—14— Diego #2
I ain’t a flirt. I hate flirting. Not used to pursuing anyone. Guys in the past, they just happened. No conversation needed. One peek across the room. A look back. He’s into me. I’m into him. Done.
Whatever’s going on here, me and Wyatt, I don’t get.
Where this courage is coming from, it’s gotta be whatever I got at that bar and choked down before we left the table.
It’s all I’m running on now.
Liquid courage and not much else.
I’d normally laugh it off, tell him I’m kidding, or not go for the joke at all. We would already have moved on to the next room, forgetting thunderstorms and tall-ass curtained windows and this stupid couch I’m leaning against.
In the next breath, he reaches for my jacket.
I freeze, surprised by his action.
Until I realize he’s just fixing the flower on my lapel.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “It went a little cockeyed.”
“Did it?”
His lip curls up at one corner. “The flower looked … tortured.”
“You’re torturing it right now.”
“No, I’m not. I’m fixing it.”
“You’re a master of torture.”
He pauses.
Eyes flicking up to mine.
It’s the liquid courage speaking. “Been torturing me all night,” I go on. Where are these words coming from? “Looking like that. Looking the way you do. Touching my jacket. Now the flower.”
He lets go. “I’m—I’m not …” He chuckles—and goes silent right away. “Just being a perfectionist. I wasn’t meaning to … to …” He leans against the back of the couch and turns toward the window, out of words.
For some reason, I ain’t done. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” he mutters, still staring at the window.
“What you’re doing.”
He crosses his arms, saying nothing.
After a second, I smirk and lean in closer to him. “It’s okay if you want to touch me.”
“I … I’m not …” He snorts and looks away even more. “I wasn’t trying to touch you. I was just—”
“I want you to touch me.”
That stops him. Mouth left open.
Breath held, too, I think.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t relax his arms. Just stands there like a rock. Staring at the window. Not really looking at anything.
He’s not ready.
He’s not making a move.
And I don’t push people.
If he isn’t into it. Or is too freaked out. Or just simply wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of a bunch of rich people rooms with no hurry to get back to the pavilion. Fine by me. I’ll just sit here and suffer, let my feelings eat themselves. They always do anyway.
“Alright,” I mumble, leaning against the back of the fancy-ass couch, too, crossing my arms, and saying nothing else.
Then his shoulder presses against mine.
Sidling up to me.
Gently.
I feel the weight of him against me before I register that he’s even gotten closer.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Barely enough that I can feel his breathing every few seconds.
Maybe I was wrong.
This room is doing something to us both. Something neither of us have noticed yet.
Is this permission? Is this what he’s telling me? Or have I been coming on too strong, and he doesn’t want his rejection to seem too harsh, so he’s rubbing up on my shoulder? You know, the way you pet a cat you just yelled at without meaning to.
Except I’m not a cat.
And I’m not gonna make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, either. Even if we’re flirty. Even if we both had just half a drink and know exactly what’s going on in this thunderstorm room.
And it sure isn’t any fucking thunderstorm.
I turn to ask him if he wants to just head back.
He turns, too.
And grabs my face.
And puts his lips right on mine.
For a second, I don’t move. I think I forget how to. His hands are warm against my cheeks. Soft, too.
Lips barely touching mine, like he’s still waiting.
For what?
Instinct catches up with me, and my hand slides up the inside of his jacket. Then the other. His jacket slides off his shoulders and hits the floor in a crunch of soft sound. His hands slip down my face and give my own jacket the same damned courtesy.
Sorry, boutonniere-he-just-fixed.
He grips me by the shirt, surprising me.
I do the same. We’re stumbling away from the couch, him moving backward, me going into him, an awkward, blind chase as he keeps kissing me, one dig of his lips at a time, over and over, as our fingers fumble through the buttons of our stupid shirts. Tugging and unraveling our ties.
He lets out the smallest breath against my mouth.
“I know,” I breathe back, like he said something.
Then I’m catching him as if he just fell—he didn’t—and down to the rug I gently place him. My shirt came off at some point. His is opened, but still on, and when I look at him, I find his hair an adorable mess. So much for fussing with that all evening, too.
“God,” he groans against my lips.
My fingers leave his face, drag down his body, hook into his waistband, and without any help from my eyes, pure instinct, I undo his belt and get his pants down. He kicks them the rest of the way off as I start opening my own.
We’re no longer gentle at this point.
There’s no hiding the fact anymore that we want each other.
I hover over his face with my own, catching his eyes. He looks happily out of breath, even without smiling.
I bring my hand back to his face.
He parts his lips, as if looking for my fingers.
I don’t know why, but I bring them to his mouth.
And he lets them in.
Closes his eyes.
Tongue running over them. Through them. Around them.
I’m stunned. Seriously stunned.
Who is this guy? What is he doing with me? Or to me?
Then he stops a second away from biting my finger. His eyes meet mine, like he just woke from a fever dream.
I’m not gonna lie. It’s hot as fuck.
What he was doing a second ago.
And what he’s doing now.
Wyatt must see something in my face—my breathless shock, if I had to guess—because he grips the back of my head suddenly and brings our mouths right back together.
Our kissing intensifies fast.
I’m out of breath and losing control.
Then he has the nerve to hiss these words against my lips: “I want you to stick them inside me.”