Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

My brain had short-circuited somewhere back around the words “best friend,” and now I was struggling to keep up with Will’s logic, which, at its most clear was often inconceivable to me.

“Wonder?”

“If you know that I don’t want a relationship, and you wouldn’t just be thinking of it as sex, then where does that leave us? Because it kind of seems like it’d leave us someplace where you end up feeling like I’ve betrayed you, and I end up losing my friend.”

“That won’t happen, I swear,” I said, but my heart was pounding because with a few sentences Will had pretty much blown to smithereens every avenue I’d thought we might walk down together. “I want to—we like each other, right?” Will hesitated but nodded grudgingly. “And we have fun.” Another nod. “And you know we have a… like, a thing.” I ran my hands up his thighs and felt the energy spark between us. Will bit his lip, eyes never leaving my face. “Sooo….” I nudged his knees a little farther apart and stepped closer, leaning in to kiss him.

“You sure?” he murmured, eyelids going heavy.

“Yeah.”

And this time when I kissed him it was with the full weight of knowledge behind it that this was really going to happen. This wasn’t just We’re kissing now. It wasn’t on an against-all-odds hope that Will might suddenly be taken over by his passion for me and push things further. It was a kiss with intent.

He slid his hands up my arms, squeezing my biceps, holding us together and keeping us apart at the same time, and I pressed myself against him, trying to cast my vote on which way things should go.

“God damn it, Leo!” Will bit off, leaning backward. “Are you sure we should do this?” He looked savage, sprawled across his own counter, hair mussed, and pupils dilated.

Lust blasted through me, but his question seemed sincere, and I made it my duty to obliterate every doubt he might have. I threw myself back against him, kissing him with everything I had.

And Will came alive. His hands were in my hair and running up and down my spine. He kissed like a whirlwind. There was nothing tentative about it anymore. He finally kissed me like he meant it. After a few minutes of a make-out session so hot I was trying not to come in my pants, I pulled away long enough to tug Will down off the counter and over to the couch.

Nothing about being with Milton or Terrence, the guy from my statistics class last year, could have prepared me for how things would be with Will. It was like every sensation I’d ever had was amplified, every millimeter of skin sensitized like it had never been touched before. I felt flushed and light-headed with lust as I buried my face in Will’s neck and kissed under his jaw.

His pulse raced beneath my mouth, and I licked along his neck, unable to get enough of his skin, his heat, his smell. I traced the shell of his ear with my tongue and licked inside, wanting to taste every inch of him.

“Ah, fuck!”

Will was wild. Not like he was trying to seduce me, but like he was desperate to get at me. I wasn’t complaining—hell no—but it was so different from the calm, detached way he’d approached things in the bedroom earlier that it was as if he were a whole different person. Though I don’t know why I was surprised that Will’s shifting personality would show itself in bed as well as out.

I’d pictured the suave Will who dressed impeccably for work, but I was getting whirlwind Will who stomped around the apartment ranting about weird stuff that I’d never imagined anyone could care about.

And I loved it. Because it was real. I wasn’t just another nameless hookup, and this wasn’t something that Will could shrug off, deny, sideline.

His pale skin was perfect, just a few of those dark beauty marks clustered near his belly button and one near his left nipple. I kissed it, sucking his nipple into my mouth, and then bit it lightly. Will groaned and let me kiss my way to his other nipple before he lost patience and rolled us so he was on top of me and pulled my pants down to my knees. He tapped my hip bone.

“You’re so damn skinny,” he muttered.

“Wow, not the moment I want to feel self-conscious,” I gasped.

Will kissed the spot he’d tapped, his lips a soft apology, and I groaned as his chin hit my crotch. I was ridiculously hard just from kissing him. He pressed his face to my crotch and inhaled my smell.

“Fuck, that’s the sexiest thing anyone’s ever done to me,” I said.

Will let out a scornful breath. “Yeah, not the moment to remind me you’re basically untouched.”