“I'm sure you do.”
They were standing so very close. Greg should step back, but he didn't want to. He couldn't make himself stop looking at Dustin. There was a tiny scar above his eyebrow that he'd never noticed before.
Step back. Be professional.
“You're staring at me.” Dustin stepped closer.
Greg stepped back. “I'm not staring.”
“You can if you want to.”
Another step forward. Another step back. Greg's shoulders hit the wall.
Dustin planted a hand on the wall beside Greg's head, leaning in. His eyes were dark and intent, fixed on Greg's face. “You can even touch if you want to.”
Greg's breath caught.
He's already dead. He's just a file. You cannot want this.
“That would be inappropriate,” Greg whispered.
“Would it?”
“I'm your assigned reaper.”
“You're also the guy who ate ice cream with me this afternoon and got chocolate all over his face.” Dustin's other hand came up, fingers brushing Greg's jaw. The touch was light, but it made Greg's skin prickleeverywhere.
“I'm not—I don't?—”
“Greg.” Dustin's thumb traced along his cheekbone. “You keeplooking at my mouth.”
Greg was. He couldn't stop. Dustin's lips were right there, slightly parted, the silver ring catching the light.
You were made to be a reaper.
“I should go,” Greg said, but he was pinned against the wall and Dustin was so close and his body had apparently forgotten how to move.
“Probably,” Dustin agreed.
And then he leaned in and kissed him.
Dustin's mouth was warm, his lips slightly chapped. There was the faint press of his lip ring, cool metal against Greg's bottom lip. His hand slid from Greg's jaw to the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, and Greg's entire nervous system short-circuited.
He should pull away. He should stop this. He should?—
Dustin's lips parted against his, coaxing Greg's mouth open, and then his tongue slid inside, hot and slick and?—
Cool metal dragged across the roof of Greg's mouth and every coherent thought Greg had ever possessed dissolved into static.
He fell backward.
Through the wall.
He landed hard on cold asphalt, gasping, staring up at a moonless night sky. The motel's exterior wall loomed above him. He'd phased clean through it.
Dustin had kissed him and he'd experienced complete structural failure.
In other words, he'd been so overwhelmed he'd forgotten how to be solid.
