brother is sickened his brother likes dick?”
Drew’s face tightened, and I knew what I was saying was crude and hard to hear. Good. It would never get easier.
“And what about your racing career, the one you’re just starting? Do you think Gamble is gonna want a gay man as the face of his new sport? What if he drops you? What if you never get another opportunity like this again and you spend the rest of your life behind a computer, cut off from your father, brother, and maybe your mother? What happens when you go out and people whisper crude words, when they call you a fag and dick licker?”
He didn’t say anything, just sat there and looked at me.
“You’ll start to resent me,” I whispered. “You’ll blame me for all the shit you lost.”
“Even if I lost every single one of those things you just listed, it still wouldn’t add up to the single loss of you.”
I was dumbstruck. So completely astounded. He told me he loved me. I knew it was true. What I hadn’t realized was his love for me rivaled my love for him.
How did a man fight that?
I couldn’t.
I was going to cave.
It was like all the reasons I put us through this were suddenly null and void.
“You know what I think?” he asked softly.
I gestured for him to speak.
“I think it’s not just me you’re protecting, but yourself.”
Yes. But not from the bigots and the haters in the world. I was protecting myself from me. From all the things our relationship could do to Drew. As I said, it was he who was my weakness, and it was his hurt that had the power to destroy me.
“Protecting you is protecting me,” I whispered.