Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

“Why did you really want me to try this stuff on? You know I wouldn’t wear it.”

“Just for fun,” he said, but his voice sounded like he was having the opposite of fun.

“I don’t believe you.” I stepped forward again, putting Will’s back against the door. “Seriously. Why?”

I could feel it again. That heat. That pull between us like it was taking more energy to keep our bodies apart than it would to allow their collision. How did that fit with your first law, Newton? We might’ve been at rest, but everything in us was straining together, like only this skin was keeping us from getting all messed up in each other.

Will’s breath came a little short as I stared at him. Somehow, looking at him this close up, his perfect beauty fell apart and reformed into something different. No longer was it about proportion and line and angle. Up close, Will was texture and shadow and something far more human. I could smell him. The familiar, slightly milky smell of the coffee shop. Beneath that, some subtle cologne that smelled like expensive suits and garden parties and maybe just a hint of leather. The slight sour bite of fresh sweat. And then his skin, like dust warmed in a beam of sunlight.

His eyes locked on my mouth and his hands came up like he wanted to put them on my hips but was stopping himself, so they just hovered there.

“See,” I said, and it came out as a whisper.

Will shook his head but his eyes didn’t leave my mouth. I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth and watched his Adam’s apple slide and catch in an audible swallow.

I wanted to press him against the dressing room door and kiss him until he actually talked to me, the way he’d started to do in Holiday. But it was like he’d gotten enough time apart from me for whatever spell Holiday wove to have fallen away. Or maybe it was as simple as he had needed someone to talk to in Holiday and Rex was occupied so it became me by default, and now that he was back in New York I was just… I don’t know.

But I could feel this—whatever it was—between us.

“Will.”

He was almost glaring at me, like a super turned-up version of The Look. And for some reason it made me ridiculously happy, because with Will, any response other than haughty neutrality was a step in the right direction.

“Hey, kiss me,” I said, nudging him, and watched his battle with himself play out over his face.

He stared at me, breathing through his nose, having come, apparently, to no decision whatsoever.

“Okay, I’m going to kiss you now if you don’t stop me,” I said, which actually sounded a little creepy of me.

But he didn’t stop me. And he didn’t seem creeped. He just closed his eyes and sighed a little and I didn’t know what he was thinking. Now that we were the same height, I just stepped into him and pressed our mouths together.

The second I kissed him he came alive, a sparkler touched by a match. He made a sound in the back of his throat and pulled me against him with a palm at the small of my back, just above those damn pants. His mouth was hot, and I could taste his coffee from earlier, a bitter note that gave way almost immediately to the sweetness of his taste.

I remembered it, even all these months later, and it tasted like home.

Will had his arms around me now, wrapping me up so tight I almost couldn’t move. He pushed one hand through my hair to hold my face to his while he—holy shit—while he kissed the hell out of me. One second I was kissing him, and the next he’d flipped me, slammed me against the dressing room door, and was basically eating my face. Only, you know, in a good way. An awesome way.

It felt nothing like my make-out session with Milton. Even when Milton had touched my cock I hadn’t felt as electrified as I did from Will’s kiss. I scrabbled at his back, trying to… something—to touch skin or trace muscle, but it was really all I could do to keep my feet under me with Will’s mouth on mine. Finally, he tickled the roof of my mouth with his tongue, just gently stroked it, and I found myself so close to coming that it shocked me. I let out a groan and tried to grab for his hips, desperate to get some friction.

Then I realized that I was wearing these stupid white pants that I’d probably have to pay like five hundred dollars for if I came in them, and I pulled my hips away, groaning at the loss of his heat.