Chapter 4 #3
I want to inch closer to him, narrow that distance to nothing and press my face into his neck. Steal the deep breaths I’m more than capable of now and bask in a different vibe to thinking about a man’s cock.
An unfamiliar feeling that makes the questions brewing in my chest matter so much more. “It says bi-curious on your profile.” I speak quietly, so he doesn’t have anything new to worry about. “Is that something you need to hide?”
Sab’s gaze has fallen to my wrist. He keeps it there as his face does something complicated. “Not on purpose. I just…I don’t know. I got in my head about it, and now it’s a big mess.”
“You have a wife? A girlfriend?”
“What?” His head jerks up. “No. Merde—God, no. Nothing like that.”
“Catholic parents who’ll condemn you to hell?”
Sab laughs, and it’s almost as gorgeous as he is. “No, my parents don’t give a shit about stuff like that. And my brother is married to a literal man. It’s not an other people thing, it’s all me, and even I don’t understand it, so…”
He trails off like it’s not worth explaining.
Or like he expects a reaction from me that’ll make him feel like shit.
Makes me wonder who he’s had this conversation with before.
Definitely not the brother. Even without the dude marriage, Sab has the same look on his face Logan gets when he talks about his twin.
A bond that doesn’t fit the mental flinch he’s trying to hide.
It’s in me to be subtle as a brick and just ask. Not here, though. Not tonight. That he came is enough, and it’s probably about time I told him we’re neighbours.
But Sab speaks before I can. “There’s no good reason for me to be so weird about being into blokes. It’s just kinda new to me.”
“New?”
“Yeah, I mean…” Sab tears his gaze from whatever fixates him about my wrist. “Tam—my brother, he’s always been open about liking just about everything. But it wasn’t a thing for me. Even being with girls didn’t do much for me until I got off the—fuck. I’m oversharing already. Sorry.”
I’m hanging on every word that falls from his lush mouth, and he’s sorry?
Unacceptable.
I shift my arm a little, the one behind him. It brushes him like a passing feather, and he sucks in a breath that makes me wish I’d worn short sleeves. That he wasn’t wearing a shirt and we’re skin to skin.
Focus. “You’re not oversharing. We’re having a conversation. Getting to know each other. I asked you a question and I’m here for however you get to the answer.”
“Why else are you here?”
“I like talking to you.”
“So you really are on that app just to talk?”
“No.” I tell him another truth. “I’m on the app because I like sex and I’ve never been bothered about relationships.”
That frown comes back. The one that seems like it hurts.
I give him more. “swingers apps are safer for women cos they usually have their fella with them. Which leaves the best of both worlds for me if he wants to play too, and I’m not too fussed if he doesn’t.”
Sab absorbs that, reaching for his untouched beer. But he puts it down again without taking a sip. “I was thinking about hooking up with some bi couples. Getting a taste, you know? But I ended up putting just blokes on my bio and now my inbox is fucking wild.”
“I’ll bet. See anything you like?”
“I haven’t looked.”
“Why not?”
He picks up the beer again. Drinks some, his gaze sliding away from me. I want it back. But my gut tells me that this, perhaps more than if I’m ever lucky enough to get him naked, is a moment I need to be careful.
To give him space.
So I don’t coax him back to me.
I let him be, let him breathe, and I wait while the music hollering from the wall speakers takes advantage of my distraction and does a number on me.
Fecking Bob Geldof.
“Hey.” Sab rubs the back of my hand. The one hanging off the seat and so very nearly touching him. “It’s loud in here. Wanna walk?”
Walking means going outside.
Which means watching him put clothes on.
But he’s right about it being loud in this pub, even without the throngs of people it usually has on a Friday night. And if I’ve zoned out on him as hard as I think I have, I could use some winter air in my lungs.
We ditch our drinks and head outside. Start walking in the opposite direction to where we both live, ‘cept he doesn’t know that and I keep missing my window to tell him. Keep missing my window to talk at all as we settle into the cold night, frost glittering on the ground—he’s that alluring.
Sab catches me staring through the faintest sleety drizzle falling from the sky. “What?”
“You’re hot as hell,” I tell him what’s on my mind. “And you seem happier outside.”
“Comment est-ce que tu peux déjà le savoir?”
“Is that you saying I look good in the rain too?”
“You seem like you’d look good anywhere.”
I let that hit.
Enjoy the feeling it stokes in me as we amble along Moonberry Crescent, taking it easy up the steady incline that leads to Figgy Mount and the classier side of this batshite town.
I want to ask him what he does for work.
What he likes to do with his down time, if he ever has any.
What he likes to eat. How he likes to fuck.
But I bite my tongue and enjoy the quiet, though it still doesn’t feel quite like the real him.
Psychic, are you?
No. Not even close. But the sense of a whole new world simmering below the surface of this lad is potent enough an idiot like me can see it. And so I keep walking until his footsteps finally slow. Until he stops walking altogether and grabs my arm, tugging me back.
“Sorry I’m shit at this.”
His hand is wrapped around my wrist, bare skin to bare skin, a dream come true, and it derails me a moment. That simple touch. The simmering heat. The tingle in my arm so profound it’s a fight to string a sentence together.
Somehow I manage. “You know, it doesn’t matter how many times you say that, it still isn’t true.”
Sab lets out a rueful chuckle. Bashful, almost, and runs his free hand through hair that might be curly if it wasn’t so short. “It’s a hookup that’s not a hookup, and a drink we didn’t drink. Face it, mate. My game is fucking terrible.”
“I didn’t come out for the Bulmers. And you don’t have to hook up with me. This is fun as it is.”
“Is it?”
I step closer to him, reeled in by the tiny raindrops on his mile-long lashes. “You’re not having a good time?”
“As much of a good time as eight mini heart attacks can be.” Sab stands his ground as the space between us narrows. “Are you about to give me another?”
“Nine is a lucky number.”
“Says who?” He grins as he flings my own words back at me.
And I nearly kiss him.
So very fecking nearly.
“Father Christmas,” I say instead. “Nine reindeer, baby. Count ‘em and see.”
I fill my lungs with his scent and move to step away.
Sab eases me back, yearning in his eyes that isn’t all about me, but himself too. As if he wants something the roadblocks in his heart won’t let him have.
Be gentle.
I’m going to be, I swear.
But I let him reel me in all the same and hook my fingers into his belt loops. His body feels good against mine. Comfortable. Right. But I can’t be sure it’s the same for him. Am I the first lad he’s ever touched like this? Do I want to be?
Yes.
But Lord, I want so much more too.
His lips are so close. I lean in the tiniest amount, but he doesn’t take the bait. Not in the form of kissing me, anyway.
He does relax a bit, though. Enough to shift his hand from my wrist to my hip. Mirroring the touch on the other side. And god, these baby steps are fecking heaven.
Incremental bliss.
I take another chance and abandon his belt loops. Ghost my palms under his jacket.
I’m still above his clothes, but Sab shivers, and digs white teeth into his full bottom lip. “I don’t think I’d survive hooking up with you.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“I have a kid.”
He says it like a confession, and it’s time for one of my own.
“I know you have a daughter. I’ve seen you with her in town.
And…” Sab’s dark brows are already up, but they raise a little more as I shift and guide him the last few steps up Figgy Mount.
To the highest point around here where you can see Firefly Hill and the church on Aurora Street.
Cosmic Avenue and the road behind it. “I live on Cinnamon Row.”
Sab blinks. “You do?”
“Yup. I’ll show you when we go back, but I figure you should know your face wasn’t new to me when I came up on your van last week.”
Sab absorbs that, and I wonder if it’ll piss him off. If he’ll read more into it than the simple chain of coincidence that brought us together.
Maybe I should tell him I’ve seen him in his garden too, but it sounds creepier than it is without showing him my house and the proof I haven’t had much choice in the matter.
So I don’t say anything.
Again, I wait, and I don’t mind the quiet as he sorts through whatever’s going on in his brain. Logan’s like this, though I’ve never been waiting on him deciding if he wants to—
Wants to what?
I don’t actually know. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t spent all week thinking about the filthiest shit we could do together. But now I’m with him, other things eclipse those thoughts. Things I’ve never really thought of with anyone else.
I want to kiss him.
I really, really do.
But I want to see him shiver again too. See how deep that bite into his bottom lip can go before another sound breaks free. I want to hold his face and coax his gaze from where it’s descended to the frosty ground. To see if that shadowed scruff on his face is as soft as it looks.
These unfamiliar musings, though…they don’t last long. Don’t get the chance. Sab moves, fresh cut pinewood and vanilla swamping my senses. He’s closer, filling the narrow space between us, and just like that, I’m caught.
By his wide eyes and flickering gaze.
By the weight of his hand on my chest.
Steady.
Warm.
Honest as a faint tremor wracks the palm resting on my body as if he’s trying to remind himself I’m real. As if he’s trying to find the courage to—
Soft lips graze mine, a breath of contact so light I almost think I’ve imagined it.
Then it comes again, a second, slower pass that has my heart knocking hard in my chest, something akin to shock flaring in my veins.
I’ve kissed a lot of people. Fast and dirty in dark clubs and soulless bedrooms. To get off. To distract. To forget.
But I’ve never been kissed like this.
Like I’m special.
Like I’m fragile, and the air around us might shatter if we move too fast.
If I move too fast.
I lift my hand as his exhale ghosts my skin like smoke from a blown-out match. Slower than I’ve ever moved, I cup his jaw, thumb tracing the edge of his cheekbone, fingers gliding through that velvet scruff.
It’s as soft as I imagined, and it’s addictive. I don’t know how I’m going to stop. But the simple touch seems to loosen something in Sab, and he deepens the kiss enough to draw a rough sound from me.
Low.
Surprised.
Needy, as his lips part with mine and his tongue sweeps my bottom lip.
That noise escapes me again, and Sab draws back enough to meet my gaze, his pupils blown, eyes wide as his shoulders rise and fall with his shaky breath.
He looks as shocked as I feel, and even through the static currently occupying my brain, I know with every cell in my body this lad has no idea what he’s just done to me.
No idea at all.