Page 85 of Thin Ice

Noah turns his full attention back to Beck, more collected now. He brings a hand up to place over the one Beck has on his cheek.

“I would have told you that you meant the world to me, that I wanted everything that you wanted, but that I was scared.”

“What were you scared of?” Beck urges.

“The future,” Noah admits, pain rattling in his tone. “People not accepting us. Our relationship getting in the way of the life I’d been working so hard toward—that you’d been working so hard toward.”

“I was scared, too,” Beck confesses. “But I was willing to be scared alongside you.”

Every fiber of my being aches for Beck, for the young boy whose heart was broken by the man before him.

“I know, and that’s what’s always made you a better man than me. You’re brave, bold, strong, and never afraid of who you were,” Noah says. “You still aren’t.”

“You talk like you know me.”

Noah pulls Beck’s hand from his cheek and kisses his palm before linking their fingers together. “Maybe I don’t, but what I do know is you’re here. You can still call me out on my bullshit, and you’re healing my relationship with the only person I’ve ever loved”—he swallows hard—“besides you.”

Beck and I freeze at his words, his admission. I had known he loved Beck already, but it’s obvious in how wide-eyed the other man is that he didn’t—or at least he didn’t let himself believe it.

“Do you really mean that?” he asks Noah so quietly I almost don’t hear him.

“I do. And I really hope you can forgive me for all of that—and for saying that despite the pain that day caused us both, I can’t regret it, because…” Noah looks over to me, his eyes fierce and sure.

“…because you met Quinn,” Beck finishes for him.

“Yes.”

“She is amazing.”

“More than amazing.” The two men smile at each other before they both look at me.

There’s a long pause where we all stare at each other awkwardly, and I’m unsure what to do next. I didn’t think a dice game from Phil and Josie would get so serious so quickly.

“Does this mean you two have officially made up?” I ask.

A low laugh leaves Beck. “I’m getting there.”

“What else do you need from me?” Noah asks, determined. “I’ll do it.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean—”

Noah does the last thing I expect and drops to his knees in front of Beck, head down and eyes on the other man’s feet. “Let me prove it to you, give myself to you like I once did.”

The anger from before transforms into a new kind of tension, pulled tight like a bowstring. The energy between the two of them crackles, old sparks igniting with something I don’t fully understand yet.

Beck swallows, and I’m mesmerized by the way his broad chest expands, the vulnerability on his features replaced by the kind of confidence that would make him worthy of a man like Noah falling to his knees.

Beck reaches out and lifts Noah’s chin. Heat pools in my stomach at the unexpected scene now playing out before me.

“You want to be a good boy for me again, Noah?”

“Yes, Beck,” Noah replies, his voice sure. “Please.”

Noah’s obedience mixed with his plea turns my nipples hard and scatters goosebumps across my skin.

Beck rubs his thumb over Noah’s lips. “I’m not a shy young man anymore—I’m more experienced. You understand that I won’t go easy on you?”

“I’d expect nothing less.”