Page 89 of The Way Back Home

He steps under the spray and tips his head back, water running down his face and over his chest, and I’m staring. Staring at the way the water pours over the contours of his body, in the hollows of his collarbones, streaming down the groove between his pectorals.

“You coming or not?”

I blink. He’s looking back at me from under the water, his brow raised, his wet hair slicked back from his forehead.

I swallow.

I push my boxers off and step in.

The shower stall was designed for one person. With two of us it’s a complex problem of elbows and hips and my bare back bumps against his chest as I step under the water, the contact sending a jolt up through my spine. I move forward quickly, tipping my face into the spray, letting it flatten my hair and pour over my closed eyes. I focus on the sensation of water. Just water. Hot and drumming against my forehead, my shoulders.

I scrub at my arms, soap lathering between my fingers, running it down over my chest, my stomach. The steam curls around us and the small space traps the heat, the air thick and damp. I can feel him behind me. The warmth he gives off, separate from the water, a presence at my back that I’m more aware of than I’ve ever been in my life.

Ryowoon reaches past me for the soap.

His arm grazes my side, the inside of his forearm sliding against my ribs, and then his hip presses against mine as he leans, his body fitting against me for just a second, skin on skin, warm and wet and slick. The contact is brief, incidental, just the physics of two people in a space meant for one.

I’m hard instantly, my cock thickening and rising, blood rushing south so fast my head swims. I clench my jaw and turn away, angling my hips toward the wall, my face burning. Bite the inside of my lip hard enough to hurt and will it to stop, just stop, go back down, but my body isn’t listening to me. My body is responding to the press of his hip against mine and the smell of his skin and the sound of his breathing in the steam.

His hand closes around my shoulder.

“What are you turning away for?”

His voice is low and gruff behind me, close to my ear, and his grip turns me. I try to resist, my hands coming up, one arm crossing over my front in a pathetic attempt to cover myself.

“Ryowoon, don’t—”

But he’s already turned me, and his eyes drop. Down my chest, down my stomach, to where my cock stands flushed and obvious between us, hard enough that there’s no pretending, no explaining it away as a reflex or a coincidence or anything other than what it is.

The water beats down on both of us. Steam billows. I can’t breathe.

I force myself to look up. It takes everything I have, every bit of nerve, to lift my gaze from the tile floor and meet his eyes. I’m ready for the flinch, the step back, the flicker of discomfort that changes everything between us forever. I brace for impact.

Ryowoon’s eyes are dark, but not with disgust or even surprise.

They’re burning. His pupils have blown, and the set of his jaw and the tension through his shoulders sends a spike of heat through me.

He moves so fast I don’t even understand what he’s doing before his mouth is on mine.

One hand grabs the back of my head, fingers sinking into my wet hair, and the other hooks around my waist and yanks me forward. Our bodies collide under the spray, chest to chest, hip to hip, his mouth slanting over mine and his tongue pushing past my lips before I’ve finished gasping. The noise I make gets swallowed between us.

My shock lasts for maybe two seconds. Then it’s gone, burned away by the fire that tears through me from every point where his body touches mine. I kiss him back with a desperation that surprises me, my hands finding his shoulders, his neck, gripping, pulling him closer. His tongue slides against mine and my hips buck forward as his cock, hard now, presses against mine.

The contact makes us both groan. His cock is hot against mine, the friction of skin on slick skin sending heat curling through my belly, my chest. My fingers dig into the muscles at the back of his neck and his hand tightens in my hair, tilting my head, changing the angle of the kiss until it goes deeper. His other arm locks around the small of my back, pulling my hips flush against his, I feel every inch of him against every inch of me.

He pushes me backward. My shoulders hit the tile wall and the cold bites against my overheated skin, making me gasp against his mouth. Ryowoon pins me there, his body covering mine, one thigh pressing between my legs, his hips rolling against me in a slow, grinding push that drags our cocks together and sends pleasure rippling through my core.

It’s Ryowoon. My best friend. The person who’s known me longer than anyone on this earth. The person I shouldn’t be kissing like I’m trying to crawl inside him.

That thought alone should cool me off. Should make me pull back, put my hands up, laugh it off as a weird moment and blame the hot water and the close quarters. But it doesn’t. It makes me burn hotter, and when Ryowoon’s tongue drags along the roof of my mouth I moan around it, my fingers curling into his wet hair, pulling him closer.

We stumble out of the shower without turning it off. The water’s still running, steam pouring through the gap in the bathroom door as Ryowoon walks me backward through the hallway, his mouth never leaving mine, our feet leaving wet prints on the floor. My hip catches the doorframe going into his bedroom and I barely feel it, too focused on the taste of him, the way his teeth catch my lower lip, the grip of his hand at my waist. My calves hit the edge of his mattress and I go down, landing on my back on the sheets, the cotton instantly damp beneath my wet skin.

Ryowoon kneels above me.

Water drips from his hair onto my chest. His skin gleams, flushed from the shower, his breathing coming fast, his ribs expanding and contracting. His cock is hard between his thighs, curving up toward his stomach, twitching when his eyes run down my body. I know that look. I’ve seen it a thousand times on his face in a thousand different contexts: before a fight, before a sprint, before he launched himself at something with every bit of reckless, unhinged energy he possessed. That wild gleam in his eyes, the one that always meant I’m going and you can’t stop me.

But it’s aimed at me now. Aimed at my body, naked and spread beneath him on his bed.