Chapter 16 Griffin
SIXTEEN
Griffin
Andrei’s hand covered mine there between the liquids and trays. The tingles rose up my arm, and I turned to him. In the faint red light that cast its soft glow over the black-and-white images drying on the line, half of Andrei’s face was lit, and half was in the shadows.
He threaded his fingers through mine and looked into my eyes. “First photo I let you take,” he said.
“You didn’t have a choice,” I reminded him.
His lips curled into a playful smile. “That sounds fun.”
I chuckled. He was so pretty in this light, yet my gaze bounced to the photos drying on the line. “Every morning these last few days, you looked like that, and I wanted to die.”
“Oh?” Andrei said, his voice amused as if to say he had suffered like that for years. “What crossed your mind when you saw me like that?”
My heart sped up a little. “You wouldn’t believe the things I had thought of.”
“Other than burying your nose in my underwear?” Andrei teased, his hands squeezing around mine. He pulled us both a little closer together and exhaled a warm, minty breath. His hair was dry by now, messy and begging to be touched. His lips were sharply defined in the red light.
A moment of embarrassment took hold of me. My cheeks flushed, and I swallowed loudly. “I mean, that was a moment of weakness.”
“I like you like that,” he said, his voice a little darker, a little more dangerous.
“Weak?”
“Indulgent,” he said. “Doing whatever the hell you want ’cause it feels good.”
The images of my fantasies played in front of my eyes. Every unholy way in which I had imagined Andrei. “You have no idea how guilty I felt for using you to…well, get off.”
“Tell me,” he said, his lips inches away from mine.
“Tease me all you like, but if I get too horny, there won’t be a chance to stop this,” I warned him.
“I’ve never seen you horny. Not until last night,” Andrei said. “Tell me how you imagined it.”
Once again, it was easier to just show him.
Our hands let go, and my arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him in until our bodies crashed together, pressed tightly like I wanted to fuse us into one.
And I did. It was all I could think of. I wanted to live under his skin, to breathe his air, to feel every bit of him like it was my own body.
I kissed him then, hard and unrestrained.
Last night, though heated, our kisses were also guarded.
I had contained myself somehow, staving off the bubbling passion of this new dynamic just to be a gentleman.
I wanted to do something nice for him, something thoughtful.
I wanted to show him that he still mattered to me, just like he had all these years.
I wanted him to know that he wasn’t getting together with Griffin the Playboy, but Griff the Best Friend.
I kissed him hard, though. Hard and fast, my tongue pushing into his mouth. I swallowed his first immediate moan as my arms tightened around his waist.
He pulled his head back to inhale, and I immediately kissed his chin, then traced his neck to his Adam’s apple.
An odd thing, kissing an Adam’s apple, but sexier than it had any right to be.
Maybe because it was new. Maybe because it was Andrei’s.
And maybe—just maybe—because it was always going to be this way.
“Fuck,” Andrei whispered. “Don’t stop. Don’t tell me. Just…show me. Show me everything that crossed your mind.”
We were lucky to have a full house of guys who respected the “DO NOT ENTER” sign on the door with a little explanation about developing photographs below it. I didn’t worry that someone might need a pen and barge in.
So I lifted Andrei, using all my strength in an instant of inspiration.
I lifted him off his feet, and his legs swung before curling around my waist. His head was above mine, and he leaned down, kissing me while his arms wrapped around my shoulders.
His tongue probed my mouth, and I welcomed it with excitement, taking him into myself and giving myself to him.
My arms moved a little lower, hands dragging from the small of his back to his hips and to his ass.
He wore his gray sweatpants, a thing I hadn’t imagined turning me on as hard as it did.
They were soft like the sweetest dreams, letting me feel everything beneath them.
I could feel the exact place where the seams of his briefs were, where his taint was hard and tense, where his cheeks spread, and where his hole was.
Fuck.
My hands buzzed with static. My mind spun as I turned us around and carried him to my bed.
Though his was closer, the photo of his nearly naked body was in the way, and I didn’t want him catching the drying line.
So I walked the three extra steps and leaned down, setting Andrei onto my bed and sinking on top of him.
My weight pressed down on Andrei, and he gasped, pulling me closer and tighter, like he couldn’t imagine us not touching. He wouldn’t let us part, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I grabbed each of his arms in turn and freed my shoulders, then pinned his wrists together above his head in the softness of my pillow. I kissed him ruthlessly, biting his lip and licking his neck, lost in the sweet scents of his skin.
As my lips dragged down the side of his neck, feeling his pulse, his body contorted. All his muscles flexed at once, and his hips thrust upward, pressing his hard cock against my abdomen while a whimper broke over his lips.
“Shh,” I whispered into his ear, making him twist his head away from the tickles of my warm breath. “If they hear us, our plan is fucked.”
“They won’t hear us,” Andrei said, his voice strained and cracking. “I can be quiet. Just don’t stop.”
“Are you sure?” I asked between the kisses. “Last night, you wanted to wait.”
“We waited,” he said, making us both laugh. Twenty-four torturous hours of celibacy to let us figure things out. But things weren’t meant to be figured out. They were meant to be felt, experienced, indulged in.
I kissed him on the lips again, burning hotter with the growing desire to do unholy things to him. Every time he thrust his hips up, I felt his hard cock against my body.
Somewhere in the distant places of my heart, I had feared this more than anything.
I had feared that being attracted to him so suddenly would go away without a warning, maybe when I realized just how real his body was, how real his gender, how real his biology, his cock, his balls.
But this morning’s photo was proof enough.
The sheer wonder in my eyes was proof enough that I couldn’t peel my gaze off him, no matter what his body was like.
He was far from the lithe and willowy girls I’d gone after in the past. He was tall and broad and hard in all the right places, sculpted and shaped by endless conditioning and training sessions we’d shared through our years together.
When I let myself slide a hand under his T-shirt, my body screamed with impatience.
His skin was so taut, so smooth and heated, and his abs so rigid. It was a novel sensation under my fingertips, unlike any I’d experienced before. It was odd to run my hand over those defined abs and realize they weren’t mine.
I kissed him again, pinning him hard against the bed, his wrists secured in my other hand, his arms lifted high above his head. He didn’t try to free himself. He surrendered completely.
When I kissed his neck again, he shivered, but he didn’t try to get away. “This is…all I…thought about,” he said. “The whole day, Griff.”
“Oh yeah?” My words came in a whisper. “What else did you think of?”
“You’ll see,” he said. “Just don’t stop.”
I lifted myself off his body and freed his hands, looking at him, at the three inches of his bare flesh where his T-shirt had rolled up.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, blinking.
I stared at him, my heart pounding like it would explode at any moment now. “Wrong?” I asked. My lips stretched into a smile. “Andrei, nothing could possibly be wrong.” I didn’t know what made me speak. He lit up a little, lowering his arms to his sides. “I just…I had to see you like this.”
He bit his lip and cocked his head. “Take your time, Griff.”
“You sure you want to keep doing this? You don’t want to wait and see?” I asked, my body tense with the sudden fear he might change his answer. Right now, I knew I would die if I didn’t have all he could give.
“I’m sure,” he said. “I realized that I’ve waited long enough. But…are you? Do you want to play it safe?”
“I think we crossed the safe line when I played with your underwear,” I admitted. “Besides, I might literally combust if we don’t.”
He lifted his torso just enough to take off his T-shirt, rolling it up his chiseled body and over his head, then tossing it onto the floor. He dropped back on the bed and folded his hands under his head. “I’m yours, Griff. Do whatever you want.”
Whatever, I thought. Whatever I want. My heart couldn’t take this.
My mind was scattered. There were so many things I wanted to do all at once that it stopped me dead in my tracks, so I slowly placed my hands on his bare waist, feeling that sculpted narrowness expand as I dragged my fingers higher up his body.
His sweatpants were low, and above them, an inch of his briefs peeked out, the brand name glowing in the red light while all the rest seemed darker.
My hands went up and up his body, touching him like I’d never thought I would.
Touching him like I’d never touched anyone.
This felt different; there was no way to pretend it didn’t.
It felt like I explored him, explored every line and every curve of his body, and I savored it.
I didn’t want to get used to it. I didn’t want to be casual about it.
This was Andrei, after all.
I dragged my hands down, lower until I felt his abs constrict under my palms.
“I want to see you,” he said. “Take off your hoodie.”