“Nah. Most of ‘em are asleep,” he answers, “except for maybe Raj finger-banging the air. Don’t ask. Besides, door’s closed, road’s roarin’ tonight with the rain … Anyway, I’ll tell you what I’d do.”
“Yeah?”
“I’d have taken that damp-ass Soul Biter shirt off you, ‘cause nothin’ belongs on your chest unless it’s me or my face.”
“You want to put your face on my chest?” I ask, hand drifting down to my waist.
“I’d like my face in lots of places.”
My hand slips under my waistband and finds my cock, already stirring awake. “Go on.”
“Mm-hmm.” His voice trembles, like he’s shifting around on the bed, too. Are we both doing the same thing? “I sure as hell would’ve kept kissing down your neck.”
“And then?”
“Without that shirt in my way, I would’ve kept goin’. Down, down, down to your chest. Y’know, where I said my face belongs. I already know your neck is sensitive as all hell … made you squirm when I kissed on it …”
“I squirmed?”
“Just about.” He chuckles in my ear. My fingers wrap around my cock and slowly start moving. “I think I’d try and find out what else is sensitive on you …”
“Almost everything,” I blurt.
“Almost everything?” he throws back, sounding amused. “So I guess if I … started mackin’ on your nipples …?”
I let out a sharp sigh as if he did exactly that.
He doesn’t have to sing for his voice to be downright magical in my ears. Austin just has a way with his words. His tongue. His lips. I watched an entire concert of him working the microphone like a lover. Strumming his guitar like a lover. Caressing every lyric with his sultry, hypnotizing melodies that closed around me like strong arms drawing me tightly to his chest.
“And then if I … made my way down your stomach …?”
I’m moving my hand faster inside my underwear. I try not to let out breath after breath, but with each word he says, the less capable I become of holding them in.
“I’ve only held you a few times now,” he reasons, “but I think I could imagine a map of your body, just from those few touches … a map of where I’d like to take my lips next …”
He speaks slowly, carefully, choosing his words like lyrics.
“A journey from one end of your body … to the other …”
His voice is as firm as flesh. Each word, a fingertip. Every pop and crackle of his lips as they open and close upon these words are kisses on my bare skin I can literally feel.
“I wanna take that journey, TJ … I wanna take it from one end of you to the other …”
“I’m ready,” I breathe out, barely capable of speech.
“Can we even wait ‘til we’re in the same room again?” There’s a sweet, glorious pleading in his voice that begs me not to move my hand too fast, not to waste this. “Is that even possible? Or have Ipoppedthe lid off this thing too fast to close it back up?”
I stop moving my hand and open my eyes.
I catch my breath, gazing at the ceiling.
Rain and wind slapping the window.
“Anything’s possible tonight,” I answer him.
“You woke up somethin’ inside me, TJ … somethin’ I damned near forgot was there. And I can’t promise where this is gonna go between us, but I know I want to see it through.”
I’m on the edge of my bed again, feet swung around, eyes on the window, imagining him on the highway in the middle of this storm. “I wanna be on that bus with you right now. I want you to take me away from here … take me on that journey with you.”