Larkin still sat on Doyle’s thighs, watching as he lifted his hips, yanked the shirttails from his trousers, and hastily undid the remaining buttons. Doyle began to sit up to pull the shirt from his shoulders, but Larkin pushed him down again, kissed his mouth, sucked his tongue, and drew a throaty moan from him. Doyle dug his fingers into Larkin’s back, kneaded his ass, tugged blindly at his clothes, eager for the attention.
“You won’t have sex with me.”
“One more of those and I’ll need a cold shower.”
Larkin ground their mouths together—teeth and tongue, spit and hot breath.
“You recently became a pill-popper.”
“You don’t kiss me like this very often.”
Larkin flinched at the simultaneous recollections of spite and dread, of guilt and nothingness, reached between them, and touched Doyle through his trousers with sure and confident strokes.
Doyle broke the wet kiss with a gasp, exhaling a shaky, “Oh fuck.”
Larkin didn’t give him the chance to catch his breath and found Doyle’s mouth again.
Doyle snaked his arms through Larkin’s, wrapped them around his back, and tugged at him again.
Only this time, Larkin lost his balance and dropped on top of Doyle, their bodies flush together, molded into each other’s every curve and bend until Larkin couldn’t tell where he started and Doyle ended.
Doyle broke their kiss a second time. He stared at Larkin for only a few seconds, but it felt like forever and a day before he asked, “Are you… not in the mood?”
“I want to do this for you,” Larkin answered before caressing Doyle again.
Doyle made a sound that was one-part surprise, three-parts neediness, but then wrapped his hand around Larkin’s wrist and stopped him. “Hang on—”
Larkin got on his knees and said in a rush, “Just let me go down on you.”
“Whoa,” Doyle said as he sat up. “Can we call timeout for a minute?”
Larkin’s shoulders slumped as he stared at Doyle: hair a tangled mess, face swept with a darkly blush, lips swollen from an onslaught of kisses, and looking good enough to eat.
Any other man would’ve been halfway to heaven already.
But not Larkin.
“I’m such a fucking freak.” He dropped down onto the mattress face-first and stayed there.
The bed shifted as Doyle lay down on his back, their shoulders touching. He said quietly, “I thought… maybe you were feeling some biological imperative after being shot at.”
Larkin snorted into the blankets.
“Evie, if you’re not ready—”
Larkin turned his head. “In an attempt to classify the overall quality and success of relationships concerning unmarried couples, a 2014 study interviewed just under 11,000 people as to when sex was introduced into their relationship. Thirty-five point five percent reported having sex within less than a month of dating. A newer survey, but taken from a sample of only thirteen hundred people, reports ten percent have sex within the first week and nineteen percent within the first month. The methodology is problematic, as both failed to identify what constitutes as sex, nor did they attempt to parse out from the collected data any notable differences found in heterosexual versus homosexual dating, but my point is—” Larkin faltered suddenly, his eyes welling with tears. He shifted onto his side and tried again. “My point is, when couples have sex, it’s an act representative of how partners feel about each other. And I’m so incapable of expressing myself, how else will you know what I feel, if I can’t do this one fucking thing for you?”
Doyle’s expression took on a certain dreamy quality, reminiscent of the soft-focus technique seen in classic Hollywood films. He rolled onto his side, thumbed away Larkin’s tears, and said, “Words are always a good place to start.” He kissed Larkin with such gentleness and such regard—shared breath filling in the cracks with a mortar made of whispers under twinkling lights, nine arches and one whorl memorizing skin and bone, and studies of gold in gray and gray in gold.
He said, stroking Larkin’s ash-blond hair, “The methodology of those surveys is problematic because love isn’t quantifiable. Every relationship, every couple—the experiences are so unique. I mean, how could you make averages and percentages out of what we have?”
“We’ve been dating for twenty-one—”
“That survey takesnothingof the human element into account.” Doyle sighed and put a hand to Larkin’s chest, absently stroking through his shirt. “I love sex, but for me, it’s never just been about getting off. It’s about the intimacy and intensity of being in that moment with someone. Sharing vulnerability through touch is what makes me feel good. I know that sounds hokey, but it’s the truth. I appreciate what you were trying to do for me, but… that’s an experience I want us to share.”
“I’ve already made you wait three weeks, Ira.”
“That’s really not that long.”
