It didn’t hurt me to talk about my dad; I’d tell Jonah all about him eventually. I only wished they could have met each other. My dad wasn’t like my mom. I’d told him about the crushes I had on boys in school, and he’d always smiled and told me I should invite them over sometime.
This had been a different house when he was here. He’d made it a home. Then he died, and whatever home was here died with him. The comfort he’d filled it with was replaced by my mother’s drinking, her shouting, her constant stream of boyfriends.
My bedroom was childish. I’d upgraded the bedding to a solid navy blue, but the walls still had the old cartoonish dinosaur stickers I’d put up with my dad. I couldn’t bring myself to remove them in case it also removed the memories. There were so many bad memories in this room of things that had happened since then. If the evidence of the good ones was removed, maybe the bad ones would consume me. Those exaggerated smiling dinosaurs were my anchor, what I’d focused on when I didn’t want to focus on my body, on what was being done to me.
This was a house full of ghosts, but not all of them were evil. It’s why I still lived here, even after everything.
Jonah took it all in as I sat on the end of my bed. Much like that first time at the party, he stayed in place by the door, like he was leaving himself with the best chance of escape while he pondered if he wanted to take it. Unlike then, however, this time he slowly crept further in on his own. Closer to me. Guarded, like this room could hurt him, but I’d never let that happen.
I remained where I was, letting him come to me at his own pace, until finally the bed dipped beside me and he looked at me, so unsure about what he was supposed to do now.
“Can I kiss you again?” I asked him, afraid if I moved too fast, I’d trigger my rabbit’s survival instincts and he’d run again, like I could tell he was fighting not to do.
Jonah nodded, and I leaned into him, my nose brushing against his as I waited for him, despite the permission, to close the distance. He did.
This kiss was soft. Uncertain. Fragile.
I let him take his time. He was learning how to touch me softly, and I was learning how to be touched softly.
We were both damaged so differently by the people who were supposed to protect us. In my father’s absence I’d only been touched with hands that had burned and voices that had made the walls tremble and the ground disappear beneath my feet. I’d learned to fear touch. Jonah feared it as well, but only because hecravedit so much, had been starved of it, left in the dark and the cold. I was burned and he was frozen and neither of us knew how to love at the correct temperature because we’d never known it.
It would take time for us to learn how to touch each other in a way that didn’t feel like violence.
Slowly, the kiss deepened. My hand found his arm, gently caressing from his wrist to his shoulder over the fabric as I slowly guided him back to lie beside me. I followed his lips, my body over his just enough to chase them, to keep them.
“I don’t—” he started, pulling his lips away from me, his breath hitched up in a panic I could see in his eyes. “I haven’t—”
“It’s okay,” I told him, understanding. “We won’t do anything new. Just what you already know. You know what to say if you want me to stop at any point, don’t you, Rabbit?”
He nodded, and the panic receded. When I was silent, watching him expectantly, he gave me the word I was waiting for. “Boots.”
“Boots,” I repeated in confirmation. “You say that, and everything stops.”
Jonah nodded, and I claimed his lips again.
This kiss was soft. Certain. Strong.
It was a promise as much as a kiss. A promise that I’d take care of him. I would guard what he’d given me. He could trust me with it, with himself.
Slowly, I felt the stiffness in his body melt away. When he was relaxed, I licked over the seam of his lips and Jonah opened them for me. My tongue dipped inside to seek his, tasting him slower and deeper than I ever had before.
As I continued to kiss him, my fingertips brushed under the hem of his hoodie. This one was black. The purple one he’d given me in exchange for my jacket was in the top drawer of my dresser, and although I missed my leather jacket, I wasn’t quite ready to trade it back to him. I liked having something of his, but maybe now that I’d let him into this place, I could convince him to come back. Maybe eventually he’d just stay, and I wouldn’t need to treasure and hoard the small parts of him like a starving dog protecting its scraps.
When he remained soft and pliant, I let my hand explore further, over the heated, firm skin at his abdomen. I’d seen Jonah’s pretty cock plenty of times now, but I had yet to see the rest of him. I was certain all of him was beautiful.
When I was done with him, there wouldn’t be an inch of his skin I hadn’t tasted and adored.
Jonah hummed his approval, and my hand continued its exploration, my tongue continued showing its devotion to his, until my fingertips brushed against his nipple and his lips flinched away from mine in a gasp. Jonah looked stunned, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Never played with your nipples before, Rabbit?”
I flicked the hard bud, and again he gasped. His blush deepened, and I saw him debating whether he should lie to me or not before he landed on honesty. “No.”
“Never had anyone suck them?”
Once more he warred with himself over opening up before surprising me. “I’ve… only been touched by you before.”
The deep groan that rumbled up through my chest and poured out from my lips was entirely involuntary. I’d suspected Jonah wasn’t very sexually experienced, but I’d thought maybe he just wasn’t experienced with men. Knowing that no one hadevertouched my rabbit before me stirred something in me I hadn’t anticipated. Only I had touched him like this,seenhim like this.
I’d never been a jealous person before Jonah, but the thought of anyone else getting to see him, touch him, taste him, had made my blood boil with something absolutely murderous. I’d never have to worry about that now, though, because I was his first. And I would be his only.
