His entire being recoils like I’ve hit him. “What?”
I shake my head, so he knows this isn’t coming out how I want it to. Find his hands and squeeze them so he knows I’m trying. But as sharp and alive as I feel, the right words don’t come and I don’t want any more wrong ones loose.
“Easy.” Sol grips my hands as tight as I grip his. “You’re not forcing anything on me. I just…why? Why now?”
I don’t know. Everything and nothing between us has changed, but I don’t know when or why or how. Just that it has. That itis, and I know with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything that it won’t change back. “I don’t know why.” I speak the thoughts aloud. Let them grow. “It’s like I woke up one day with a lit firework inside me, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel that sudden, because it’s you—because it’sus, Sol, and it feels so fucking right.”
Sol’s eyes redden. He turns away, squeezing them shut, and it scares me worse than anything.
I bring my hand to his jaw again, like I did in the hallway, and honestly, I don’t mean to be as rough as I am. But my clumsy touch seems to ignite something in Sol. A tortured sound escapes him and he opens his eyes, bringing that bronze-brown gaze back to me.
“Which part, Jack? Which part of it feels right?”
“All of it.”
“All of it?”
“Aye. You don’t believe me?”
For a long moment, Sol says nothing, and even as the sky outside bleeds from black to blue his face is hard to read. Then he leans into my touch and his tongue snakes out, catching the inside of my wrist with a barely there swipe that almost takes my feet from under me. “I believe you.”
Relief batters me. But it’s eclipsed as fast as the space between us and we come together again, entwining, tangling, hishands on my chest, mine at his throat and his jaw as if they’ve always been there.
I crowd him without meaning to. Pull him from the door and spin us so he’ll tumble onto my bed if I can’t control myself.
My bed.
Fuck.
Arousal pummels me and we’re not even kissing. And then we are and I’m not entirely sure how it happens. Just that it does and it heals me as much as it wakes me the fuck up.
I kiss Sol harder than I did in the hallway.
Rougher.
I take the towel from his hands and grip his jaw tighter, and it’s deliberate this time, even if I don’t know it. Even if I have no clue how deep Sol’s snatched breath is going to hit me.
Christ, it’s like my body has been waiting my whole life for him to make that low, wrecked sound. For it to show me a truth about myself I’ve never thought to look for. I back him to the bed and he goes down with the fluidity and grace I’ve been hooked on our whole fucking lives. Gravity takes me with him and falling onto his hard, masculine frame is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
He feels so good beneath me.
So strong and warm as energy crackles between us like dry tinder about to spark.
I’m so hard.
So is he, and it feels…I don’t know. I flex my hips on instinct and groan. Fuck. Yeah. Okay. That feels fucking good too.
We’re still kissing, lip-locked as if air means nothing to us. To me, anyway. I don’t want to suffocate Sol. I break away so he can breathe and get my reward in his flushed face and wide eyes dark with want.
I brace a hand on the mattress, fighting to keep steady. Skim his bare chest with the other, skating lower with each pass, ghosting down his abdomen. “Can I touch you?”
Sol swallows. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I fucking want to.”
He tugs at my t-shirt. I take the hint and yank it off, tossing it to the floor, and it feels like stripping another layer of murky film from my brain.
We’re skin to skin.