"Hi," he said.
He was back, fully present again. He kissed along my collarbone and ran a hand down over my jeans, closing his fingers around my hard cock. "I missed you," he whispered.
I tugged his t-shirt over his head, and he dropped back over me immediately. I slid my leg up onto the cushion, and he shifted over me, finding a better angle on the narrow couch without pulling back.
Then something gave. His mouth moved down my chest and his hands went to my zipper. The pace had changed—faster, focused on my anatomy rather than me.
He was gone again.
Not all the way—his hands moved with confidence as he kissed my mouth again. It was the angle of his approach, the speed, and the lack of words. I placed my hands on both sides of his face and held him still.
He looked at me. His hair was wrecked and lips swollen.
"You're somewhere else," I said.
"I'm here."
"Not all of you."
He didn't argue. He lowered his forehead and rested his head against my chest. His hand stopped with my zipper half down.
"I know," he said.
I kept one hand on his face, my thumb stroking his cheekbone. We stayed there.
After a while he kissed my chest again, slower, and it was better, closer to the real thing.
It wasn't all the way there, but it was close enough.
His palm rested flat on my chest, with the heel of it over my heartbeat, and I felt the weight of each finger separately. There was still a slight catch in his breath.
"The team knows," I said.
"Knows what?"
"That I have someone."
He looked up, and his smile returned. He rubbed my chest and slowly moved the hand down over my stomach.
"Do they know who?"
"Heath and Kieran do."
"And that's okay?"
I kissed him. "Yes."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
Sully was back. “Good, good. This reminds me—okay, not the same thing, but—there was this place I worked at in Boston. Thought it was a secret that I was seeing this guy. We were so subtle, or we thought we were.”
I said nothing. Let him go.
“Guess we weren't,” he said. “At all. I think Thomas—not Tomasz—this is Thomas, a different guy. He started a pool on how long it would take us to figure out that everyone already knew.”
“And?”
