I used to hate how perfect he is, but now that I see all of him—his flaws, his pain, his hurt, his tragedy, his perseverance—I realize his perfection comes from all those broken bits, like fractured stained-glass windows pieced together to make something new, something entirely different and a hundred times more beautiful.
“. . . three . . .”
So what if I’m not his usual type? So what if, up until him, I’ve believed I was straight? All I know is that if I don’t try, I might be letting the most perfect thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of holding slip right through my fucking fingers.
“. . . two . . .”
I bring my free hand to his throat, tip his head using my thumb and index finger on either side of his jaw, tug him closer to me—
“. . . one . . .”
—and press my lips against his.
“Happy New Year!”
Tahegin leans into me, not pulling away as I feared he might. Our mouths move together the same way our hands and body fit, perfect and without conscious thought. He’s all warmth and light, firm pressure but oh-so-soft lips. I revel in the feel of him and the fact that he is responding as ardently as I am.
Kissing has never felt this good before. It has never sent electricity buzzing from my mouth to my stomach to my toes, shocking me everywhere Tahegin and I touch. I’m hyperaware of every breath he feverishly gasps in during the half seconds we part, never taking too long to come back together. There’s a heavy thudding against my breastbone, though who it belongs to is a mystery. We’re pressed so close, so tight, that it could be either of our frantic hearts.
I latch onto his full bottom lip, nipping and sucking instead of letting him retreat for air. He gasps, then groans, and I immediately want to hear more. I need to hear more. This very damn second.
Licking into his mouth, I glide my tongue over the flat plain of his and am rewarded when he loses all self-control. One moment, he’s straining to kiss me over his shoulder, and the next, he’s swinging a leg over me to straddle my thighs. When did I lower my knee? When did we release our clasped hands? How did my hands find purchase on his hips?
Though I have no idea how we ended up like this, I am not at all displeased. My fingers dig into the muscles of his sides, thumbs brushing the thin skin over his hip bones. His weight rests low on my thighs, nowhere near high enough to lend friction to my groin, but that’s fine. I’m not sure I’d be able to go any further than this tonight. There are so many things to consider about being intimate with Tahegin, the main point being that, as far as I am aware, I’m not his type.
Oh, please, for the love of God, do not let him be pity-kissing me.
Dragging my mouth away from his is like willingly putting my hand into a fire, asking to be burned, but somehow I manage. Tahegin has a harder time with it, and he proceeds to trail teasing bites across my jaw, then open-mouth kisses down the column of my throat. He sucks the skin lightly, pulling a rumble from my chest that would have been a purr if I was a cat.
Jesus, I’m like putty in his hands.
Hands that—oh fuck—are sliding beneath my shirt and tracing my abs with wicked and clever fingers. Every muscle in my stomach clenches as he gently scrapes his fingernails through the strip of hair between my navel and the waistband of my pants.
“T,” I groan, my voice all gravelly and guttural. He’s turned me into a primal beast, stripped to my base desires, and I want to give in, but . . . “Tahegin, don’t—mm—don’t do this out of pity, please. I . . . I won’t be able to handle it if you say this means nothing.”
He jerks back, and I’m met with the beautiful sight of his kiss-swollen lips. His eyes, though—his eyes are full of hurt. “Pity?” He spits the word like poison on his tongue.
Swallowing hard against the lump in my throat, I avoid looking directly at him. His damn eyes are so expressive I don’t want to see the moment he realizes this isn’t what he wants. “I know there’s . . . Look, I’m new to-to this”—I gesture between us—“but I know there’s a . . . preference. I know about tops and bottoms, and I-I don’t know, you know?”
Tahegin’s palm cups my cheek, and he gently turns me to face him, meeting my gaze with nothing but pure compassion. “Rix, honey, you aren’t making any sense. You know, but you don’t know?”
“Right.”
“Hendrix.”
“I’ve never been with a man,” I whisper. “I’ve never even watched gay porn, though I guess now I should, huh? Might learn a few things, maybe. But, T, I . . . I don’t know how to be intimate with a guy, and I certainly don’t know if I’ll enjoy being on the bottom—or however you say it. Micah and I talked some, and it seems like you prefer more . . . feminine men? Men like Micah. Tahegin, in case you haven’t noticed, I am very much not like Micah. So if you only kissed me back because it was the polite thing to do—or, hell, even the fun thing to do but aren’t looking to do again—then I need us to forget the last however many minutes it’s been since that ball dropped because I can’t do this—know you like this—and never be able to do it again. Okay?”
Of all the things he could do, Tahegin laughs. Not a taunt, but a genuine laugh of relief and giddiness that has his entire face lighting up, his blue eyes sparkling. He grabs my face in both hands. “You want this again? With me?” he asks, half in disbelief and half in joyous surprise.
My eyebrow twitches upward. “Yes?” It sounds more like a question than an answer.
“I thought you might have been trying to just ring in the New Year with whoever happened to be closest.”
I snort at that ridiculous notion. “I have never once kissed someone on New Year’s—it’s too cliché. And I didn’t kiss you because the clock struck midnight, Cinderella. I kissed you because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I leaned into you on Halloween. I almost kissed you that day beside your parents’ pool, too. If I’m being honest, I have been quite hopelessly pining for you for a while now.”
Tahegin’s mouth falls open comically wide. “You like me?”
“I do.”
“I thought I leaned into you on Halloween. And beside the pool. I have been hopelessly pining after you because I thought you were straight.”
Sheepish, I muster a grin. “I thought I was, too. Surprise, I guess?”
He groans loudly, tipping his face toward the ceiling. “Two months—at least. We could have been kissing for two months already!”
Taking his hands in mine, I press a kiss to his palms before holding them against my chest. “Is it okay?” I ask. “That I might not be a bottom?”
“You seem very concerned about this.”
“It seems important.”
“It is,” he considers. “But it isn’t everything. Besides, you don’t need to worry about that. I want to take things slow with you since you are a baby bi”—that’s a new one for the books, but okay—“and I don’t want to overwhelm you. Plus, if we’re both serious about this, we shouldn’t rush into it anyway. Now for when we do eventually get there . . .” He swoops down, lips brushing against my ear as he breathes, “You’re exactly the type of man I bottom for, Rix.”
I shudder, and I am fully aware of the prominent tent in my pants that hasn’t disappeared since we began kissing. That throaty whisper he just said in my ear is going to aid my hand tonight, much to my pleasure. “So, does taking it slow include making out tonight?” My voice is winded like I’ve just run back-to-back marathons.
Tahegin laughs his beautiful, contagious laugh, and instead of responding, he simply dives in and claims my mouth with his. “God, you’re such a good kisser,” he mumbles against my lips.
“That’s what Micah said.”
