Sixteen year old Jacob Smithson has quite a temper. He’s picked on by other kids because he likes boys, and recent fighting has kicked him out of public school. As a last resort, his parents have placed him in the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Boarding School for Boys.<br><br>It’s at his first mass at St. Thomas where he sees Avery Dendritch, a senior who serves as altar boy during the service. When they meet, the attraction between them is hard to deny. The two become fast friends, and as the school year progresses, their friendship deepens into something more. For the first time, Jacob has found a place where he belongs ... and someone with whom he’s falling in love.<br><br>But the other students gossip about their growing relationship, and while Avery can ignore them, Jacob cannot. As the rumors and slurs start up again, can he curb his temper, or will his penchant for fighting get him expelled from St. Thomas, as well?

Without Sin

But the only thing that tells Jacob he’s real, too, is the dull pain between his legs, Avery’s hands along his skin, the tender kisses Avery keeps dropping onto Jacob’s hair and face. Jacob’s afraid if Avery falls asleep, those things will stop, even the pain. He doesn’t want any of it to stop. He wants this, tonight, forever.


So he sighs. He wants to talk. “Was it like this for you?” He means the pain. He means the cuddling afterwards. He doesn’t want to picture Avery in someone else’s arms, but he has to ask. He has to know.


Avery shrugs. It’s an easy movement that settles them closer together, like pieces of a puzzle fitting into place. “Not really.” When he talks, his voice rumbles through his chest and into Jacob.


Jacob loves the way it rolls through him like thunder.


“No?” Jacob raises his head to rest his chin against Avery’s chest. He looks up at Avery’s neck. It curves, graceful, in the faint moonlight. “Why not?”


Chapter 50