It Takes Two to Tumble (Seducing the Sedgwicks, #1)

by Cat Sebastian

She really was beautiful, both in the sense that anyone in their right mind would agree that she was lovely to look at, and in the sense that she was dear to him and therefore he found her countenance pleasing. He loved her, and he believed she loved him. It was right and good for them to marry; their union would be comfortable and easy. This was what marriage was for. But comfort and ease suddenly seemed like pale and flimsy things.

The captain cut him off with an impatient wave of his hand. “Every schoolboy knows about having the convenient sort of friendship where you toss one another off and never speak of it in the light of day.”

“Does it matter what it’s called?” He genuinely didn’t know, had indeed deliberately avoided thinking about what it might mean to find love and companionship and desire all in the same person, because to form that thought would mean to acknowledge a future he would never have.

Everybody’s a damned theologian on this topic. I’m so tired of it. If we can all quietly agree that eating pork and shaving aren’t sinful, I don’t see why we can’t extend that same grace to men like us.”

“I know about what you called ‘convenient friendships.’ I don’t want that.” He had thrown himself into this lake of dangerous desire, body and soul, and he didn’t want to be the only one there.

“And then there are David and Jonathan.” Phillip had always been a lax student and couldn’t immediately place the reference. “We’re told that their souls were knit together. Jonathan gave David his robe and his sword, his bow and his belt. They loved one another and had a covenant. Not water to wine, but a different kind of miracle. “Friendship and love,” Ben went on. “Vows and covenants. It’s the only kind of miracle most of us will experience, whatever shape it comes in.”

Such a lovely tribute.