Nothing concrete, anyway.
And the only answer he had was...
“Me,” he said softly. “I... I was looking for me.”
“And so you haven’t found yourself yet?”
“No.” Summer half-smiled, a pang tightening and twisting inside him. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking.”
Iseya cocked his head to one side, still watching Summer with that searching gaze that could see all the way to the heart of him and yet that still seemed to see nothing at all.
Then one long finger crooked, angular and enticing, beckoning.
“Stand up,” Iseya commanded coolly.
Summer blinked several times—and realized he’d already obeyed. It was like his body was hard-wired to follow Iseya’s every order, that crooked finger pulling his strings until he was standing on numb, trembling legs with his palms sweating and his fingers clenched and his throat working tight.
“Why...?”
Iseya’s chair scraped, as he pushed it back—the sound so loud in the quiet of the office, and suddenly Summer was drowning in the scent of honeysuckles and the warmth of the room and the feeling of nervous sweat licking and trickling down his neck with warm wet tongues as a sense of something anticipatory and hot shivered in the air.
Iseya rose to his full height—so tall his shadow fell over Summer, so tall he seemed to take up all the space in the room until it was impossible not to feel him.
He was about to get thrown out, he just knew it.
Thrown out, told to pack his bags...
And get out.
Find himself somewhere else, because Iseya didn’t want him underfoot.
Until Iseya braced one large, long hand against the desk, fingers splayed.
Leaned forward.
Hooked a fingertip in the open throat of Summer’s shirt.
Dragged him in—into his heat, into a scent like...fuck, Summer didn’t know, but it was heady and wild and strange and cool and crawling down inside him until he felt it in his blood.
And kissed him.
Chapter Five
Fox had absolutely zero damned clue what he was doing.
Clearly his capacity for balancing risk versus reward was malfunctioning.
Because the only thing on his mind, as he had watched Summer say so many infuriating things with that soft red mouth...
Was that he had wanted that mouth to shut up.
There were a number of ways he could have accomplished that.
Summer was a damned puppy in front of him, and likely would have snapped his mouth shut at one sharp word.
Fox could have simply dismissed him, refusing to meet with him until he had properly comported himself and remembered his place. Both their places.
Yet instead Fox had found himself fixating on that insolent mouth, and remembering how firm it had been against his own. How hot. How Summer’s lips had gone slack the moment Fox had taken control, and...
And somehow Fox wasn’t in control anymore.
Somehow Fox was standing, drawn in toward that irritating mouth, pulling Summer into him, his knuckles just barely brushing his throat and catching the rapid wild flutter and rush of his pulse beating against his skin.
Somehow Fox was leaning into him, tilting his head, watching Summer’s eyes widen and dilate, darkening, cheeks flushing, lips parting on a gasp of realization that was far too gratifying, to see this impulsive, sweet young thing so responsive, so needy under Fox’s touch.
And somehow...
Somehow Fox was kissing him.
Fox was kissing him, and Summer’s mouth was hot and eager and needy under his own, lips parting beneath his as if begging, pleading, desperate.
As if Summer had never wanted anything more than he wanted Fox’s kiss.
And Fox didn’t know how to feel about that.
Didn’t know how to feel at all, this clumsy thing inside his chest, and yet even if his slow-beating heart was a crude and awkward thing of rough stone edges...
He knew what to do with those soft, yielding lips.
And he slanted his mouth against Summer’s, capturing that sweet tremor of his mouth to still its quivering and command it to meet his own, to match, to mate, until their lips were wet and slick and burning with each other, until he tasted autumn leaves and wicked heat and the vibrating, low sound of Summer’s breathless moan.
That moan shot through Fox, tingled against his lips, drew him until he wanted to taste it, slipped into that inviting well of sweetness, flicked and teased and tangled with Summer’s tongue until the lovely boy submitted so utterly, sagging against the edge of the desk, fingers grappling at the wood as if it was the only thing holding him up.
This shouldn’t feel so good.
This shouldn’t feel like anything, let alone this heady, hungry compulsion that drew Fox to slip his fingers around Summer’s throat once more, capturing him fully and utterly, that rapid frantic pulse against his palm, the heat and strength of flexing, straining tendons against his encircling fingers.
Summer whimpered.
And Fox’s cock throbbed, a jolt so sudden it was almost painful, a thing he hadn’t felt in so long that the sudden deep pull of longing spearing up into his gut and down into his thighs felt alien and strange and wrong.
What was he doing?
Desire sank its teeth in deeper, and yet the pain of that bite was more than he could bear.
He thrust back, taking in a sharp breath, letting Summer go quickly.
Summer remained frozen, looking at him in a half-daze, his lips parted, the wet red tip of his tongue just barely visible—the collar of his shirt disarrayed, his cheeks flushed, his eyes so dark they simmered nearly black, as deep as a midnight sky.
“I... I don’t...” Summer stammered, his voice thick, husky, burnt at the edges with a raspy, needy burr. “Professor... Iseya...?”
Fox couldn’t look at Summer’s face.
Not when that lost, utterly absorbed, entirely needy expression made Fox want things he had consigned himself to never wanting again.
He turned his back, fixing his gaze instead on the glow of morning coming through the venetian blinds, even if he didn’t really see them. Didn’t really see much of anything, when he was aching inside and his chest constricted so tight, everything inside seeming to cluster around his heart to crush it beneath the
