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“Have you heard of subtle?” he whispers. “In your life?”

“Nope. I stopped reading after the word submissive.”

For a second, he stares at me so hard that he looks exactly like my pen pal. Pissed off and judgy as shit. Then he starts laughing again. His hand lands on my thigh, maybe to stop from falling over, and I move the comforter down. Slide his palm over my dick so he can feel how hard I am.

His fingers curl around me, and I suck in a breath so sharp it burns. But he doesn’t move. It’s like he’s stuck in place, trying to figure out what's happening. I can see him processing this in real time, his eyes bouncing around my face. He opens his mouth slightly, but nothing comes out.

My heart bottoms into my stomach.

“You don’t like me?” I murmur, so damn quiet it sounds like “Crowd” Ira.

Maybe I’m stupid. Maybe October really was him experimenting, and whatever I saw then was me making stuff up inside my head. Maybe our Polaroids are less “missed connections” and more “mixed messages.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

“Why don’t we—” I start, but he cuts me off with his mouth.

His kiss is desperate and clumsy, teeth smashing against mine until we figure out the angle. Beef ramen and soda coat the inside of my mouth as he thrusts his tongue in deeper, and his fingers dig into my hair. My hands find his curls, dragging him down. He makes a noise inside my mouth that I want to hear again and again. His hand is still on my dick, finally moving, but he’s barely touching me. The tips of his fingers and palm aren’t enough.

“You want to show them we can be louder?” I murmur when he breaks away to breathe.

He grins against my mouth, and I take that as an invitation.

I twist around, kicking the comforter off the bed, then slide into his lap. His jeans are rough against my bare thighs, the button cold enough to make me regret owning skin. But I grind down against him, and he groans louder than I’ve ever heard. When I do it again, his head falls back, eyes half-lidded.

God, he’s trembling beneath me. I kiss from his mouth to his chin, open and wet, and his hand in my hair tightens until it’s balancing right on the edge of fuck yes and hell no.

“Pants,” he gasps. “I—I’m still wearing pants.”

Ten out of ten. No notes.

I love when someone’s this desperately horny for me.

His hands fumble with the belt, his knuckles bumping against my dick. I whine against his neck and suck a mark into the spot right under his jaw where his pulse is going absolutely insane. Barely being touched is so much worse than being touched hard enough to bruise. It almost makes me miss how my best friend grabbed me—

“Put your mask on,” I breathe against his skin.

Beckett goes still.

After a second, he leans back on his hands—misses the edge of the bed and nearly wipes the fuck out—then grabs the metal rail at the foot. His bottom lip’s caught between his teeth, and his eyes are somewhere else entirely.

If he says no, I swear I’ll lose it.

“Where’s yours?” he asks.

Jackpot.

“In my trunk, I can—”

“Where in your trunk?” he cuts in, already nudging me off his lap. He stands, adjusts himself with a quiet groan, then grabs the hoodie off the floor. “Specifically. Don’t make me go hunting through your shit right now, Ira.”

I flop back on my bed and run my hands down my chest, just to see him swallow.

“There’s an orange Halloween bag with a cat on it—you can’t miss it. Ignore the six hundred boxes of Valentine’s candy.”

His eyes widen. “Six hundred—”

“Ignore it,” I sing.