Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

I slid my hands under his sleeves as I massaged his upper arms, feeling the improbably smooth skin overlying lightly sculpted muscle. I wasn’t quite brave enough to ask him to take his shirt off, scared my voice would break the spell, cut short the moment we were suspended in.

He kept making these obscene sounds, and they went straight to my dick.

I slid my hands forward a little, massaging the fronts of his shoulders and along his collarbones. Then I leaned in and kissed his neck. He gasped and tensed for a moment, but though I was sure that he would pull away now, he relaxed when I started massaging again. I squeezed his upper arms and leaned down again, kissing the other side of his neck. This time he didn’t tense as much. I rubbed his shoulders and nuzzled his neck, kissed under his ear, along his hairline and down the other side of his neck to where it met his shoulder.

The top of his chair could swivel, and I turned him to face me. His face was impossible to read. He looked relaxed, but it all seemed like it could shatter at any moment. Moving as slowly as I could, I slid in front of him and kept massaging his shoulders from the front. He looked at me, eyelids heavy in relaxation. Then his eyes fluttered shut as I slid my fingers into his hair and massaged the base of his neck. I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the mouth.

He jerked back, startled, and looked at me.

I went back to massaging his shoulders, even though every atom of my being yearned for him. I was stupidly turned-on. I slid my hand around the back of his neck into his hair and leaned in again, kissing him deeper. This time, he kissed me back, the press of his mouth sending my heart racing, and I slid into his lap, twining my arms around his neck.

He tasted like the Honey Nut Cheerios he’d been eating, which I found ridiculously endearing. I could imagine kissing him after he ate breakfast, sending him out the door to work and tasting his cereal on my tongue even after he was gone.

Finally, his pencil clattered on the floor and his arms came around me. He rubbed up and down my back at first, then slid a hand into my hair, holding our faces together as we kissed. It was slow and sweet until Will pulled me closer and I could feel how turned-on he was. The idea that I could turn Will on flushed heat through me and made me strain against him. It was incredible. He was so beautiful. And talented. And… Will-like. I was just… me.

Will groaned into my mouth and pulled back, looking at me with furrowed brows.

“Don’t stop,” I said quietly.

He framed my face with his hands. “We can’t do this.”

“Do what?” I asked, smiling, and I leaned back in to try and kiss him again.

He looked at me intently, like he was going to say something serious, but then he just ran his thumb across my eyebrow and down my cheek.

“You’re supposed to be studying,” he said, finally, and gently eased me back onto my seat. He bent back over his work without another word, the slight tremble in the hand he used to rake his hair back the only indication he was anything but completely relaxed.

Chapter 5

November

BY THE time Charles slouched into our room around eleven the next morning, I was in a full-on panic about my physics project. What was due at the midterm mark was the proposal and a bibliography for what would be my final project. I’d had a frustrating meeting with the teaching assistant who was in charge of my discussion section about it during his office hours last week but had thought we’d worked things out.

Now I was staring at my e-mail in disbelief because he’d just responded to say that I needed to completely reconceive my project.

I barely noticed that Charles was wet until I heard him kind of squelch across the room.

“Is it raining?” I craned to see out the window, but no, it was clear outside.

“I need your help,” Charles said. This was just kind of how Charles talked, and there was no point in asking for clarification because then he’d actually explain what he was doing, which would take longer than whatever he needed in the first place.

“Does it have to be right now?”

“Now would be ideal.”

“Uh, should I assume I’m going to end up soaking wet?”

“It’s a distinct possibility.”

I sighed my you’re-lucky-I’m-the-best-roommate-in-the-history-of-roommates sigh, which was completely lost on Charles, as I pulled on already dirty clothes and shoved my feet back into my Vans. If nothing else, at least Charles’ random excursion would distract me from my physics drama.