Crossing his arms over his chest, Dakota leaned back in the chrome chair. It creaked ominously. He didn’t know how to articulate his feelings. All he really knew was that feelings were stupid and they irritated him.
“I don’t do things I don’t want to,” he reiterated.
“What about now?” Tad demanded, standing up with his hands on his hips.
“What about now, what?” Dakota was floundering in foreign waters. What was Tad talking about?
“Do you, Dakota Green, want to kiss me, Tad Gillespie, now? Or was this morning a weird one-off?”
There was no way this conversation would end well. At some point, Tad would figure out that Dakota was a bad bet. But Dakota ignored those thoughts and instead rose to his feet and moved around the table so that the distance between them was reduced to a few inches.
Without allowing himself to contemplate the future, at least not past what he was about to do, Dakota Green followed his feelings for the first time ever.
He wrapped one hand around the back of Tad’s neck and tugged him close, close enough to catch the startled expression in Tad’s eyes before Dakota shut his own and brushed his lips across Tad’s for the second time that day.
For the second time ever.
Tad gasped in surprise but swiftly pressed himself against Dakota’s body. His fingers first tugged Dakota’s shirt from hisjeans and then went sliding across his bare skin and over his ribs.
“I’ve wanted to do this forever,” he groaned, dragging his hands down Dakota’s torso.
This time, it was Dakota gasping. “Fuck, that tickles.”
Tad smiled against his lips. “How did I not know you’re ticklish?”
Without waiting for an answer, Tad returned his attention to Dakota’s body while Dakota tried his best to kiss Tad without throwing him to the linoleum and ripping his clothes off.
It was hard.
Hewas hard, and there was no way Tad could miss it, not the way they were pressed up against each other. Without conscious thought, Dakota already had his arms wrapped around Tad, and when his traitorous hands slipped down to cup Tad’s ass, he knew the battle was lost.
Tad had an incredible ass.
“God, Dakota,” Tad murmured. “If you stop now, the Sheriff’s Office is going to have a mysterious death on its hands.”
Dakota couldn’t help smiling, which was a weird feeling. He wasn’t a smiler. He should stop, a distant part of his brain insisted. But for once, Dakota ignored his brain.
He didn’t want to stop and he didn’t think Tad did either.
TWELVE
Tad
Tad’s heart was pounding so hard he was sure the organ was going to bust past his ribs, out of his chest, and land with a mushy plop on his area rug. Dying now would ruineverything. He’d spent years,literal years, trying to get Dakota to admit he had feelings for him, imagining how it would feel when Dakota finally—if ever—kissed him or touched him.
Now it was happening, and Tad had been wrong. About everything.
For some reason, he’d thought Dakota would take control, bemasterful.The ridiculous word made him snort because clearly that was due to reading his mother’s vintage historical romances.
“What’s so funny?” Dakota asked between nibbling on Tad’s lips and massaging his ass.
Tad slipped his tongue into Dakota’s mouth, enjoying the garbled groan and reflexive tightening of Dakota’s grip on his ass that he was rewarded with.
“I was wrong,” Tad whispered a few minutes later.
Dakota pulled back so he could see Tad’s face, his dark eyebrows drawn together.
“Wrong about what?”
