“Is it romantic now?” Ash murmured.

Truman nodded and slid his hand to the back of Ash’s neck, cradling his skull, his thumb rubbing the sensitive skin behind his ear.

Truman tipped his head up and Ash bent to meet him. Their lips hovered a centimeter apart, and Truman could feel the pull between them. He closed the distance and caught Ash’s lush mouth in a kiss. His lips were just as soft as Truman had imagined.

It began as a slow, tender exploration. Then Truman hooked his arm around Ash’s waist and pressed them closer together. Ash deepened the kiss and Truman’s stomach flipped. He was breathless, weightless.

He twisted his fingers in Ash’s long hair and touched his tongue gently with his own. He felt Ash shudder, then found himself pressed to the rock wall of the cave. Ash’s hand cradled his head, and he relaxed into the firm hold of rock and Ash.

The kiss went on and on until Truman was light-headed and breathing hard. Then Ash broke it, groaning, and rested his forehead against Truman’s.

“Damn,” he murmured.

Truman couldn’t agree more. He sagged in Ash’s arms, and they slid to the floor again, grinning at each other. Ash reached out and traced his cheekbone, then dragged a fingertip over his lips. They felt kiss-stung and hot.

Truman, too comfortable to move, said, “Can you reach my phone in my pocket?”

Ash cocked his head in question but slid his phone out and handed it to him.

Truman opened the text thread with Greta and, in full view of Ash, wrote Can confirm. Those lips were made for kissing. Twelve out of ten would recommend.

He held up the phone and Ash grinned. In the cave he’d read about at twelve years old and never thought was real, Truman sent the text. Then he leaned back in for another kiss.

Chapter 15

Truman

Truman and Ash left the cave and bundled into the van like giddy teenagers, giggling when Bruce howled at the ocean, chortling when a gull almost flew into Ash’s windshield, and snorting with disgusted laughter when Bruce sat between them with a dignified expression, like a third person, then farted so loudly he scared himself and rocketed back into the rear of the van to recover.

Back at Truman’s house, they made cocoa to get warm and then flopped onto the couch.

“And we’d bring candles in our pockets and stick them to the floor, but it wasn’t that big in there, so once Lorin almost lit their knee on fire.”

Ash was regaling Truman with his teenage attempts at witchcraft in the cave.

“What were you trying to conjure?”