“Do you for-reals need to check my shoulder, or was this just a ruse to get me alone.”
“If you don’t want me to call you kid, never say for-reals again.”
He huffs a laugh, steps closer and places a kiss to the back of my neck. Turning to face him, I place my hand on his chest pads and push him back towards the bed. “You’ve been a naughty boy, Cory. You need to be punished.”
“What did I do?” There’s a slight panic in his voice I find disturbingly hot.
“Hmm, I’m not sure if I can trust you. Perhaps I need to see the real you. I think you should take that suit off and let me see what lies beneath.”
Cory is by no means stupid, but I swear to the God of Thunder I can hear his brain chewing the words. Eyes alight with mischief and hunger, slowly dull as he finally digests it.
“Wait.”
“Oh my God. You’ve readLove Comes in Green.”
Sitting on the edge of his desk, biceps popping in the doctor’s scrubs he occasionally wears, James huffs out an unimpressed, “No.” Then adds, “I wouldn’t read that rubbish.”
I’m struggling here. “Okay, then how?—”
“I write it.”
“You’re BosSyd2001?”
“I am.” He nods. “Normally I would deny such an allegation, but since you have plagiarized my work for the purposes of seduction, I feel like I need to stake my claim.”
I almost come in my cup. “Stake your claim on me?”
“On my intellectual property,” he corrects.
“Oh. Well that’s disappointing. I was getting a bit excited thinking what you were going to do to me. A light spanking seems just.”
James huffs out a laugh, which gives me enough confidence to squish in next to him, tapping his foot with my own. I may be imagining it, but even through my pads, I can feel the heat of his leg against mine, and I really, really wish we were both naked on top of this desk, not fully-clothed perched on its edge. “That little speech of yours was quite something. I’m really proud of you.”
“You are?” I beam like an absolute dork.
“I am. It’s not an easy thing to do, and something I never did. Not to my team, anyway.”
“What about your family?”
James puffs his cheeks and shifts a little closer. “Well, when I was seven I told my beautiful Mom I was going to marry Captain America, and I used to steal all of Faith’s Bieber posters. Coming out wasn’t necessary. What about you?”
“Kind of the same. I thought it would rock their world but Mom busted me making out with my Tom Wilson pic in my room, the thing she was most disappointed with was that it was Tom Wilson and not a B’s player.” James releases a cute little … giggle, I guess you could call it, and I expect the conversation to stay on the same path, but he stops laughing suddenly and grips my hand tighter.
“Cory, every time I see, or think about you, I also think how wrong it is. But life seems to keep throwing us together, and making it feel right. I’m not quite sure what to do about that.”
“You know, Spidey once said,no man can win every battle, but no man should fall without a struggle.”
“So we can’t win, but we’re also destined to fight and–”
“Fall,” I whisper, eyes glued to Jame’s lips. For a second, as he leans in, I think he’s going to kiss me, so I let my eyes fall closed. His breath ghosts over my cheek, then his lips do too.
“I would love nothing more than to wipe this desk clean, lay you out and have my way with you.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something coming that’s not you, or me, but a but.”
His hand tightens over mine, little finger caressing my knuckles. “But. I can’t. Should circumstances be different–”
“But they’re not.”
