Chapter 21 Felix #4
I collapsed onto the sofa, watching as Kit moved around my tiny kitchen with surprising familiarity.
He seemed to somehow know exactly where everything was—mugs from the cupboard above the sink, Earl Grey from the tea tin on the counter, even the specific mug I preferred in the evenings, the one with the panda face that fit perfectly in my palms.
Was this from watching me through my window?
“Are you cold?” he asked, bringing the mug over and setting it on the coffee table before settling beside me on the sofa.
I was, actually. The kind of bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with nearly having my throat ripped out by a creature of darkness.
“Your flat’s freezing,” he added.
I stared at him, taking in the small cut on his forehead that had stopped bleeding, the deep frown lines etched into his forehead, the careful way he was watching my face.
“Sorry,” he said suddenly, with a guilty smile. “No more insults about your lovely flat. Got it.”
“It’s okay. I know my flat is grim, and yes, I am cold.”
Kit’s arm came around my shoulders, pulling me against his side. The warmth of him seeped through my hoodie, and I found myself finally relaxing.
His fingers found my hair, combing through the strands with gentle precision. The touch made my eyes flutter closed, and when I opened them again, he was closer, close enough that I could feel his breath against my cheek.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said.
“Huh?”
“For that vampire. You kicked his ass.”
I laughed, though my heart swelled with pride. “I think you have a very different recollection of that than I do.”
He leaned in slowly, hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure I’d want this right now. Like maybe being attacked by vampires had put me off physical contact altogether.
I met him halfway.
The kiss was soft at first, careful, his lips barely brushing mine. But when I didn’t pull away—when I made that small sound in the back of my throat and pressed closer—something shifted. His hand tightened in my hair, the kiss deepening until I was dizzy with it.
We were twisted at an awkward angle, me leaning sideways to reach him, and after a moment Kit’s hands found my waist, tugging gently.
“Come here,” he murmured against my mouth.
My heart skipped a beat. Climbing onto his lap felt different here, in this private flat, than it had kissing under the trees in Hertfordshire. More deliberate. More intimate.
But I did it anyway, settling across his thighs with my knees bracketing his hips.
Kit’s hands immediately found my back, sliding up under my hoodie to map the curve of my spine with warm, firm fingers. We broke apart so he could ask, “Is this okay?” and I gasped a “yes” against his mouth before he swallowed the sound.
His hands explored every inch they could reach—the plane of my shoulder blades, the dip of my lower back, the sensitive spot just behind my ribs that made me arch against him. When his thumb brushed the strip of skin just above my jeans, I made a sound I’d never heard myself make before.
Kit groaned, pulling away abruptly, breathing hard. He rested his forehead against mine for a moment, eyes squeezed shut.
“We probably need to stop,” he said roughly, “before I get too excited again.”
Then he gave me another small kiss, quick and sweet, before gently lifting me off his lap and reaching over to grab my tea for me.
I sat there in stunned silence, trying to process the sudden shift from heated kissing to polite tea service. My body still hummed from his touch, still wanted more, but Kit now acted like nothing had happened.
Kit must have thought I didn’t want to do anything more than kiss. Was I giving off that vibe? Acting too awkward? Was I meant to initiate it? Sex?
Conceptually, I got it. Mechanically, I’d done it a few times. But the actual navigation of wanting it and showing I wanted it felt impossibly complicated.
I knew most people loved it. God, Rory and Flynn talked about it enough—those two were constantly trying to one-up each other, though I tried to immediately tune out when they started those sorts of conversations.
And from the fragments I’d picked up more generally, it seemed like most people our age were having very regular, enthusiastic sex with people they’d known for much less time than we had.
So Kit surely wanted to have sex, or at least… something, right? He was a healthy, thirty-two-year-old man. And he’d said I was his mate, which seemed like it should come with certain… expectations.
Kit must have sensed something shift in my mood because he was suddenly intently studying my face.
“Did I make you uncomfortable?” he asked quietly. “I’m sorry. I was serious when I said we can take this as slow as you want.”
“No… Well, it’s not…” I mumbled, then sighed, staring at my tea.
Kit waited patiently, one hand resting on my knee in a gesture that was probably meant to be comforting but only made me more aware of him.
“I’m just…” I mumbled, heat rushing to assault my face. “I do want to. I think. I mean, I know I do. I want you to touch me. I want to… do stuff. Which doesn’t happen often for me. But… I’m scared I’ll be bad at it.”
“Bad at what?”
The innocent confusion in his voice made everything worse. I flapped my hand uselessly, trying to find words that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete disaster.
“All of it,” I finally managed. “Everything. I mean, there’s no way I’m going to be able to… you know… satisfy someone like you when I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.”
Understanding dawned across Kit’s features, and he shifted closer, his hand moving to rest properly on my thigh.
“Why do you think that?” he asked softly.
“To be honest…” I started. “The few times I’ve had sex before, back at uni… I’m not sure it was good. I mean, I don’t think I was very good.”
Kit’s hand stilled on my thigh, but he didn’t say anything. Just waited.
The memories of those experiences felt distant, like they’d happened to someone else.
“I guess it was mainly just… stressful. The whole time I was thinking, am I doing this right? Is she actually enjoying this or just being polite? Should I be doing something different? Faster? Slower?” What’s going to happen after this?
Will it be awkward between us now? Are we going to have to do this again?
I could still remember the weight of Gemma’s expectant gaze in her tiny dorm room, the way she’d guided my hands with barely concealed impatience when I’d fumbled with her bra.
The clinical efficiency of it all—the dutiful kissing, the mechanical movements, the performance anxiety that made everything feel detached and wrong.
The worst always had been afterwards, lying there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, feeling hollow and confused.
Like I’d just completed some bizarre social obligation rather than something that was supposed to be pleasurable.
I buried my face in my knee to stop the horrible memories. “Anyway, let’s just say I’m really not exactly experienced in the art of… satisfaction.”
Kit was so quiet that I finally couldn’t resist looking at him. His face was held carefully neutral, but something flickered behind his eyes.
“Felix,” he said slowly. “You know we don’t have to do anything. Not ever, if you don’t want that part.”
The words were gentle, sincere, but I had to look away again. Because I was scared I would see something in his face—it was a ridiculous thing to promise someone.
“But I think I do want to,” I said quietly. “With you, I mean. The wanting part is definitely there.”
And it was. It was there. The way my pulse quickened when Kit’s hands found my skin, the way that fiery heat flooded my body when he kissed me, the way I found myself thinking about his mouth and his hands and what it might feel like to have more of them in different places.
It was a pull I’d never felt before, never this intensely.
“The anxiety you felt,” Kit said, his thumb tracing small circles on my thigh. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Sex should feel good. Safe. Not like a performance review.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “That’s… actually exactly what it felt like.”
“When you’re with the right person, when you trust them…” Kit paused, choosing his words carefully. “You don’t have to worry about doing everything perfectly. You don’t have to worry about anything, really.”
Something in his voice made me look up, meet his eyes properly.
“I mean it, Felix. If or when you want to try anything, you won’t have to do anything but enjoy yourself.” His hand moved higher on my thigh, fingers spreading warm against the denim. “Believe me, taking care of you will be more than enough for me.”
The intensity in his voice, the way he was looking at me like I was something he wanted so badly, made my breath catch.
“Okay,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was agreeing to. The whole conversation felt surreal.
“What do you want right now?” Kit asked, voice low.
I stared at him, my mind going completely blank.
The honest answer was that I had absolutely no idea.
My body seemed to know something my brain hadn’t caught up to yet—this restless energy thrumming under my skin, the way I couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, the urge to touch him that felt almost magnetic.
Without really thinking about it, I set my mug on the coffee table with a soft clink.
Then I climbed back onto his lap.
Kit’s hands immediately found my hips, but his grip stayed light, fingers barely pressing through the denim of my jeans. Like he was giving me space to change my mind at any second.
I leaned down to kiss him. Kit’s mouth opened under mine, his tongue sliding against mine in a way that now felt natural.
He shifted beneath me, sinking sideways until he was lying flat against the sofa cushions.
I stretched out alongside him, half draped across his chest, one leg tangled between his.