Wanderlust (Filling Spaces #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

no desire to
protest—Jamie shoved him back into his previous position and then crawled
inside the sleeping bag with him.
    Heat.  The delicious
heat of Jamie’s long body pressed against his back.  Shea flushed at the
sensation and tried to remember how to breathe. How long had it been since he’d
shared a bed with anyone?  College, he thought dimly, early college, before bad
breakups and misunderstandings convinced him that maybe he loved too earnestly
and hoped too much. Awkwardly he held himself rigid and tried not to take up
too much space, resting his cheek on his hands and drawing himself as close to
the other side of the sleeping back as he could go. 
    “Geez, you’re tense,” Jamie
muttered, and Shea jumped as the other man’s long fingers poked at him
playfully.  “Am I bothering you or something?”
    Shea considered the
question.  “No,” he answered truthfully, because bother couldn’t accurately
explain the heat on his cheeks or the stir of desire that left him acutely
aware of every inch of Jamie’s long body behind his. 
    “Then what?  Still
worried about those noises?” Jamie’s voice, a warm breath of air against Shea’s
ear, left shivers in its wake.  “About the dark?”  His tone fell into a wicked
singsong, playful and teasing.  “About spiders ?”  He skittered
fingertips over the back of Shea’s neck, a barely-there touch.
    Shea smacked at his
hand instinctively; the touch did feel spidery.  “ Quit that,” he
began—but Jamie only obeyed to poke him in the side again, and suddenly the
knot of tension and fear in Shea’s stomach dissolved as the playfulness
devolved into a mock-tussle between the two of them, into light, ticklish
touches and a teasing struggle that ended only when, finally, he fell laughing
onto his back in the sleeping bag and batted Jamie’s hands away.  “Stop,” he
pleaded, breathless.  “Stop, you win.  I’d rather deal with the spiders than
this.”
    A faint, surprisingly
genuine smile touched Jamie’s lips. “Feel better?” he asked, and to Shea’s
surprise the words held an undertone of concern.  Oh , Shea realized
lamely.  He’s trying to cheer me up.  The thought so startled and
touched him that for a moment he didn’t respond and simply gazed up at his
companion and marveled, entranced suddenly by the sharp attentiveness in those defiant
gray eyes, the contrast between that pale skin and that silky dark tumble of
hair.  
    “Yes,” Shea whispered. 
He knew that even in this dim illumination his emotions—his gratitude, his
curiosity, his sadness, his desire—must be written all over his face, but he
didn’t bother trying to hide them even as the silence stretched between them
into something pregnant and meaningful that made his breath catch and his heart
beat faster.  Right now he didn’t want to hide anything.  Perhaps it was
because of how languid the night felt, with the laptop’s cool, faint light
draping the old cabin in otherworldly shadows and the quiet outside sounds
surrounding them.  Perhaps it was because of Jamie himself, the electric energy
he seemed to carry with him, the constant dare in his gray eyes.  Either way,
Shea welcomed all of it, welcomed how far this felt from his own life, from the
world he remembered and thought he loved. 
    He’d never felt so
much in his life.
    So he wasn’t surprised when
Jamie, those gray eyes softer than normal, leaned down to kiss him.  But he did
surprise himself when he responded immediately and passionately: his lips
parted willingly at the gentle insistence of Jamie’s tongue, and he reached up
instinctively to wrap his arms around the other man’s neck to bring him closer. 
Jamie hummed amusement and appreciation, and though the hands that cupped
Shea’s face were gentle, the bruising kiss was not; the fierce possessiveness as
Jamie claimed his mouth stole Shea’s breath and made his heart pound wildly.   
    He couldn’t ever
remember a kiss like