“This feels…”
“Right?” Noah finished, his voice quavering.
“Yeah.” Eli smiled. “It feels right.”
Noah’s bearded chin brushed against Eli’s jaw. “I haven’t done this in so long.”
“Me neither.”
“Feels different with you.”
Eli closed his eyes. “Is that a good different?”
Noah nodded against him. “The best.”
They moved together in small circles, the room spinning around them. Snow tapped softly against the windows, and something warm, bright and terrifying began to bloom inside Eli.
Noah must have felt it, too, because he pulled back slightly to look at him. Their faces were close. Their noses brushed.
Noah’s voice was barely a whisper. “Eli?—”
“Yeah?”
Noah’s fingers shook where they rested at Eli’s waist.
He could hide behind jokes. He could swallow the words and save himself the risk. But Eli was right there, cheeks flushed, eyes soft, trust written in every line of him.
And tonight wasn’t meant for fear.
“I think…” Noah started, then stopped, his breath trembling.
Eli lifted a hand to Noah’s cheek. “Whatever it is, you can say it.”
Noah leaned into the touch.
“I think I’m starting to fall for you.”
The silence that followed was small and fragile.
Eli stared at him with wide eyes and parted lips. Then he exhaled a shaky breath.
“I think I am too.” The words came out raw.
They leaned in at the same time, and the kiss that followed was deeper, not rushed or desperate, but weighted, meaningful, as though it was a seal on something that had shifted from possibility to reality.
They pulled apart, their foreheads resting together, their mingled breath warm between them.
“I’m scared.”
“Me too,” Noah said. “But not enough to stop.”
Eli smiled against his mouth. “Good.”
They kissed again, slow and lingering, the kind of kiss that didn’t lead anywhere except deeper into each other. When they finally broke apart, Noah rested his forehead against Eli’s cheek.
“Youwillstay tonight?” he murmured. There was a place inside him, the cautious part, the one still bracing for hurt, that whispered Eli should go home. That spending another night together, deepening what they’d already shared, was dangerous.
Noah ignored it.
