Mal’s smile died. “What? What’s wrong?” He looked around for whatever threat had pulled that reaction from Nico.
Nico dropped his arm and tilted his head. “You have the most adorable bunny teeth I’ve ever seen. Cuter than Ever’s even.”
Mal stared, wheels spinning. “Bunny teeth?”
Nico nodded. “Yeah, like, you know, rabbits, hares, Bugs Bunny?” He put his hands in front of his chest like bunny paws. “Those cute fuzzy creatures that fuck like they’re the last two survivors in a post-apocalyptic dystopia, somehow trying to repopulate the earth.”
“I’m familiar with bunnies, Nico,” Mal said, affect flat.
“Bunny teeth,” Nico said again, with less enthusiasm, then pressed his top teeth against his bottom lip in what Mal couldonly assume was another attempt at impersonating a cartoon rabbit.
“Is that what you think I look like?” Mal asked, slightly horrified.
Nico’s face smoothed out. “Can’t I just like your bunny teeth?” he asked, a pout on his face, voice exaggeratedly sullen.
“It’s a free country,” Mal said with a wave of his hand. “You can do as you please.”
Nico flicked his gaze up to Mal’s, his pouty face suddenly seductive. “Oh, you don’t want to give someone like me that kind of power,” he promised.
Mal gave him a very thorough once-over. “You don’t know what I want.”
Nico faltered, his shoe catching on the concrete. Mal’s hand shot out, righting him before he could go face first into the cement.
Nico blinked at him. “You have the reflexes of a cat.”
Mal smiled. He loved cats. “Thanks.”
Nico shook his head, staring hard for a full thirty seconds. Maybe this was why the other boy fell down a lot. He was constantly looking anywhere but ahead.
Just when he decided to say something, Nico tipped his head to the side. “You’re hot.”
“You’re pretty,” he blurted, then snapped his mouth shut, tips of his ears burning.
Nico looked almost shy for a second, then pushed his hair behind his own, non-crimson ear, pretending to be bashful. “Are you hitting on me, Bunny?”
Mal shrugged, again hoping he appeared at least somewhat ambivalent. “No. Just stating a fact.”
Nico grinned, looking up at him from beneath sooty lashes. “You’re pretty, too. Way prettier than me, honestly. You’re pretty like a girl. But also really handsome. You’re both.”
Mal pondered this sudden shift in conversation. Was Nico just making an assessment based on fact? Mal was pretty. And handsome, objectively speaking. He would be stupid to pretend otherwise. But why would Nico bring it up? “Are you hitting on me?”
Nico gave him another appraising look. “I could,” he said, then bit down on his bottom lip, dragging his top teeth across it in a way that made Mal’s dick take notice. “I could take you back to my room and let you fuck me. Bet you had quite the dry spell in prison. I bet you’re crazy hot in bed. You’d probably rock my world.”
Mal’s breath punched from him at Nico’s bold statement. He wasn’t wrong. But Mal was crazy everywhere, not just the bedroom. Nico’s words gave Mal permission to let himself wonder about his new friend’s sex life. What was Nico like in bed? Was he strictly a bottom? Was he kinky? Did he like it rough? Mal looked into those pool blue eyes and knew he would do anything to make him cry, either with pleasure or pain.
Nico sighed, pulling Mal from his thoughts. “But it would probably get weird. And Levi and Shiloh would be all in their feels about it.”
Mal’s heart shriveled like a rapidly leaking balloon. “Oh. Okay.” His gaze dragged down to look at Nico’s pretty, pink heart-shaped lips. “So, we’re not having sex?” he asked, concentrating on sounding bored so hard he worried he might get a nose bleed.
Nico shook his head, coming to a stop. He gripped Mal’s soft hands in his rough ones. “I think I want to keep you. So, we probably shouldn’t put our dicks in each other.”
Nico’s first sentence exhilarated him. His second devastated him. Why couldn’t they do both? He tamped down his disappointment. If not fucking Nico meant keeping him, thenhe’d just have to get used to jerking off in the shower until the other boy realized they were meant to be.
But there was one thing he couldn’t do without. “Can I still touch your butt?”
Nico gave that bell-like laugh once more. “If you tell me why.”
Mal chose honesty. “‘Cause I can’t stop thinking about how it would feel in my hands.”
