Chapter 27
Benji
Iwasn’t entirely sure what I was seeing.
No, that’s not right. I knew exactly what I was seeing.
Peter. Naked.
His body was pale in the way a man who hides in his apartment or clinic all day lacks color, though not in an unhealthy way.
His frame was lean, a bit of a runner’s build, though I had yet to see Peter run anywhere except out of the kitchen when I’d posted a particularly funny note.
I could see the shape of his muscles and a dusting of light brown hair scattered across his chest. Small patches of hair clumped around each perfectly pink nipple, like furry shorelines ringing the beaches of itty-bitty islands.
His hair was mussed, as it always was when he relaxed at home.
For once, his glasses were not slipping down his nose.
My eyes drifted south, taking in the slight pooch of his not-tight-but-not-flabby stomach. He was average in so many ways yet extraordinary in others. My heart, jolted awake by the surprise of a naked man greeting me, was now racing for a land-speed record.
Only then did my gaze land on his . . . um . . . manly bits.
Sheesh, that was a terrible thing to call his most precious part.
Cock sounded too vulgar. Dick was too simple, like something a third-grade boy would say, then giggle all afternoon for having said it.
I needed a different name, something uniquely him.
Little Peter?
Yes!
Oh, God, yes!
That would forever be his name.
Little Peter was dangling off the side of him like a fluffy yet limp earthworm who was too tired from digging all day to look at me properly . . . through his one good eye.
“You could stand there and stare all night, or you could come over here and unwrap your present.”
I’m pretty sure my eyes blinked faster than my heart beat.
Peter scooted upright and patted the couch beside him. Little Peter flopped as he moved, as they tend to do. He still didn’t look up at me.
I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door, kicked off my shoes, and shed my jacket. By the time I reached the couch, there was a trail of outerwear that would, in any other circumstance, earn me a stern talking to from the naked man now not staring at me with his one good eye.
He reached out, his hand finding mine and gripping with a certainty I wasn’t sure either of us felt. He tugged me down, toward the couch, toward his naked body.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he said.
I gulped.
“I just got home.”
His mouth quirked. “Take your shirt off, Benji. I want to feel your skin against mine.”
And just like that, Little Benji hopped off his chair, came to attention, and saluted the flag. He might’ve even sung an anthem while doing it. I felt him spit a little as he sang.
When my hand didn’t leave his, his other hand rose and gripped my shirt’s top button.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
I nodded, a swift, terrified motion that made him chuckle.
“Benji Kwon, are you nervous?”
My eyes did a few more rapid blinks, and I swallowed again.
“No. Absolutely not. I’m . . . fuck . . . scared shitless.”
His grin grew.
“No more checklists. No more notes. No more hiding, okay?” His voice was so calm.
How could he sound so damn calm? “I’m falling for you, Benji, for your crazy hair and internet persona and especially for the way you treat our animals.
I’m falling for your 6 a.m. sleepy smile and your 3 a.m. exhausted stare.
I want to know you—all of you—and I want to feel you even more. ”
My shirt was halfway unbuttoned by the time he finished talking. He stopped with the buttons and slid his fingers inside the fabric, pressing his palm against my smooth chest.
“Your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of your chest,” he said.
I blinked a few more times. “It feels like it. I guess it’s been a while, I mean, since, you know—”
My head tried to droop, but Peter's finger lifted my chin to keep our gazes locked.
“I know. For me, too,” he said.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” I asked, immediately regretting the words. He’d gotten naked and waited on the couch for me. At some point, I had to trust the signs.
What he said next gave me pause.
“I’m honestly not sure.” His gaze fell from mine, though his hand didn’t stop its exploration. “You know about David, about what I’ve been dealing with, about what I’m still going through. I can’t promise to have all that sorted. It’s not. It’s nowhere near sorted.”
“Peter—”
“Let me get this out, okay?”
I nodded and watched him, reveling in the sensation of his hand on my skin.
“I’m falling in love with you, Benji. I have been for weeks and was too stubborn or blind to admit it.
I think about you when you’re not here. I can’t stop thinking about you.
When I make dinner, I wonder if you’d like whatever I’m making.
I want you to like it because I made it for you.
I sit up at night, waiting for you to come home, because I want your smile to be the last thing I see before I go to sleep.
I make coffee at ungodly hours just so we can start the day together. ”
He drew a breath, closed his eyes, then opened them again.
“I’m broken, Benji, shattered in a million pieces. Losing a partner will do that. But I don’t want to be broken anymore. I want to heal, and the wanting is often the first step along that path. The wanting is what allows a person to want other things, too.”
“Like me?” I whispered, not trusting my voice for more.
“Exactly like you.” He nodded. “No, that’s not right. Exactly you. No one else. Just you.”
I tried to suck in air, but it stuck somewhere in my throat. I coughed a few times, covering my mouth with the back of my hand. Peter grabbed a glass of water from the side table and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said, gulping down water as quickly as humanly possible. The liquid trembled with my hand.
Peter’s hand left my chest and reached up to stroke the side of my face.
“I’m crazy about you, Benji, and . . . I know David would want me to be happy. He’s probably smiling down from some puffy cloud, screaming for all the other angels to hear, ‘It’s about time, you idiot.’ I can almost hear him laughing.”
A tear slipped free and tried to make it down my cheek. Peter’s thumb caught it and wiped it away.
We sat like that, Peter naked, his hand stroking my face, and me with my shirt half open and mouth fully open and brain trying desperately to catch up to everything he’d just said—and everything it meant, which was everything.
“Say something,” he said after an interminable stretch of silence.
“I . . . Peter . . . I’m . . .” I pressed my face into his hand, desperate for anything to distract me from the words that refused to come. I was good with words. I talked a lot, more than most people. I never struggled with words, damn it.
Peter smiled, his small, warm grin that meant he understood everything perfectly without the need for language. That was his superpower, after all, knowing without saying or hearing. If I lived to be a thousand, I might never know how he did it.
And so, rather than wait for my answer, he pulled me to him and gave me his own.
His lips were soft and warm and wet in the way of a man who’d been licking them for a half hour before I got home. His kiss was gentle, almost timid, until his tongue joined the party, and fireworks went off, and the whole apartment complex felt like one giant, uncontained bonfire.
I set the water down, gripped his face with both hands, and kissed him with every ounce of energy and passion I possessed. He tasted of spearmint from his mouthwash with a note of cinnamon, probably from the creamer he’d used in his evening coffee.
I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t taste enough. I couldn’t feel enough.
Between kisses, when air became a requirement, I grabbed the last buttons, ripped them loose, and shimmied out of my shirt. Peter went for the button on my jeans.
“Jesus, your fingers are cold,” I said, resisting the urge to leap off the couch.
He grinned. “You weren’t saying that when they were on your chest.”
“Chest and waist are two very different regions, Dr. Ice Knuckles.”
He snorted. “You can’t make up nicknames during sex. That’s gauche.”
I scowled. “If we’re having sex and a perfect nickname presents itself, you’re stuck with it, simple as that.
” I cocked a brow, intent on proving that he wasn’t always in charge, then realized what I’d just said.
“I mean, when we have sex, assuming you want to have sex, because I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Benj, I’m naked. We’re having sex. Now, stop talking, get naked, and decide whether I’m sucking you or you’re sucking me first.”
I blinked a few times.
He stared.
General Tso yowled.
“I believe the emperor just kicked us out of the throne room.” Peter smirked. “Now, stand up, get out of those jeans, and get your naked ass into the bedroom before I get bossy and punish you.”
My eyes must’ve popped wide, because Peter burst out laughing.
“I’m joking, Benji. Jesus. You know me better than that by now.”
“I thought I did . . . right up to the part where you pulled out a whip and threatened to wear leather chaps while you spanked me.”
He laughed. It was his easy laugh, the open one that held nothing back, the one I knew meant he wasn’t clinging to his life raft or hiding behind any shield. I wanted to crawl inside that laugh and live in it forever.
But he shoved me aside, stood, and sauntered his naked ass past me and into the bedroom.
“Last one in has to bottom,” he called down the hall.
I’ve never been so glad to come in second in my life.