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My other hand slid forward on some unauthorized mission my brain wasn’t a part of. It skimmed across Zeb’s sturdy shoulder. Reconnaissance. He’d hung both our coats in his front closet, and despite the cool air of the apartment, his skin was so warm through the thin T-shirt. My fingers flexed, testing the muscle, enjoying the contrast to his soft palm.
“Atlas,” Zeb whispered, drawing my name out with a breathy sigh. Had my name ever sounded so good? His mouth parted, pink tongue darting out to lick at his full lower lip.
And I lost my damn mind.
I closed the gap between us, mouth hovering over his. Never before had I experienced this overwhelming need to kiss someone. I’d been kissed before, but I couldn’t remember being the one to move first. But I definitely was here. I couldn’t blame Zeb for the way I lunged at him, the way my chest pounded with need.
“Please.” Another ghost of a word across those mesmerizing lips. My ears rang with the heady novelty of the polite request—something rare in both my work and personal life.
I kissed him.
I couldn’t not, and it wasn’t simply the please. Rather, it was some sort of biological imperative, a need I couldn’t quantify but had little hope of controlling. Further, Zeb’s please was the sort of implicit consent that made pumping the brakes that much harder. Not to mention the enthusiastic way he met my mouth.
Also hard? My dick throbbed in my pants. Did I think Zeb was merely attractive when he was excited about something? No. He was intoxicating, a hundred-proof blend of joy and eagerness. Watching him enjoy himself had been fun, but kissing him was all-consuming.
His lips were impossibly soft, and he smelled even more like cinnamon this close. Closer. Closer. Whatever the distance between us, it was too much. I crushed him to me, and he made the sweetest sound of surrender, clinging to my shoulders, body radiating potent energy against mine. That devious tongue of his darted out, making contact with mine, and I nearly levitated, leaving the earth behind. All I wanted was more of this kiss.
Living dangerously, I mimicked his motion and was rewarded with a low moan. His beard was bristly against my skin, but I welcomed the added sensation. There was no mistaking I was kissing a guy, which should have been weird but somehow wasn’t.
Or at least it wasn’t weird enough to slow me down. Putting a hand behind his head, I tumbled him gently onto the air mattress next to us. And whoa, that was even better, him underneath me—
Knock. Knock. “Pizza.”
“Oh fuck.” Reality shoved its way back to the present, making me leap away from Zeb. Zeb, the guy I’d been kissing. Zeb, Gabe’s little brother. Zeb, my roommate of sorts for the next month. “What did we do?”
“You kissed me.” Zeb sounded all kinds of dazed, which only made him that much sexier. “First time a high five has ever turned into a kiss for me.”
“Probably should have stuck with a fist bump.” I groaned, flopping back down next to him. The bed was alarmingly squishy, but that was the least of my worries right then.
“Oh. You didn’t like it.” Zeb’s expression went from passionate glow to crushed in zero point five seconds.
“Pizza!” The door rattled again.
“I better get the door.” He clambered off the bed as if I’d shoved him, and I might as well have for how dejected he looked as he fetched the pizza and brought it to his too-small dining table. “We’ll need plates. And forks? Do you use a fork? Some people do. I’m not sure who, but—”
“Zeb. Chill.” Putting a hand on his shoulder, I stopped him in front of the cabinet that held his collection of assorted plates. “We should talk.”
“It’s okay,” he said far, far too brightly as he pulled away from me. “We don’t need to.”
“I hurt your feelings, and I didn’t mean to.” Might as well get that out there. I was nothing if not direct.
“But you also didn’t mean to kiss me.” He exhaled, the weight of my rejection hanging heavy between us.
“Can’t say as I did.” I rubbed my jaw.
“So not helping.” He shook his head and retrieved two mismatched plates, handing me one. “Plate?”
“Wait. That didn’t come out right.” I trailed behind him to the table, where he plopped two slices of pizza on each of our plates. “I’ve never kissed a guy before.”
“Never?” Zeb wrinkled his nose as he took a seat. He sounded decidedly skeptical. “Never even been tempted?”
“Not particularly.” I waved a hand helplessly. “It’s just…never come up.”
“Well, something came up just now.” He looked so pointedly at my groin that I couldn’t sit down fast enough.
“Yeah, and trust me, no one is more surprised than me.”
“How do you go thirty-five years and not know you might dig kissing guys?” Zeb scrutinized me like I might have the answer written on my forehead in invisible ink.
