A small breath leaves him.
“This is happening, then.”
Not a question.
I hold his gaze.
“Yeah.”
He gives the faintest nod.
We’re close now.
Close enough that I can see the shift in his expression. The point where the humour drops off and something else takes over.
Before I can say anything else he closes the distance.
And I meet him there.
His mouth is warm when it finds mine.
Softer than I expected, but there’s weight behind it. Intention. Like he’s been holding this back for just long enough to be sure.
For a second it stays there. A test. A question.
Then it shifts.
His hand comes up, catching in the front of my shirt, and that’s it. Whatever line was still there disappears. I step into him, close the space, my hand settling at his waist, pulling him in.
He exhales against my mouth, and I feel it.
Not just the breath. The reaction.
I kiss him again, slower this time, deeper, letting it build instead of rushing it.
There’s a slight drag where our mouths meet, the soft scrape of his goatee against my skin, rough enough to register, not enough to distract. It grounds it. Makes it real in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Philip makes a small sound at the back of his throat, something between a breath and a reaction, and it pulls something sharper out of me.
His grip tightens in my shirt.
I answer it without thinking, my hand shifting at his side, drawing him closer until there’s no space left between us at all.
He leans into it.
Fully now.
No hesitation left.
The kiss deepens again, less controlled, more instinct. My cock hardens. Heat builds quickly, the kind that makes everything else fall away without asking permission.
It’s not just physical.
That part’s easy.
This isn’t.
This is immediate. Unfiltered. Like we’ve skipped something and landed somewhere we weren’t supposed to get to yet.
