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My feet stop moving as I stare at the beautiful man rubbing his face along my skin.
“What does that mean?”
He continues to nuzzle my hand until the skin gets sensitive, but I don’t pull it from his grip. There’s something bouncing around his busy brain, and I want to know what it is. I need answers.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do after college.” Brendon sighs dramatically.
“I don’t think any of us really know. I certainly don’t.”
Brendon gasps and spins around, grabbing my shoulders. “You bought me food!” His expression gets soft and swoony. “Aww, you love me.”
“Yeah, I bought you food.” I chuckle at his rapid change of subject. I wonder if I could get him to answer the question later when he’s sobered up some. Will I have the guts to ask him when he’s sober?
“I’m so fucking horny,” he groans and turns back around, walking toward the dorms again.
He’s going to give me whiplash.
“Why didn’t you hook up with that chick at the bar? She was clearly interested.” That sounded jealous. Maybe he won’t remember it tomorrow.
Brendon shakes his head and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Nah, I wasn’t feeling girls tonight.”
My dick twitches, and I turn my head just enough to catch a look at his face in the corner of my eye. He’s such a beautiful man. His pale skin, some light freckles along his cheeks, and the soft swoop of his lips. He’s strong and solid. While I’m long and lean, he’s powerful and sturdy. Not only can he take a lot of damage on the ice, but he can cause it too. I’m fast and agile but easier to break.
Brendon starts singing “Welcome to My Life”by Simple Plan, which I haven’t heard in years. He mumbles the words while we’re in the elevator, and I follow him down the hallway to our room where he promptly takes off his pants because, of course he does. I swear he spends more time without pants on than the reverse. His dark blue briefs with yellow ducks cup his ass in the most maddening way, and forcing myself to not react is exhausting. At least he has a shirt on this time. Half the time he doesn’t even have that on, and it’s hell on my self-control.
There’s a vibe surrounding him that I can’t quite figure out, sadness or hopelessness, maybe. It makes a sharp pain appear in my chest.
Before he can drop down onto my bed, I reach for his arm and pull him into me. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, our bodies pressed together, and his face is in my neck. There’s nothing sexual about the contact, it’s just comfort and friendship.
Brendon hesitates but slides his arms around me and squeezes me back, releasing a sigh, and relaxing into my hold. I close my eyes and just exist in the moment with him. I know he’s struggling with something, but I’m not sure what it is. His brain is so busy usually that it’s hard to tell when he’s just exhausted from it or if there’s something really bothering him.
I’m not sure how long we stand there, just breathing, but he pulls his face from the crook of my neck and looks at me. My eyes drop to his lips. I’m desperate to know what he tastes like, how he kisses, how he feels.
In the next breath, our lips meet in a soft brush, and I don’t know who moved first. It doesn’t matter. I have limited experience kissing guys, and this is so much different than any of the others that I want to remember it for the rest of my life. It’s Brendon. My Brendon.
With nerves fluttering in my stomach, I kiss my best friend and hope he doesn’t hate me for it in the morning.
I love the way he feels against me. Sturdy but vulnerable. I know he can handle whatever life throws at him. I’ve seen him take command on the ice, watched him take hits and bounce back, then turn around and need comfort for an internal wound he wasn’t ready to talk about at that moment.
It’s not a deep kiss, a barely-there contact, but it steals my breath. I hold his head in my hands and slant my mouth over his, needing more from him.
Nothing has ever felt as right as this moment, with this man, in this room. He’s my everything.
And that terrifies me.
I’m so gone for this boy.
The kiss ends the same way it began, and he steps back with a sigh, running his hand through his hair, like my world isn’t crashing down around me.
The anguish of losing my mom and my dad spirals inside of me. After Mom died, Dad pulled back, left me with my grandparents most of the time while he went out fishing or hunting or whatever he was doing. Even now he rarely calls or texts to check in. He’s been a shell of a man since she died, and I swore when I watched him walk away that I wouldn’t allow myself to fall that hard for anyone.
But I did.
Brendon drops onto my bed, and I kick off my shoes despite my hands shaking. I crawl over him and lay next to the wall, one arm behind my head while he grabs the Xbox controller and flips through the apps to find something. As he watches the TV, I can’t help but watch him. I can only see a sliver of his face and the broad expanse of his back, but I watch the muscles move under his T-shirt. I both want to pull him against me so I can breathe him in and push him as far away from me as possible.
He puts onThe Mandalorianfor the hundredth time and lays back against my shoulder. Part of his body is on mine, and I hate how much I like it. Somewhere along the way, I fell hard for him, but I can’t keep him.
Having the pressure of him against me is calming, reassuring. Brendon is a toucher, it’s just how he is. He needs it, but it’s killing me.
