Page 278 of What We Burn

Holden drops to one knee. Not with the flourish of a man proposing. More like a guy tying his shoe before a murder. His hands are big, practical. He undoes my fly with zero fanfare or hesitation. My waistband pops open, and I expect some slow-motion, careful build-up, but Holden skips straight to the point.

I grip the counter because my knees decide now is the perfect time to consider mutiny.

He takes me out without hesitation, brings my dick into the cool kitchen air, and wraps his hand around the base. His palm is calloused and hot, and the contrast is immediate and brain-melting.

And then—oh, holy God—he puts his mouth on me.

Holden is the fucking Terminator of oral sex.

I have had a lot of blow jobs in my life. I’ve had my share of wild girls, enthusiastic girls, even a girl who’d remove her teeth at parties to blow guys because it seemed like a fun dare, but this? This is mechanical excellence.

He is relentless. No teasing, no testing, no warm-up. He takes me deep on the first stroke, his hand working the base, his tongue tracing on the underside in a way that makes my knees buckle.

I grab the counter.

His other hand comes up and grips my hip, steadying me, holding me exactly where he wants me. His eyes are open. Blue and focused and completely calm, like this is a task he’s decided to excel at and failure is not an available outcome.

I’m fixated on the sight of him—Holden, on his knees, mouth stretched around my cock, looking up at me like he’s daring me to doubt his competence.

“Oh my God,” I say. Maybe I yelp it, but who’s judging?

Holden’s rhythm is perfect. Efficient. I don’t mean that in a bad way, either. He just knows exactly how to angle his jaw for maximum depth, how to seat his tongue so it lines the underside of me, how to use a combination of suction and hand to produce textbook-grade pleasure. It is the blow-job equivalent of a German luxury automobile: absolutely, relentlessly engineered for excellence. I mean, I believed him when he said he’d done this before. But I didn’t believe-believe it.

I am getting close way too fast.

Sage is watching with rapt, silent attention, and the idea of her—my favorite girl, the only person I have ever truly, permanently wanted—watching me lose my mind over Holden’s mouth threatens to short out my nervous system entirely.

“You look so hot together,” she says, and her voice is warm, delighted, turned on. “Do you like having Holden on his knees for you, Milo?”

I want to tell her it’s not possible to focus on anything except Holden’s mouth. The slick heat of it. The way his throat constricts around me when he takes me deep. The grip of his hand on my hip, steady and unyielding.

My head is spinning and my body is on fire and⁠—

She hops down off the counter, then climbs onto the island behind me, wrapping her arms around my chest and pressing her mouth to my ear.

“You look so fucking hot with your mouth hanging open, baby,” she whispers, and bites my lobe. It’s possible I float an inch off the tiles.

“Oh, fuck,” I whimper, and my hips buck involuntarily. Holden’s eyes tick up to mine, hard and diamond-bright, and without breaking contact he pushes down until my cock hits the back of his throat, then holds.

I come so hard I see the face of God. Or possibly just the skylight. But either way, I white-out for a second, hands locked on the countertop, knees trembling.

Holden’s mouth is as mercilessly thorough on the finish as it was on the approach—he doesn’t even falter at the taste, doesn’t make a show of it, just accepts my orgasm and swallows it down. His jaw works, tongue presses, hand milks me dry, and I have to slap the marble to remember which way is up.

When my brain reboots, Sage is still at my back, her body curved around me, her chin hooked over my shoulder. She’s breathing fast. So am I. Holden stands, wipes his mouth with his thumb, then licks it clean like it’s nothing more than a Fun Dip or a slightly expensive whiskey shot. His gaze finds Sage’s, then mine, and he does something I don’t see a lot of.

He smiles.

“Adequate?” he asks.

“Adequate?” I repeat, my voice approximately two octaves higher than normal. “He asks if it was adequate? Sage? Did you hear that? He just—and then he asked if it was adequate!”

“I heard,” Sage says, reaching past me to grab onto the front of Holden’s shirt and tug him closer. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. And you once bench-pressed me.”

“That was for exercise.”

“Sure it was.” She kisses him. Hard. Deep.

She’s using Holden’s mouth, basically, when she grabs his face and slants her lips onto his, tongue in before he can even process her intent. And the way he groans, low and surprised and completely undone, makes me feel like I could drop dead happy right here in this kitchen.