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Antonio froze.

His hand was still in Hakeem's hair. His frame was still locked against him. But his eyes had dropped to Hakeem's mouth, and his expression had shifted—the hunger replaced by something that looked, for one unguarded second, like alarm.

"I’m sorry," Antonio said. His voice was wrecked. "I didn't⁠—"

Hakeem kissed him again.

He didn't think about it. He pulled Antonio back in by the front of his shirt and bit his lower lip back—deliberately this time, controlled, just hard enough to make the point. He felt Antonio's sharp intake of breath against his face, felt the full-body shudder that moved through him, and thought with a clarity that had no business existing in this moment: this is the most honest thing that has happened between us.

Blood and want and the inability to tell where the violence ended and the tenderness began mixed between their mouths until Hakeem couldn’t tell whose blood was on his tongue.

Antonio pressed into him with renewed force. Both of his hands were on Hakeem now—one in his hair, one gripping his hip hard enough that Hakeem knew he'd feel it tomorrow—and Hakeem's hands were under Antonio's shirt, palms flat against his stomach, feeling the muscles tense beneath hot skin. He dragged his fingers down to the waistband of Antonio's jeans and heard Antonio’s breathing fracture into something unrecognizable.

"Hakeem." Antonio's mouth was at his jaw now, then his neck, then the place just below his ear that Hakeem did not previously know was connected to every nerve in his body. Antonio's teeth grazed the skin there, and Hakeem's hips bucked forward hard enough to make both of them groan.

They were grinding against each other now, and Hakeem had abandoned any pretense that this was just a kiss. It was hungrier, more desperate, fueled by weeks of proximity, suspicion, and the specific brand of desire that only existed when you wanted someone you knew you shouldn’t. Hakeem felt Antonio through his jeans, thick and hard, and pressed against his own cock with a pressure that made his thoughts disintegrate into pure sensation. Every roll of their hips was slow and deliberate and devastating, and Hakeem was making sounds he would later deny with his dying breath—low, broken, half-formed things that Antonio kept swallowing like he was collecting them.

Antonio's hand moved from his hip to the small of his back, pulling their bodies tighter. His mouth found Hakeem's again. The kiss was wet and deep and tasted like the end of a very long argument neither of them had won.

Then Antonio's hips stilled.

His forehead dropped against Hakeem's. They stood there, breathing hard, bodies pressed together in Hakeem's bedroom doorway, and the house around them was so quiet that Hakeem swore he could hear both of their hearts.

"We should stop," Antonio said.

His voice was gravel soaked in gasoline. He did not sound like a man who wanted to stop. He sounded like he was physically forcing the sentence out of himself because some remaining fragment of his composure demanded it.

Hakeem's hands went still under Antonio's shirt. He could feel Antonio's heartbeat beneath his right palm, fast and hard and completely at odds with the measured steadiness of his voice. Antonio’s body betrayed him, and the dishonesty made Hakeem want to wreck him entirely.

"Yeah," Hakeem said. "Probably."

Neither of them moved.

Antonio's thumb traced a slow line along Hakeem's spine, just above the waistband of his jeans, and Hakeem's whole body trembled with the effort of not pulling him through the doorway and onto the bed that was four feet away and the only piece of furniture in the world.

"Hakeem," Antonio said again. Just his name—like it was a word he was trying to put down and couldn't.

"I know."

"This is⁠—"

"I know."

Antonio pulled back. The loss of contact felt surgical; every point where their bodies had been pressed together went cold at once. Hakeem had to lock his knees to stay standing. Antonio took one step back. Then another. He ran a hand through his hair, which was destroyed, pushed in every direction by Hakeem's fingers, and Hakeem felt a vicious, private satisfaction at the sight of Antonio disassembled.

Antonio looked at him. His mouth was swollen. His eyes were dark and glassy and still tracking Hakeem's face with an attention that had not downshifted at all despite the physical retreat.

"Goodnight," he said.

It was the most absurd thing either of them had ever said.

Hakeem watched him walk toward his own room. Antonio's gait was slightly off. He didn’t stumble. But he moved with the unsteadiness of a body still answering a question that had already been taken away. Hakeem noticed this with the clinical detachment of someone who had also not received that message and was standing in a doorframe with a bruise blossoming on his lip and an erection that could be seen from down the hall.

Antonio's door closed.

Hakeem stood where he was for a count of ten. Then he stepped into his room, shut the door, and pressed his back against it.

His mouth still tasted like pennies.