Free Just What the Truth Is by Cardeno C. Page A

third time she’s tried to reach me today.”
    “Go ahead.” I nodded toward the phone. “Do you need me to leave?”
    He put his hand on the small of my back and shook his head as he pressed a button on his phone and held it up to his ear.
    “Hi, Mom.” Pause. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call you back earlier. I had a filing I had to get out by five.” Pause. “I’m not working too hard.” Pause. “I mean it, I’m fine.” Pause. “Yeah, I am, but I’m leaving now.” Pause. “I’m going to get some dinner.” Pause. “Because my cooking can’t measure up to yours, so I don’t bother trying.” A smirk and a pause, then a laugh. “Silver tongue or not, I mean it. Listen, Mom, I need to go, but I’ll call you later.” Pause. “I love you too. Bye.”
    I put both hands around his neck and looked into a gorgeous set of twinkling blue eyes. “Silver tongue? So that’s the secret weapon you’ve been using to turn my knees into rubber every time we kiss.”
    Micah dropped the phone into his pants pocket and moved his hand to my crotch, outlining my still visible erection with a fingertip and then cupping it and giving it a squeeze. “Hopefully, I’m impacting a body part located higher than your knees.” My body trembled in reaction to his touch. Then he leaned down to pick up his jacket and smirked up at me. “And if you like feeling like you’re having trouble walking, then you’ll be ecstatic when I properly introduce you to my real secret weapon.”
    I snorted out a laugh. “Wow, you sure are a smooth talker. You get a lot of success with lines like that?”
    We started walking toward the door, and Micah wrapped his arm around my waist and held me close. “I don’t know yet. I’ll get back to you on that tomorrow morning.”
    He waggled his eyebrows in an exaggerated Groucho Marx impression, and I found myself laughing all the way to the elevator bank. It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed, taking us out of our office, that I realized we had walked down the empty hallway pressed together with Micah’s arm draped possessively around me and I hadn’t been uncomfortable. In fact, I had felt secure and warm.
    I wondered if that safe, happy feeling blossoming in my chest was how my brother felt when he was with Clark. Those two always seemed to be touching each other, and for the first time, I realized that they might behave that way in public because of their feelings for one another rather than as some sort of political statement. Even though nobody had seen me and Micah walking out together, I felt like I had just experienced a growth moment. And not just in my pants.
     
     
    W ITH work, it was too hard for either of us to stay over at each other’s places in the middle of the week. At least, that was the excuse I used when I said I couldn’t come over to Micah’s house after dinner. Truth was I was buying time because I was nervous about taking what I knew would be the next step with him.
    But that didn’t stop me from spending time with Micah. We had dinner together again every night that week. Then he went out of town on Friday, or we would probably have broken bread on the weekend too.
    Keeping my hands—and other body parts—off Micah had grown progressively harder (no pun intended) the more time I spent with him. We’d had a few more heavy kissing sessions in the office and in the parking garage after our dinners out, but it hadn’t gone any further.
    So I had gotten in my car every night and made the ridiculously long drive home sporting a hard-on that could cut glass. When I got home alone and finally took myself in hand, I still couldn’t reach a satisfactory release. It seemed that beating off, which had to that point in my life been my favorite way to get off, wasn’t really doing the job anymore because I wanted Micah’s touch rather than my own.
    Micah was traveling for a week, taking depos across the country. Without him there, my life felt empty. I went home