Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Andrei
It was true. All of it was true. It had been prophesied by someone called SmutWriter, and it came true.
They’d written at length how Griffin’s skin seared mine when his unshaven chin and mustache ground against my face, and it did.
They’d written of the flavor that was so uniquely Griffin’s that it was impossible to describe, and it was.
They’d written of the way Griffin’s muscles constricted when he held me, and they did.
And I was in heaven.
A puck had hit me right between the eyes, and I was finally in heaven.
My hands curled around the fabric of Griffin’s hoodie, and I pulled him closer, kissing him harder than before. I’d said I wanted to take it slowly, to be smart about it, careful, but I struggled already to keep myself under control.
His body rubbed against mine like he knew exactly what he was doing.
I doubted he knew more than I. Though I’d slept with a few random strangers last year, it had been a while for me, and it had never felt natural.
For Griffin, I doubted all the practice he’d done with his girls gave him any confidence.
His kisses were soft and slow, careful in every way, until our tongues met in the middle.
I’d spent years falling asleep to the fantasy of Griffin kissing me, thrusting his tongue inside my mouth, letting his saliva mix with mine, and rubbing my cock with one strong hand.
I’d dreamed of his hands on my ass, cupping and grinding, squeezing and spreading, undressing me with rough carelessness that only left tattered pieces of cotton around the floor.
I’d spent sleepless nights lying in my bed, face buried in the pillow, blanket tossed aside, ass lifted like he was there, willing to take me.
And when we’d moved in together, I’d spent my nights aware of every breath, every snore, and every turn that came from him.
I moaned into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his kiss, and felt him shudder against me. His hands found my waist, fingers digging into my sides through the fabric of my shirt, holding on like I might disappear if he loosened his grip even slightly.
Every fantasy I’d ever had paled in comparison to this.
The reality of Griffin Shaw kissing me with desperate urgency, his breath hot against my face, his body pressed so close I could feel his heart hammering against my chest. This was better than any story SmutWriter or anyone else had ever crafted because it was real, happening now, his tongue sliding against mine with increasing hunger and desire.
I broke away to breathe, gasping, and Griffin’s mouth immediately found my neck.
The scrape of his stubble against sensitive skin sent electricity straight down my spine, pooling heat low in my belly.
My fingers tangled in his hair, that stupid floppy hair I’d been staring at for years, soft and thick between my fingers exactly like I’d imagined.
“Andrei,” he breathed against my throat, and hearing my name in that wrecked voice nearly undid me completely.
“Yeah,” I managed, pulling his face back to mine.
Our kisses grew hungrier, less careful. His hands roamed up my back and under my hoodie, warm palms against bare skin. I arched into the touch, wanting more, needing everything.
Griffin’s hips rocked against mine, and I felt how hard he was through his jeans, felt the thickness of it pressing against my thigh. The knowledge that he wanted this, wanted me, sent a surge of possession through my chest so fierce it bordered on painful.
But I pushed him away, not because I didn’t want it, but because I didn’t trust myself with it.
I didn’t trust myself with feeling even an inch more of his body, with touching his skin with my fingertips, with feeling his tongue with mine.
If we let it go even a moment further, I would fall apart and give myself to him just like I had in every fantasy I’d ever conjured.
“Wait,” I whispered, my voice weak and strangled with the heat and desire that made me shudder. “We can’t.”
“No,” Griffin said. “Of course not.” He swallowed hard. “We’ll do it the right way.”
“What’s that?” I asked, ears perking with curiosity despite myself.
Griffin stepped back, his cheeks flushed and glowing, eyes glassy with want, and dick so hard it created an intimidating bulge in his midsection that made my mouth water. He quirked a side of his mouth and nodded. “We’re going on a date.”
I forced a laugh, but the truth was, I was dizzy. It was an outrageous thing, imagining a date with Griffin. “If you treat me like one of your girls, I swear to God…”
“I’ll be a gentleman,” he said, crossing his heart.
Not that he hadn’t always been a gentleman with his dates. All I knew was that he rarely followed up. Then again, I’d never stayed in touch with my hookups, either.
“Be one,” I said and lifted the can of beer that was almost empty and far too warm. “And bring us another round.”
Griffin’s smile threatened to undo me as he clicked his fingers in praise of the idea and stepped backward toward the door, gaze glued to my face. “I’ll be right back.”
He went out, and I stood in my spot, lifting my hands and looking at the way my fingers trembled uncontrollably.
Even worse was the tightness in my cheeks as my lips stretched into the stupidest smile my face could produce.
If the rising giggle reached audible levels, I would have promptly stabbed myself with the ruler that sat on my desk.
I covered my face and turned to the window, rubbing my cheeks and eyes, letting the ringing in my ears pass.
This couldn’t be real. Nothing about it felt real. It was one of those recurring dreams I had where Griffin simply stepped into the shower while I was in the middle of it, pinned me against the wall, and told me not to make a sound. It was just like that.
Any moment now, I would wake up hard and disappointed, frustrated to the point of wanting to scream, yet unable to make a sound because he would be sleeping six feet away from me.
But I didn’t wake up when Griffin returned with two cold beers. In fact, I dared to believe that I was already wide-awake because there was no way I could dream of a can of beer that cold and his hand so warm as our fingers brushed.
“You okay?” he asked, tilting his head a little as he examined my face.
“Are you?” I asked.
He smiled and gave it a moment to think. “I am. I’m very much okay now.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I sat down on the my bed, adjusting myself so that the clear physical response to the fact we had just made out wasn’t the first thing he saw. Yet when I looked up, Griffin was standing by the bed, and his gaze was shamelessly moving over me.
I bit my lip and cracked open the can.
“You know, it’s so crazy that I never realized how hot you were,” Griffin said, sitting next to me just far enough so that we each had some room to move, but his knee freely touched mine. “We’ve lived together for a year. I’ve seen you…well, I’ve seen you in nothing but briefs a million times.”
I snorted. “That’s not all there is to being attracted to someone.”
“I know, but you’d think I’d add up the pieces,” he said, amused. “Anyway, thank fuck for the internet writers. They described your ass in thorough detail.”
I choked on a sip of beer. “Fuck, I hope they didn’t. I only ever skimmed the texts.”
He drank from his can and settled in his seat, his leg pressed against mine as he folded it on the bed. “What do you want us to do, Andrei?”
“Why me?” I asked, a frown creasing my brow.
“It’s just that you had a lot longer to think about it,” Griffin said without teasing. “Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to…not? Whatever you say.”
I closed my eyes to find some sort of balance between the many warring emotions that battled within my chest. “I don’t have those answers, Griff.
I want…” And I pictured it as clearly as I could.
What would it look like, this thing of ours, if it were real?
“I want us to be the way we always were,” I said and looked at Griffin.
He pulled a face of mock concern. “Platonic?”
I snorted and punched his leg. “Minus that.” And even hinting at it made my stomach flutter like a hummingbird.
I fidgeted, accidentally rubbing our legs together, then remembered that he didn’t mind that.
Not that he had ever cared. We’d always had that liberty to touch one another, but as years had gone by, every touch hurt me precisely because he had been so oblivious to its importance.
“What else?” Griffin asked.
I hid my face behind the beer while taking another sip. “I want things to be normal between us, Griff. I’ve wanted this—something like this—for way too long, and I don’t want that to be the center of things.”
“How so?” he asked.
I thought about it, then nodded to myself. “If we take it too seriously, I’m afraid it’ll replace our friendship. But if we don’t take it seriously enough, what are we?”
“And if we find the balance, it could be a lot of fun,” Griffin said.
Then a new fear uncoiled in my stomach. Griffin had been into me for a week, and I had been into him for almost a decade. I had always known that I would belong to him for the rest of my days, but Griffin had a history of chasing after the latest fascination.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the tiny undertone of fear in his voice.
“I just…” God, this was difficult. Couldn’t I just keep kissing him? Why couldn’t we do all the things our hearts wanted and not worry about the real world? “Griff, I don’t know how that’s going to work. I’ve never dated anyone. You’ve dated everyone for a little bit. We’re totally different.”
He drew a deep breath of air and nodded with understanding.
“I could promise that this is it, but you won’t believe me.
Hell, I wouldn’t believe me. Maybe you never dated anyone because you were waiting for this.
Maybe I dated everyone around us because I didn’t know that this was possible.
There’s no way of knowing, Andrei. But I know one thing.
” I leaned in as if I needed to hear him better.
He set the beer on the table and turned to face me completely, also leaning in.
His face was big and open and wonderful, eyes wide and inviting, lips red from all the kisses and bites.
“Andrei, I’ve never felt this way about anyone.
Nobody’s ever made me this hot and uncomfortable, and I mean that in the best way possible.
I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s not letting me sleep at night.
” He smiled a little brighter for a moment. “And you feel that way, too.”
I nodded. It was impossible not to admit it when I finally had the chance to be honest about it.
Except he didn’t know the whole truth. He didn’t know that I’d once made a collage of our photos that looked an awful lot like a wedding day picture.
He didn’t know that I’d whispered his name into the pillow at the climax of every sexual exploration of my life.
He didn’t know that he had been my soulmate for years and would remain my soulmate for the rest of my life.
I had lived in peace with the fact that I would watch him conquer every challenge, watch him get away from me, while I stayed with the sweet memories of us cannonballing into the pool and accidentally ending up in a tangle of limbs and flesh and bare skin on skin—the closest we’d ever gotten to a kiss until tonight.
And while I cherished the memories of him running his hand through my hair comfortingly the first time we’d gotten drunk on beer and I puked.
“Not letting ourselves see where this goes would be madness,” Griffin said, fidgeting again and folding both legs under his ass until he was kneeling right in front of me. He had that wicked grin of his that always made me want to see a bad idea through.
I folded my lips, licked them, and nodded. “Rules, then.”
Griffin looked at me as if I were the cutest thing he’d ever seen. “Go on.”
I drew a deep breath through my nose and looked into his eyes, swearing him to these rules by nothing more than a thought.
“If you have any doubts, tell me. If you realize this was all some kind of trance or passing infatuation, you have to tell me, Griff. You’ve never…
I don’t even know how this works. So if you, I dunno, don’t feel like you’re into guys anymore, just say it.
I don’t want you to push me away like you did the last few weeks because you don’t know how to say something. ”
“I promise,” Griffin said, a note of worry creasing the skin around his eyes. He hadn’t thought of this. He hadn’t thought of it passing the same way it had hit him.
“Sexuality can be weird, Griff,” I said. “I’ve been gay my whole life. I’ve never looked at a girl and thought I could be any closer to her than in a platonic way.”
He nodded. “What else?”
I thought about it for a moment and decided to ask rather than tell, although I knew the answer. “Do we tell anyone?”
The way his eyes widened for an instant was the answer and not a surprise. “I think it might be too soon.”
“I agree,” I said. “Everyone’s watching us, there are cameras, and we don’t want to fuel the stories.”
He chuckled. “That ship has sailed, and we’ve been shipped right with it.”
“Well, people can have their wishful thinking. We’ll keep the real thing for ourselves,” I said.
He moved like lightning. Like it was all he could do not to burst. Like there was nothing else he could possibly need.
Griffin’s mouth crushed against mine, and he kissed me deeply and slowly, lips parting and tongue venturing into my mouth with a slow and exploratory pace that made me want to scream and claw and rip his clothes to pieces.
Maybe there had been more rules to discuss. Maybe there had been more doubts to soothe. Maybe there had been a thing or two to ask or admit, but it didn’t matter. Not right now.
Because he was finally kissing me.
I leaned back, sliding onto the piled up pillows, and Griffin followed.
He was bigger and bulkier than me, but I welcomed the weight and the pressure.
I wanted him to smother me under his body.
I wanted to suffocate gloriously in all his muscles and strength.
I wanted to lose myself in him like I had never managed with all the other guys.
And like he apparently never managed with all his girls.
And as he kissed me deeper, his body grinding against mine, I wrapped my arms around him and allowed myself to believe that this was what we had both been waiting for. Maybe, just maybe, we had found our way to one another.