I guided him onto the bed, followed him down. The sheets were cool against my skin, but he was warm underneath me—lean muscle and sharp angles and the faint smell of that generic shampoo I'd started associating with home.
We kissed until my lips felt bruised, until he was grinding up against me and making sounds I wanted to memorize. Then he pushed at my chest—gentle, not stopping, just shifting—and I rolled onto my back, letting him settle over me.
"I want to look at you," he said.
He straddled my hips, and for a moment he just... looked. His eyes traced the lines of ink across my chest—the sunburst over my heart, the script curling across my pec, the clouds and stars scattered between. I'd gotten most of it sophomore year, back when I thought pain I chose was better than pain I didn't. Tanner didn't know that yet. But the way he was looking at me made me think he might already understand.
His fingers followed his eyes. Featherlight over the rays of the sun, dipping into the hollow of my collarbone, tracing the letters one by one.I'd gather the sun, the moon and the stars for the ones I love.His lips moved silently, reading.
"Who's it for?" he asked.
"My sister. She used to say that to me when we were kids." I swallowed. "Before everything got complicated."
He didn't say anything. Just leaned down and pressed his mouth to the words, kiss after kiss along the curve of each letter. When he reached the last one, he kept going—down to the sunburst, tracing the rays with his tongue, then lower, his lips dragging across my stomach while his hands mapped the palm trees inked along my arm.
No one had ever touched me like this. Like the ink was part of me worth knowing. Like my body was something to study instead of use.
"Tanner." His name came out hoarse.
He looked up at me, chin resting on my stomach, and the expression on his face—reverent, wanting, a little wrecked—made my chest ache.
"I've wanted to do that for months," he said. "Every time you came out of the shower. Every time your shirt rode up."
"You could have."
"I wasn't brave enough." He kissed my hip bone, then lower, his breath hot through the fabric of my boxers. "I'm trying to be brave now."
I pulled him back up, rolled us so he was underneath me again. "You're the bravest person I know."
He laughed—shaky, disbelieving. "I'm terrified."
"So am I." I kissed him, slow and deep. "Doesn't matter. We're here anyway."
I worked my way down his body—his neck, his collarbone, the ridge of his hip bone. He shivered when I mouthed at the skin below his navel.
“Can I?” I hooked my fingers in his waistband.
“Yes.” His voice cracked. “God, yes.”
I peeled off his boxers and wrapped my hand around him. He was hard, flushed, already leaking at the tip. When I stroked, his whole body arched off the mattress.
“Fuck—”
“Good?”
“Don’t stop.”
I stroked him until he was panting, his hands fisted in the sheets. Then I lowered my head and took him in my mouth.
The noise he made was worth every second of waiting. His hand flew to my hair, fingers tangling tight, and I let him guide me—set the pace, find the rhythm that made his thighs shake. Salt and skin on my tongue. The weight of him, the heat. I hollowed my cheeks and felt him jerk.
“Seth—” His voice broke. “I’m going to— You have to stop, or I’m?—”
I pulled off, replacing my mouth with my hand, squeezing the base. “Not yet.”
“Evil.” He was gasping, chest heaving. “You’re evil.”
“Thought you wanted this to last.”
