Page 46 of Comfort Read

The nerves fall away from Sage’s smile as it stretches into a hungrier expression, his eyes darkening with desire. “Okay,” he whispers, and leans in again.

This time Kit has gathered enough of his wits—if only barely—to kiss back. He tries to press closer as he opens his mouth under Sage’s, then makes a frustrated sound as his seat belt cuts into his waist, holding him crucial inches away from the full-body contact he desires. Sage’s hand snakes down and unbuckles it; the instant he’s free Kit surges forward, his higher thinking skills falling away. He slides a hand along the side of Sage’s neck, a guttural moaning sound he’s never heard himself make escaping him when Sage’s tongue flicks out to stroke lightly against his own. Kit pulls Sage’s lower lip into his mouth, capturing it between his teeth and scraping gently across it. When Sage releases a moan of his own, Kit abandons all sense of decorum and propriety, and moves to straddle him.

He has no idea how long the remaining drive takes. He forgets to look out the window, to check and make doubly sure the partition between them and the driver is closed, to consider what on earth will happen when they arrive at Kit’s hotel. He has better things to think about, like Sage’s hands on his hips, holding Kit in place as Sage grinds up against him, his eagerness not only impossible to miss but likely straining the seams of his designer jeans. Kit finds he’d like to rip those jeans off Sage, along with his shirt, his underwear, and anything else he might be wearing. He’d like to litter the streets of Los Angeles with expensive shreds of fabric, even though it would leave a trail behind them that any stupid photographer could follow—let them see, as far as Kit’s concerned. Let them take a picture of Kit with his head tipped back, his fingers sunk into Sage’s hair, gasping like he’s seen God as Sage bites and sucks at Kit’s neck. Let them take a dozen photos, a thousand; let them be published in every newspaper. Let them hang in the Louvre, since surely this is the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to Kit, or maybe anyone who’s ever lived. It would be worth the exposure, the embarrassment, to have Sage completely bare beneath him. For that matter, it would be worth the exposure just to keep doing this, fully clothed though they are, right up until the moment Kit’s brain finally explodes from the sheer, filthy joy.

At some point, the car stops. Kit’s not sure what point that is, because he’s not registering anything outside his immediate sphere of reach—he can’t imagine anything that would be worth diverting his attention. He only realizes they’re not moving anymore when Sage pulls back from him just enough to speak, presses their foreheads together, and murmurs, “You want to take this somewhere with a little more space? Not that I’m not enjoying this, but there are a few things I’d like to do to you that would be more comfortable on a mattress.”

Kit shivers with pleasure at this thought, but: “Only a few?”

“To start, anyway.” Sage leans in, catches Kit’s earlobe between his teeth, and drags it lightly downward. Heat tingles down Kit’s spin as Sage, his breath warm against Kit’s ear, admits in a low voice, “I don’t know that I’ll last long enough for everything I’d like to do to you, at least not on our first run. I’m only a man, and it has been a long time. You might have to give me a couple of days. Weeks, maybe. That list is… not short.”

“God, Sage,” Kit breathes. “That’s a disgustingly hot thing to say to me; are you trying to give me an aneurysm? ‘So horny his brain exploded’ is an embarrassing thing to have on your death certificate. You have to promise you’ll shoot me or something after it happens, to cover it up.”

“Maybe we put the idea of you dying to one side for now, what do you say?” It would come across as a rebuke if Sage didn’t sound so amused, so fond of him. “It doesn’t exactly strike an uplifting note.”

“I mean, if you ask the French, every orgasm is a little death—but sure, roger that.” Kit’s briefly proud to have managed this moment of wit in such mind-blowing circumstances. Then Sage pulls him down into another kiss, and he forgets about wit, French, and death entirely.

“Okay, seriously,” Sage gasps, a few minutes later. “A bed, or a couch—a bigger floor, even. I need us to be somewhere horizontal, stat.”

“Right.” Kit blinks, his mind scrabbling to access a single thought. He snatches at one as it floats past—their intended destination, his hotel—and without glancing away from Sage, he lowers his voice into what he hopes is a sexy growl and asks, “Do you want to come up?”

Smirking, Sage says, “I mean, yes, but it’s my house. I think probably I should be the one asking you that question.”

Before Kit can respond to this, or glance out the window to work out where they actually are, Sage is moving. He reaches out with one hand to open the door and then, in a trick of physicality Kit intends to study by replaying the moment in his mind until his final days, slides over with Kit still straddling him, swings his legs out of the car, and stands, lifting Kit up with him. On instinct Kit wraps his legs around Sage’s waist, a thrill shuddering through him at how easily Sage handles him, carrying Kit away from the car as though Kit weighs nothing at all. All that time at the gym to keep himself looking like an action figure, Kit thinks giddily, and then: I can’t believe that I have to be grateful to those Red Vector movies after all.

He only has the barest handful of seconds to process where they are: walking up the driveway of a huge, wood and glass house in the mid-century modern style. Sage said this was his house, he realizes at a few moments’ delay. For a second this overwhelms him—that Sage trusts him that much, that he’s finally going to see this aspect of Sage’s life that’s been kept private, remote. Then Sage captures his mouth again, and Kit’s overwhelmed in a different, better, decidedly more physical way. He throws his arms over Sage’s shoulders and squeezes with his thighs for better leverage, his skin suddenly hot and over-tight. He never realized, before now, that such a feeling could be so deeply delightful.

“It’s a gorgeous house,” Kit pants, resting his forehead against the side of Sage’s cheek when Sage pulls out of their kiss again, this time to punch in the code that opens the front door.

“You should have told me you were bringing me here. I could have brought, uh… a housewarming gift?”

“I moved in four years ago, so you’d be a little late.” The minute the lock disengages, Sage steps through the door, kicks it shut behind him, and presses Kit against the nearest wall, kissing him again. Kit loses track of himself for a while, his legs eventually releasing their grip on Sage to slide down and so his feet hit the floor. He needs the leverage, and also to free up Sage’s hands to roam gloriously over Kit’s body, stripping him out of his blue-and-green flannel, slipping up under his T-shirt to explore the bare skin of Kit’s torso. Frantically, Kit pulls at the hem of Sage’s sweater until Sage leans away and strips it off, tossing it to one side without even looking at it.

“Jesus,” Kit breathes, getting a look, over Sage’s shoulder, at the interior of the house. It’s hardly the most important thing right now, but: “Just by looking at it I can tell this is the most expensive building I’ve ever been in⁠—”

“I took you to the Getty three weeks ago,” Sage reminds him, shaking his head with a smile. “And the hotel you’ve been staying in⁠—”

“Fine, fine, the most expensive house, then.” Wide-eyed, Kit glances around the open-concept first floor, taking in the glowingly polished wood, the sunken living room, the way all the art on the walls is—“Jesus Christ, is that a fucking Rothko?”

“Yeah, but it’s a long story.” When Kit looks back at Sage, now bare-chested and smirking, his mouth goes bone-dry. “I can tell it to you, if what sounds good to you right now is a long, winding tale about the finance guys on Humplestiltskin, a mistake at a garage sale, and the dangers of drinking during contract negotiations. Or, you know. I could skip ahead, and show you the bedroom.”

“Second thing,” Kit says immediately, though he can’t say the first option holds no appeal. In almost any other circumstance he’d demand the story, but in this context, even an unexpected Rothko is boring.

Sage takes his hand and leads him upstairs, though not with any real speed. They keep getting distracted—it’s almost as though, after all these weeks without doing this, they suddenly can’t bear to stop. Every kiss, every touch, every time Sage tips Kit’s chin up or runs the flat of his hand down Kit’s spine: Each one is a new electrical fire, sending sharp, shivery shocks through Kit’s body.

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” Sage murmurs against his mouth at one point, grinding against him with such abandon that it’s almost a convulsion. Kit has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from coming just from that: the idea of this man, who has featured in Kit’s own fantasies since the mortifying teenage years he spent wearing headgear to finish realigning the jaw he shattered in childhood, wanting him.

It shouldn’t feel so good. It’s never felt this good before, good enough to make him forget about the Rothko, to ignore the unbelievably incredible views of Los Angeles through every floor-to-ceiling glass window. Granted, Kit’s only ever been with a handful of other people, but he and Emerson were together a long time, and until today Kit had thought sex was one area where they’d muddled along just fine.

If this is how these things are supposed to feel, however, then he and Emerson had muddled along terribly. They’d been crap at it, utterly garbage. Kissing Sage—just kissing him—is so much hotter, so much more thrilling, than even the filthiest things he and Emerson ever tried together that Kit could burst into tears right here in this multimillion-dollar home.

He wouldn’t, of course. He’s too happy. But he could.

When they do finally make it to the bedroom, it’s not what Kit would have expected. There are no movie posters, or paintings by incredibly famous artists, on the walls; there aren’t black silk sheets on the bed; there’s nothing about it to indicate it’s the bedroom of one of the most well-known celebrities on Earth. It’s just warm terracotta-colored walls, and crisp white bedlinens, and a large, green glass lamp next to an Eames chair and a selection of bookshelves.

“Listen, if this is actually a guest room where you take all your conquests, don’t tell me ’til after.” Kit’s joking—though it’s not what he’d imagined, the room feels like Sage. “My ego’s having such a good day; it doesn’t want to know about any richer and more famous people who may have visited this house in similar circumstances.”

But Sage catches his gaze, holds Kit within the line of those impossibly blue eyes as though he’s caught in a tractor beam. “Nope. It’s my bedroom, and I told you—I’ve lived here four years. I stopped dating before that. There haven’t been any conquests, Kit. When we’re done, the only person I’ll ever have fucked in here will be you.”