Bromosexual

The kiss itself lasts eight years. A kiss for every year we went not seeing each other. A kiss for every game we didn’t play. A kiss for every ball we didn’t send screaming across the field together.

For every cheese puff he made me eat.

For every joke we could have shared in our early twenties.

For every hug we could have had as college roommates.

For that weird, alternate life we both could have lived, had things been different—a life that, surely, exists in some parallel timeline where I didn’t quit the baseball team senior year.

Stefan Baker is kissing me. And he tastes perfect.

Perfect.

Gently, he pulls away, then opens his bright blue eyes. Stefan is breathing hard like he just swam eight consecutive laps with his head submerged, and he has finally earned his first generous gulp of sweet, delicious oxygen.

He looks terrified. I think.

Or his mind has been blown. Or he sees an anaconda coiling up behind me. Or the kiss somehow made him lose his vision and all he sees are stars and nothing.

I honestly don’t know what’s going through Stefan’s head.

I don’t even know what’s going through mine.

“Okay,” he murmurs softly, barely a breath of a word. “Okay.”

I lift my eyebrows, my lips still pulsing from the kiss. I can feel his mouth on me still even after the kiss has ended.

His hands are on my shoulders. He hasn’t completely pulled away or let go of me.

“Okay,” he breathes again, still staring at me.

“You want to say something other than ‘okay’?” I quietly offer as I determinedly attempt not to freak out.

He seems to consider my question, despite looking positively spooked, and then he says something else unexpected: “I want to do it again.”

“What?”

Stefan pulls my face into his once more, except this time with more fervor.

A lot more fervor.

And I react like any hot-blooded man would: I reach my hands around him and grip tightly, clawing into his skin and melting against his muscular body as the kiss intensifies.

He parts his lips. Out comes his tongue.

It slips inside my mouth and introduces itself to mine. They slide and wrestle together, playing a sweet, teasing harmony to our locking, reddened lips.

I’m out of breath in seconds as I rake my fingertips along his back, pulling on the white tank top. Am I trying to get it off of him properly, or tear it off?

The kiss grows more and more aggressive. I actually worry he might break my teeth or my face, considering his strength.

Stefan would never hurt me.

I think a part of my brain is still in denial, and it knows for a fact—whether it’s fact or not—that this situation is a one-time thing, and it will never, ever happen again. Stefan is a straight guy who is experimenting on me out of his own loneliness and the need for emotional comfort after losing one of the most important things in his life. By continuing this kiss, I am taking advantage of his condition. If I was a good person, I would stop our kiss, look him in the eye, and start a conversation.

My fingers drag down his muscular back and cup his ass.

I am not being a good person right now.

His ass is the stuff of athletic demigods. The fantasy butt of all fantasy butts. This is the ass I have dreamed about all my life—the one that sent a jolt of excitement racing through me every time I got a chance to smack it while we were in our uniforms.

I repeat: Stefan Baker’s ass is in my meager hands.

And it feels fifty times better than any dream I’ve ever had.

To my utter surprise and sexual delight, he lets out a deep and guttural moan when I squeeze his luscious booty.

Moan. I just made Stefan fucking Baker moan.

When he pulls away from this kiss, his teeth come out and he takes my bottom lip between them gently, giving it a soft yet certain nip. He lingers there, holding my lip with his teeth, then lets it go with an evil little smile.

A smile? One corner of Stefan’s mouth is all curled up in that signature cocky way of his, like he just scored a homerun.

When I catch my breath, I finally say, “You kissed me.”

“I totally did,” he murmurs back, his voice full of wonder and his eyes locked on mine.

All the disclaimers and warnings he gave me before the kiss come rushing back. “Was that the reason you just told me you didn’t want to hurt me? Because you just wanted to … kiss me for the heck of it?” I ask gently, my voice not carrying an accusatory tone. “See what it’s like to kiss another dude?”

“Maybe.” He shrugs, his hands sliding down to the small of my back, still holding my body against his. Then he gives me a little wiggle of his eyebrows. “You’re hard as a rock.”