“Kinda,” Xander said.
And then he kissed me again.
* * *
We crashedthrough the door of Xander’s apartment without letting go of each other from the moment he pounced on me.
“This is such a bad idea,” he murmured between biting kisses as he closed the door behind us.
“You wanna stop?” I asked, panting hard already, heartbeat thundering in my ears.
“Absolutely not,” he said as he pushed me down, the couch groaning under our combined weight when he followed, straddling my hips.
The sound I made when he kissed me again would’ve been embarrassing if it was with anyone but Xander. That was the thing, though. I didn’t feel like I had to be embarrassed in front of Xander.
Especially not when he was moaning into my mouth, stroking my still-tingling tongue with his own, shoving greedy fingers into my hair to tilt my head back so he could kiss me just like he wanted, deep and filthy but with a gentler hint of teeth this time.
A soft little mewl made him laugh against my cheek.
“Kitten,” he said.
Oh. Right.
I’d forgotten all about Orion.
“Sorry, buddy,” Xander said as he eased the kitten out of his jacket pocket and tucked it into what I couldn’t describe as anything other than a fluffy, kitten-sized sleeping bag. “You’re too little for a threesome.”
I snorted, stretching out on the couch as I watched him, brushing my thumb over my lower lip where he’d bitten me again—on purpose, this time.
Xander stared at me, throat working as he swallowed.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re really not doing it deliberately, are you?” he asked, head tilted, hands shoved in his jacket pockets again.
“Doing what deliberately?” I asked. “I can stop.”
Xander chuckled. “The thing where you’re the sexiest person I’ve ever met,” he said. “Guess it just comes natural.”
The sexiest person he’d ever met?
“Guess it does.” I shrugged. “But I’m not—”
“Gonna stop you right there,” Xander interrupted, moving back to the couch and easing himself onto it, straddling my hips again, settling himself into place this time. “Because if you’re about to say you’re not sexy, I have to object.”
I thought about telling him I wasn’t anyway, but then he was kissing me again and it didn’t really matter what I thought. Besides, blood was flowing away from my brain right now, and thinking was less appealing than pushing up the hem of Xander’s t-shirt to trail my fingers over his warm skin.
“Relax,” he murmured between kisses. “You’re so—oh. Oh, uh,” he backed off, frowning, and I barely stifled the most pathetic sound known to man. “Is this the strangers thing?”
I blinked at him. He’d remembered.
Of course he had. Xander never forgot anything I messaged him, why should he forget things I said in person?
“You don’t feel like a stranger,” I said softly.
The worry melted away from his face and turned into the most charming version of his smile I’d seen yet, soft and open.
“No, you don’t feel like a stranger to me, either,” he confessed, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with the same gentle fingers that handled tiny, fragile kittens. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this.”
