“I’ll leave you to figure that one out,” he murmured, before kissing me again.
My hands, up to that point, had been glued to the wall behind me, fingertips clawing at the air, and now somehow they found their way into Steven’s hair. When I tugged one of his dark curls to wrap it round my finger, he moaned, so I did it again. Breaking the kiss, he hissed in a breath.
“Was that sore?” His hair was still wrapped around my finger. As I was around his. I stared at him for a second and started to disentangle my hands from his hair.
“I didn’t say it hurt.”
And I stopped. “You like having your hair pulled?”
“Why do you think I let the curls grow?”
“Suits you.”
“And when your hands tightened against my scalp I think it was the first slightly-less-controlled-than-usual action I’ve ever seen from you.”
“You haven’t even lived here twenty-four hours yet. And I’ve been out most of the day anyway.”
“Convenient.” One eyebrow quirked in vague accusation.
“I was working.”
“Working at not helping me move in.”
“I’m here now.”
“So you are.” He nodded, a lazy smirk making him look so smug I couldn’t resist giving his hair another pull. He winced. “God.” But the vertical creases at the bridge of his nose, the almost-frown, didn’t tell me he was in pain. No more than he could cope with anyway. “I’ve waited too long for this.” His hand on me tightened again and it was my turn to stifle a moan.
“Too long? You—”
“Don’t give me that only lived here a few hours bullshit again, Kit. I meant…how long have you been in this room?”
“About five minutes.”
“Then that’s five minutes too long.” Both his hands went for my belt and the desperation in his fumbling silenced any half-hearted protests I might have given. “Honestly, Kit.” He eased my zip down too damn slowly for my liking. Now he’d made his move, I wanted him to just fucking touch me. “We’re both grown men. This doesn’t… I mean, we don’t…”
“Fuck.” One hand on my boxers meant he was one annoying sliver of fabric away from touching my bare skin and my balls ached for him to make me come.
“Look at me.”
I craned my neck, the voice in the back of my head desperately reciting, not that, anything but that. A strange angle to hold my head at, and stranger still was the absence of any pain, given the earlier threat of migraine. I let go of Steven’s messy black curls and slid my hands down his face, let them settle on his neck and felt him shake his head.
“Kit?”
“Don’t. Just…” Maybe if I lowered my head and looked at him before he made skin-on-skin contact, it’d be easier to take, easier to make him understand…
“Just what?” His fingers edged inside the waistband of my shorts. “Touch you?”
“No. Yes. I mean don’t—”
“Told you. Stuff of legend. Haven’t even laid my palm against your cock yet and I’ve already rendered you incoherent.”
“Steven.”
Something in my voice must have got through to him because his hand stopped its advance.
I lowered my gaze, tried to concentrate on the way my hands looked against his neck. “I don’t like being looked at.”
“What? Why the hell not? You’re—”
“I don’t. Like it.”
Steven’s confusion hung in the air between us—what little there was anyway—for the longest moment I’d ever lived through, then he shrugged and pushed himself closer. “All right, then.” His breath warmed my face and I wondered when he was going to kiss me again. “So I won’t look at you.” Pause, then he slid his hand down the underside of my cock and I growled from the back of my throat, quietly enough to be discreet, loud enough to let him know how good it felt. “I still need to listen to you, though.”
I hauled in a laboured breath, almost wheezing, and Steven laughed against my ear.
“God, that’s hot.”
“Fuck. Steven. You—” I pushed my hips against him when he curved his hand around my cock. “Shit—”
“Still want me to stop?”
“No. Oh God.” Somehow I managed to twist my head round, pull his hair so I could kiss him this time. No, I didn’t want him looking at me, but his scrutiny only burned when he pulled back, looked at me from a distance greater than an inch. This way I didn’t have his intense stare on me and I could again taste the sharp tang of smoke on his tongue, the mint he’d eaten to mask it which had mixed with the smoke rather than hiding it.
He broke the kiss and touched his forehead to mine, rasping inhalations a reply to whatever noises I made. Mostly close-lipped grunts, each one less controlled than the last.
“I knew you’d feel good,” he whispered.
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
“Did you know it? Did you think about this before I even touched you?” His hand slowed in anticipation of my answer.
“Don’t.” Say it, Kit, say it. It’s not a fucking weakness to let another man know you want him.
“Don’t stop.”
“Tell me if you did, then,” Steven whispered, and I fought to still my body, quiet my breathing, so I could hear him clearly. His hand on my cock quickened, I whimpered, and his free hand pushed off the wall and came to rest on the curve of my waist. “Did you?”
“I—”
“I know I did. Especially since that first time I came round here.”
Watching the down-up of his shoulder had me undone. As if a bare shoulder wasn’t bad—good—enough, it was inked, and it moved because he was minutes away from making me come.
“When you came to your bedroom door.”
“I caught you looking.”
“Likewise.” Steven’s lips curved into a smile I felt against my neck, and breath huffed out of him in a discreet laugh, making me shiver. “Wondered if you were gay. Or open-minded at least.”
“Oh.” I nodded, screwed my
