Page 17 of Toren

“You don’t have to blow it away from me, you know,” he said, stretching out his legs and taking a swallow of Corona. “I don’t mind it.”

“Most people do.”

“Most of the time I’m most people,” he said. “But apparently not with you.”

Toren eyed him, taking a drag and exhaling the smoke directly into his face. Andrew let out a low groan, shivering as the smoke washed over him. Toren chuckled under his breath, and Andrew opened his eyes.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Toren told him.

He swallowed hard. “Is that good?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

Andrew took another drink of his beer, hiding the frown when Toren blew his next inhale toward the wall and not his face again. It was fine, he told himself. He couldn’t have it all. The last exhale had made him a little lightheaded, but he liked it. Too much and he would lose his mind for Toren in what would likely be an embarrassing and messy kind of way. He needed to think about something else.

Anything else.

“You don’t have any tattoos, do you?” he asked.

Toren held the cigarette between his lips—no hands—in the most obscenely attractive way, reaching for his beer with one hand and scratching the back of his neck with the other.

“No,” he answered. “Riggs didn’t own his shop when my brother was alive.”

“But he tattooed then?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it rude to ask⁠—”

“Heart failure,” Toren interrupted, brow knit together. “There was nothing anyone could have done.”

“Have you told Riggs that?”

Toren’s eyes went wide and his head snapped to the side. “What do you mean?”

“You and him haven’t been close since your brother. I figured there was some…never mind.” Andrew chased down anything else he wanted to say with enough beer to make him choke. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re not wrong. We’re getting there.”

Andrew exhaled out his nose. “I was trying to change the subject so I’d stop thinking about how much I want to fuck you again, but I just made things weird instead.”

Toren smiled at him, reaching over and brushing their mouths together in a kiss that tasted like hops and tobacco. Andrew closed his eyes and leaned into it, content to let Toren have his way as deep and long as he wanted.

“Do you want to know a secret?” Toren asked, leaning back only enough to take one more drag off his cigarette before smashing the butt into the ashtray.

“Tell me.”

Toren was back, lips against lips, and he kissed Andrew harder that time, exhaling the smoke into his mouth as their tongues tangled.

“I’ve never wanted to top anyone as much as I want to top you.”

Andrew shivered, a full-body thing that would have taken him out at the knees if he’d been standing. Toren smiled against his mouth and pulled back, eyes hazy with want.

“Not tonight,” Toren murmured, taking another drink of his beer. “Soon, though. I hope.”

“Yes, please.”

“I can’t decide if I like it better when you’re bossy or agreeable.”