14. Mackie #2
“It’s December! Turtlenecks are seasonally appropriate!”
He lifts his head. He’s right there, his face inches from mine, still laughing. Then the laughter just fades. Because I’m still topless. I’ve been topless for this entire ridiculous conversation about his inability to control his face at a party. His eyes drop, and this time I don’t smack his arm.
“You’re looking again,” I say quietly.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t move his eyes. “I am.”
The shift happens so fast I barely track it.
One second we’re laughing about turtlenecks, and the next his mouth is on mine.
His hand grips my waist, pulling me into his lap, kissing me like he’s been holding back all night and finally snapped.
I can feel the difference in his mouth, in how deep the kiss goes, in the way his tongue moves against mine.
I make a small, desperate sound into his mouth, and it makes him pull me tighter.
He lays me back against the couch. His mouth moves down my neck, his teeth grazing my skin as he breathes heavily against me.
His hands trail across my stomach. This time there’s no Christmas interruption, no brain malfunction, no sudden conversational detour about his secret Canadian family.
He pulls my jeans and underwear down together.
I’m now completely naked and suddenly intensely aware of the fact that nobody has ever been this close to me under so much light.
It’s incredibly vulnerable. My heart hammers against my ribs as he kisses my hip bone, then the inside of my thigh. I can feel his warm breath against my skin, and the sheer intimacy of it makes my chest tighten. That’s exactly when my anxiety decides to betray me in the worst possible way, again.
“Wait,” I say.
He stops immediately and looks up at me.
“Okay, so I just want to say that I didn’t know this was going to happen tonight so I didn’t prepare.
I don’t even know what preparing would look like, but I feel like there’s supposed to be some kind of—” I gesture vaguely at myself.
“Also, the lighting situation is really not ideal. I’m not sure I smell—I mean I showered, but that was this morning and I’ve been walking around all day.
I don't know if there's a freshness window for that kind of thing like an expiration or a best use by—”
He doesn’t say anything. He just turns his head and rests his cheek affectionately against my inner thigh, looking up at me, waiting for me to finish.
“—and I’ve read that I’m supposed to taste like... something? But I’ve never actually checked because how would you even check that? What if I’m not wet enough, and you get down there and it’s just as dry as the turkey my dad is going to make at Christmas?”
His thumb rubs a slow, reassuring circle on my hip while he watches me, completely patient, not interrupting a single word.
“—or what if I’m too wet and it’s messy, and that’s gross, right? Is that gross? I feel like nobody talks about the logistics of this, and I should have googled it, but googling ‘what if I’m too wet for oral’ felt like something I can get arrested for and—”
I stop and take a deep breath, looking down at him, praying he doesn't run away.
“Do you have any complaints, concerns, comments?”
He lifts his head from my thigh. “First of all,” he says, his voice incredibly gentle, “you smell amazing. Genuinely. I want to bury my face right here and never leave.” He turns his head and kisses my thigh. I feel his breath, warm against me, and my whole body shivers in response.
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this, and absolutely nothing right now is disappointing me.” He props his chin on my leg and looks up at me, but his eyes dart to the side and I know he’s lying
“You just looked left. Or right. My right, your left. You’re not meeting my eyes. Something’s wrong. What is it? Tell me right now or I’m putting my pants back on.” It all comes out in a rush and I’m surprised he can even understand what I’m saying at this point.
He closes his eyes and opens them slowly, staring at me with a sheepish expression. “Nothing’s wrong. I promise. I’m just...” He trails off, glancing down before mumbling. “I was just kind of hoping to find out if it was the same color.”
“If what was the same color as what?” I ask, completely confused.
He reaches up and lightly tugs the end of my red hair, and suddenly I understand.
He’s been wondering what color it is. He has been actively, privately, possibly-on-a-team-plane-sitting-next-to-my-father wondering about this. Now he’s looking at me with pink ears and an expression that says he knows exactly how insane this sounds, but he couldn't help it.
“I panicked and took everything off. The internet has a lot of really conflicting advice about this and now you’re down there looking disappointed and—”
“I’m not disappointed.” He presses his mouth against me. I feel him take a deep, steadying breath. “I like whatever you like. It doesn’t matter at all.”
“But you wanted to see the color.”
“I was just curious.” His ears are so red it's endearing. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Maybe next time,” I say, “I won’t wax. If you want to see it that badly, I’ll let it grow back a little.”
“Whatever you want.” He kisses the inside of my thigh again. “Are you done?”
I cover my face with both hands because I’m mortified, turned on, and laughing all at once.
None of those things should be able to coexist, but here we are.
Clothes off, kitchen light on, having the most unhinged conversation of my life with a boy whose mouth is six inches from where I desperately need it to be.
“Yeah,” I say through my fingers. “I’m done.”
Then his mouth is on me, and I jerk so hard I almost knee him in the face.
“Sorry, sorry,” I gasp.
I’m not spiraling anymore, because his hands wrap firmly around my hips, holding me steady.
He makes a low sound against me that vibrates through my entire body.
I try to arch up, but his forearm presses flat across my hip, pushing me back down into the couch.
He says “stay still” in a dark, raspy voice I’ve never heard from him before.
The command flips a switch in my brain. Suddenly, there’s only his mouth, his hands, and those words pinning me in place.
Every worry in my head completely vanishes.
He drags his tongue against me slowly. I grab the couch cushion because I desperately need an anchor.
He finds the exact spot that makes me shake and focuses on it, his lips closing around me.
My back arches instinctively. A ragged sob tears out of my throat, one I couldn't have stopped even if I tried.
It feels entirely overwhelming. The clinical embarrassment from five minutes ago is gone, replaced entirely by a heavy, drowning heat.
My brain tries one last time to ruin this—is this normal, am I supposed to be this loud, can he breathe down there—but I shove it away.
He’s groaning against me, gripping my thighs like he’s the one who can’t get enough, and the realization that he wants me this desperately means I just need to shut up and let him love me.
He slips a finger inside me, and the fullness makes me nearly come off the couch.
He adds another while his mouth keeps working, and the combination pushes me right to the absolute edge.
It's almost too much to process. I’m gripping the cushion, twisting my hands into his hair, reaching for anything I can hold onto.
A steady stream of sounds spills out of me.
“Zach, I can’t—it’s too much—”
He doesn’t stop. He picks up the pace, and the orgasm hits me with a force that locks up my entire body.
I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I’m shaking in relentless, full-body waves.
I finally have to gently push his head away because I’m so sensitive that every lingering touch feels electric. I physically cannot take any more.
He sits back and looks at me. His mouth is wet, his hair is destroyed from my hands, and he's breathing hard. He looks dazed, flushed, proud, and slightly stunned, as if he can’t quite believe he just did that. It's the most beautiful expression I've ever seen on him.
I lie there, trying to remember how to function as a human being.
“I’m dead,” I manage to say once I can finally form words. “I’m actually dead. Tell Shredder I loved him.”
“You’re not dead.” He laughs.
“I saw a white light, Zach. There was a tunnel.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
I reach up, pull him down to me, and kiss him, tasting myself on his tongue.
It’s strange, incredibly intimate, and slightly filthy.
I was not prepared for how deeply it would affect me.
He doesn’t even hesitate; he just kisses me back like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Something about the fact that he doesn't second-guess the intimacy for a second makes my heart ache. He’s hard, and I can feel him straining against the denim where his hips are pressed against my thigh.
He makes these involuntary, subtle movements, rocking against me without even realizing it.
“Your turn,” I say against his mouth, reaching for his waistband.
“No.” He shakes his head, pressing his forehead firmly against mine. “Not tonight.”
“Zach—”
“I want to remember this. Just this. Tonight was about you.”
He says it so simply, so completely devoid of performance, that I believe him instantly.
He pulls the throw blanket off the back of the couch, wrapping it carefully around my shoulders.
I tuck myself under his arm, listening to his heartbeat slow down.
I think about how I’m going to sit at a Christmas party with Rodriguez asking about his secret family, all while pretending that this incredible man isn't entirely mine.
“We’re so fucked,” I whisper into his chest.
“Yeah.” He kisses the top of my head, holding me closer. “We really are.”