*****
“Oh, fuck, you’re a clean freak,” Mina comments after being in my flat for less than ten seconds.
“I am not,” I protest as I continue to hug and pet Goldie who bounded up to me as soon as we walked through the door.
“You so are,” she says as she walks through the archway that separates my kitchen and living-dining area. A second-floor apartment in a converted Victorian townhouse, my flat is hardly spacious or grand but it is big enough for me and is nearly always filled with lots of natural light thanks to the huge bay window that is south-facing. As for the state of the place, which Mina is commenting on, I will admit I like to have a tidy space, but I am not about to say that my flat is especially tidy at the moment because I have a tendency to clean it most evenings rather than spend a night sitting alone on the couch watching TV I’m not at all interested in.
“You’re hardly messy,” I remind her.
“No, but I can practically see my reflection in your kitchen floor. That’s next level clean.”
“Saturday is my mopping day,” I call out to her from the living room. I then release a huff of a laugh as I tickle Goldie’s stomach. “Only you could make being clean feel like a bad thing.”
Mina is silent for so long that I look up and walk through to the kitchen. She’s standing with one hand on the worktop, not exactly resting her weight on it, but her ankles are crossed and she looks at me expectantly.
“I don’t want you to feel bad about yourself,” she says in a quiet voice.
I move to stand opposite her, leaning my weight against the fridge. “Mina, that’s almost a compliment… I think.”
She swipes at my chest. “Don’t tell anyone at work. They’ll have to think of a new nickname and that will suck up all their already lacking creative juices.”
Maybe it’s the softness of what she just said, maybe it’s the way she just touched me albeit it fleetingly, but I decide to take a risk. I step closer and slide my hand around her waist.
“And don’t tell anyone there that I’m a clean freak,” I say. “They don’t need any other reason to assume I’m gay.”
Mina doesn’t exactly melt into my touch, but she doesn’t pull away either. She also treats me to a doe-eyed look as she gazes up at me.
“Let’s just not tell work anything about anything, okay?” she suggests.
My gut reaction is one of disappointment, and a little shame. Is she embarrassed of me? Would she hate it if people knew what is happening between us, whatever that is? Does that mean there’s no hope for a future for us?
As these questions bounce around in my head, I miss how Mina inches up on her tiptoes and I don’t realise she’s touching me – her teeth grazing the side of my neck – until it’s actually happening. It makes all the questions disappear. It makes all kind of thought or reason disappear. And it makes me slide my other hand around the other side of her waist and grab her butt and pull her closer to me.
“Mina, I’m going to kiss you now,” I tell her because that still feels like the right thing to do.
“Okay,” she says, her voice airy and light, but she’s nowhere near as breathless as I want her to be.
I dip my head down and find her lips with mine. Pressing my lips against her, I hold back from crushing my mouth to hers and instead focus on loosening her up, opening up her lips to me. I nudge her top lip up with mine, and then I suck slowly on her bottom lip until she’s moaning into my mouth. Mina is the first to introduce her tongue to our kiss and even then, it’s unusually tentative for her. But her gentle swipes across the seam of my mouth don’t last long before I slide my tongue into her mouth, play with the smooth silver of her piercing and apply more pressure with my lips, locking her into place.
She moans again and I swallow it down. My hands glide along her body and grip her body tighter against mine. When one of her hands slips between our bodies and presses up against the ridge of my cock, which is pushed up hard and aching against my fly, it’s my turn to moan. But it comes out as more of a growl. A growl that makes Mina whimper into my mouth once more.
And the switch is flicked.
“Mina,” I say, and I’m panting just as much as I want her to be. “Can I fuck you?”
Mina nods against the top of my head as I bring my hands up to cup her breasts through her T-shirt.
“Going to need a verbal confirmation,” I say before bending down and flicking my tongue over her nipple, still through the cotton of her black T-shirt, and being rewarded for that with another moan.
“Yes, Charlie,” she says and it’s a gasp, a whisper and a sigh all rolled into one breathy noise. “Yes.”
“Thank fuck,” I say.
She pulls back. “Was I that bad?”
“No, you werethatgood. I could quite happily have you fuck me for the rest of my days but part of me would always want to know how warm you are, how wet and slick you would feel, and how tight you would grip me as you come on my dick.”
I watch as Mina’s pupils dilate and it’s like magic, beautiful mind-boggling magic. “Charlie, that mouth…” She stares at my lips. “Fuck me with it. Now.”
