Page 78 of Offside Angle

Santi doesn’t answer. His hands close around my thighs instead, and suddenly I’m sliding down the mattress until my body meets his.

The gasp that comes out of me is embarrassingly loud.

Wow.

Okay.

My hands grab at him automatically while my brain scrambles to catch up with whatever my body has apparently already decided about this.

Why the fuck do I like that?

More importantly, why do I like it this much?

“So you kissed Shane first,” Santi murmurs, leaning closer until his mouth brushes the shell of my ear. “Before coming here to kiss me.” His weight settles more firmly over me as he says it, and I swallow hard, suddenly far too aware of the fact that he’s on top of me. “Bold choice, guapo. Should I be jealous?”

This is backwards.

That thought arrives first and refuses to leave. I’m supposed to be the one doing this. I’m used to being the one pinning someone down, deciding where the kiss goes next, knowing exactly what I’m doing and how to get the reaction I want.

Instead, Santi has me flat on my back with his body pressed over mine, and somehow every instinct I’ve relied on for the last thirty years has completely abandoned me.

“Shut up,” I mutter, although there’s not much authority behind it considering my hands have already found his thighs and are gripping them hard enough to anchor me.

Santi laughs against my neck. “Make me.”

He shifts just enough to press me deeper into the mattress, and my fingers tighten before I can stop them. “Or are you too busy realizing you liked kissing me more than you liked kissing Shane?”

“Fuck you.”

“Eventually, maybe.”

Jesus Christ.

I try to buck him off mostly out of principle, but Santi barely moves. He catches the attempt, pushes me back into the mattress, and slides one hand into my hair with maddening patience.

It should annoy me more than it does.

Actually, it does annoy me. Unfortunately, my body seems to have developed its own opinion on the subject, and it is being extremely fucking unhelpful.

“Easy, cariño.” His mouth brushes mine without quite giving me the kiss. “You ran through a hotel barefoot before breakfast just to tell me I’m the only man you want. Let me enjoy that for a minute.”

My face is definitely burning now.

I glare at him because that’s about the only form of resistance I still have left, but I don’t actually try to move him again, and that realization lands harder than I expect.

Not because I want him off.

Because I really fucking don’t.

Santi’s hand leaves my hair and travels slowly down my chest, and every smart-ass response I might have had starts disappearing with it. There’s nothing hesitant about the way he touches me. He isn’t stopping every two seconds to check whether he’s allowed to want me, and somehow that confidence makes everything feel worse in the best possible way.

“Any other men you planning to kiss today, Matteo?” he asks near my ear.

His hand reaches my stomach, and I let out a slow breath, trying to hold on to at least one functioning thought.

Well. If he wants to be an asshole, I can be an asshole too. “Maybe Nico,” I manage. “Pretty sure he’s gay.”

Santi goes still for half a beat.