Chapter 9

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Living with his choices is not the same as not regretting them. He often wonders how the years might have played out differently if he’d been less afraid of what Devin had to offer. His dreams right after the phone call had castigated him for his wariness, then tortured him with all the possibilities about what sex with someone who knew more than his first name would be like.

He could conjure those images with a single blink of an eye. They had the power to steal his breath as spectral hands molded over his back, drawing him down into a strong embrace where arms and legs twisted together. His nape burns from the phantom kisses that skid down the side of his neck before lips part to bite into his shoulder. When the air whispers all the hot promises he’d never dared to imagine right into his ear, his head swims until he has to stop whatever it is he’s doing and sit down before the rest of his body fails him.