“How much is quite a bit?”

“Want all the juicy details, Tate?”

Logan heard a long-suffering sigh, and then Tate cursed, “Fuck.”

“Tate?”

“What?” he barked at him.

Logan couldn’t help the way his dick reacted to it. “I can’t even remember what he looks like because all I can picture is you.” Logan’s heart ached as he waited for what felt like hours until Tate finally spoke.

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“I do, and it scares me.”

“Why?” Tate whispered into the phone.

His voice had Logan wishing he hadn’t gone home alone and that he was instead lying in bed beside him.

“Come on, Tate. Don’t you think I wonder what will finally change your mind? What will make you think, what the hell am I doing?”

There—he’d finally voiced his biggest fear.

He could hear movement through the phone, and then Tate asked, “Is that what he did? Is that why Cole’s worried? He thinks I’m playing you?”

Logan sat back in the chair, and answered the question. “Yeah, that’s what Chris did. It wasn’t so much he changed his mind as denied everything when people found out.”

“Why? Was he straight?”

Logan almost choked on the bitter laugh that left his mouth. “In public, yes, but in my dorm room? Not even a little bit.”

“But you said he taught you. As in he’d been with others before, right?”

“As in, yes, he was gay, and it was my first time with a guy. And when someone found out and told all of his friends, he denied it and stopped talking to me.”

“Fucker,” Tate cursed through the phone.

“Yeah, well, Cole saw us arguing one day. Chris pushed me into the wall and threatened me. Before I even had a chance to respond, Cole beat his ass, right in the middle of everyone.”

“Good. Stupid dick deserved it,” Tate mumbled vehemently. “So, what happened after that?”

“He started dating every girl he could. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t fucking them though.”

“How do you know?”

Logan felt his own satisfaction come racing back to him as he said, “Because I made sure that I was fucking them while he was dating them.”

Tate started laughing so loudly that Logan had to pull the phone away from his ear. Good. He hadn’t been sure how that piece of information would go over.

“Only you, Logan, I swear.” Tate chuckled and then finally calmed. “So, that’s it? After that, you were with girls only?”

“No. After that, I was with whoever the hell I wanted to be with. He’d already told everyone I tried to come on to him, so I figured, why not. But never like that again.”

“In other words—”

Logan interrupted, “In other words, I haven’t bottomed since—until you.”

“Really?” Tate asked.

And it sounded to Logan like he was holding his breath.

“Really.”

Silence stretched between them, and then Tate promised, “I’d never hurt you like that.”

“That’s easy to say,” Logan agreed. “But no one knows your secret yet.”

“Because it’s been two weeks. Actually, less since it got physical. Cut me some slack. I just got used to the idea. I want to enjoy it before I have to defend it.”

Logan closed his eyes and asked the one question he dreaded, “And will you?”

“Will I…”

“Defend it?”

Logan heard Tate sigh in a way that didn’t bode well for his question at all. But he remained quiet, determined to let Tate say what he must, and then he would move on from there.

* * *

“Yes. I’ll defend it. But I won’t lie to you, my family is not going to understand this at all,” Tate told him candidly.

“This?”

“You, me. Us.”

A low hum of approval came through the phone, and Tate found himself stretching along with that contented sound.

“Us. I like the sound of that,” Logan confided.

Tate lowered a hand down between his thighs to rub it slowly against the erection swelling in his sweatpants. “So do I. So, tell Cole to stop trying to think for me.”

“I can’t tell Cole anything. But I will advise that he back off.”

“Good. Because I know what I want.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Logan, my family is traditional as hell. We all go to church on Sundays. Trust me, there’s not one part of this that’s going to be easy, but…” Tate felt his heart racing in his chest with his hard-on throbbing beneath his hands.

“But?”

“I want you. Am I supposed to walk away because you’re a man? Maybe. They’ll say yes for sure. But I’m sick of all the questions running around in my head.” Tate stopped and licked his lips. “I want the man who sat down across from me and changed the way I look at the world. And if that’s wrong, then I’m confused because when I’m near you, it feels so damn right.”

“Tate?”

“Hmm?”

“I wish I was in your apartment right now instead of out on my balcony.”

Tate took a moment and pictured Logan sitting outside among the glittering city lights.

“Are you still drinking?”

“No.”

Tate slid his hand into his pants and stroked his palm over his naked flesh, remembering this evening in the bar up against the wall.

“Do you feel better?”

“Yeah, I do. Tate?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you falling asleep?”

Tate looked down his body and pushed his sweats over his hips. “Not yet.”

“What are you doing?”

“Listening to your voice and getting hard.”

A groan was Logan’s answer. When Tate heard a chair scrape, he knew that Logan had stood and was moving.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going into my bedroom to get naked. Want to come over?”

Tate played with his balls and let out a soft grunt at the invite. “It’s too late now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, I’m already hard, and I want to come.”

“Selfish,” Logan admonished gently. “If I remember correctly, you already came twice today. The least you could do is get on that death trap you call transportation, and come and return the favor.”

“Ah…” Tate sighed into the phone as he thrust up into his hand. “But then I’d have to stop what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” Logan agreed.

There was a whole lot of shuffling going on, and then he was back, promising, “But I’m dying for it, and if you come here, instead of your hand, you can fuck me.”

Tate gritted his teeth. “You play dirty.”

“Come over, and I’ll show you how dirty. You know you want to.”

Tate glanced at the DVR clock, and it now read 1:40.

Am I really going to—

Oh, what the hell?

Tucking himself back into his sweatpants, he winced as he sat up, and then he stood, looking around his apartment for his helmet and jacket.

“Logan?” He located them both and picked them up.

“Yeah?”

Tate snagged his keys off the counter and said into his cell, “Fifteen minutes. Be ready.”

With that, he ended the call and walked out his front door before slamming it behind him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tate was buzzed into Logan’s condo lobby the second he arrived, and now found himself stepping out of the elevator and onto Logan’s floor.

What a difference a week could make, Tate thought as he rapped his knuckles on the door. Has it really only been a few days since I was standing here the first time around? There was no question in his mind this time. He wanted to be there.

As he stood in the empty hall in his gray sweatpants, white T-shirt, and leather jacket, he reached down to adjust the erection that hadn’t completely subsided since he’d left his apartment.

Seconds later, Logan’s front door opened, and Tate decided that the ride over had been worth leaving his place at two in the morning. His fingers tightened around his helmet as he quickly took in the wet hair swept back from Logan’s face, the dark growth shadowing his jaw, and every single inch of skin on display—and there was a whole hell of a lot.