“You have freckles,” Cree murmured. “And beauty marks everywhere.”
“Stop,” Jordan whispered, though he didn’t pull away.
He couldn’t. His body felt heavy, pinned in place by nothing more than Cree’s undivided attention.
“Why?” Cree asked softly. “I like looking at you. This one on your cheek is shaped like a heart.”
He touched the mark in question, just the pad of his finger, barely there. The contact sent a ripple through Jordan’s chest that had nothing to do with logic.
He’d always hated his moles, had spent hours learning how to cover them with makeup. He’d even thought of having them removed. Had asked for it on his sixteenth birthday, but his mother had said he didn’t need cosmetic procedures as a child. He hadn’t been allowed to get hismoles removed, but his sister was allowed to get a nose job at fifteen. Another double standard, but definitely not the first. His parents would forever be hypocrites.
“Where’d you go?” Cree asked, pinching his chin softly, turning his head so Jordan had no choice but to look at him.
Jordan blinked, refocusing. Cree was so close he could count the individual lashes framing his eyes. “Nowhere. Sorry. Just thinking.”
“Thinking what?” Cree asked, his fingertips skimming over Jordan’s cheekbones again, slower this time, like he was in no hurry at all.
“That you’re the pretty one.”
Cree’s mouth curved. “Oh yeah?”
Jordan nodded, suddenly earnest, words spilling before he could second-guess them. “Your eyes are so dark, and your cheekbones are like… vampire sharp, and your lips are really pouty, and your nose is perfect. And you have a mole here.”
He dropped a finger to Cree’s throat.
Then trailed it lower. He felt Cree swallow as his finger traced over his Adam’s apple.
“And two here.”
Jordan’s breath stuttered as he realized what he was doing—touching Cree like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he had a right to him. Like his body had decided before his brain caught up.
Cree’s hand closed around his gently, stopping him without force. Jordan’s fingers curled around his without thought, clinging, grounding himself. Cree lifted Jordan’shand, pressing a kiss to the back of it, then another to the bone of his wrist.
It was devastatingly tender.
Jordan’s heart galloped so fast he was certain Cree could feel it, hear it, sense it vibrating between them. His chest felt tight, lungs struggling to keep up. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, no hands, no attention, no one looking at him like he was something to savor.
“What are you doing?” Jordan whispered, voice barely there.
Cree didn’t look away. His grip stayed warm and steady, anchoring. “Trying really hard to control myself.”
Jordan swallowed hard. The words shouldn’t have felt like this. Like heat. Like reassurance. Like a promise and a boundary all at once.
He nodded once, not trusting himself to speak, body buzzing with a thousand questions he wasn’t ready to ask.
When his head dipped, Jordan’s heart seized in his chest, a jolt shocking through him. He expected to feel his lips on his, but instead they skimmed his forehead, his cheeks, his nose…before ghosting over his mouth, there and gone before he could even enjoy it.
“You’re—I don’t know…” Jordan started, having no idea what to say or how to articulate all the feelings firing through him.
“Want to restart the movie? Or watch something else?” Cree asked. He smiled down at him. “Gremlins maybe?”
“You remembered that?” Jordan asked.
Cree nodded. “Of course.” He flopped onto his back and swiped to open his phone. “What’ll it be?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan said, suddenly worried that the wrong decision would ruin everything.”
Cree smiled, then gathered Jordan against him. “Why don’t we let fate decide.”
