“I can’t see your face,” I say.
“Watch in the mirror.”
I lift my eyes and catch sight of us in the mirror above the sink. Mickey behind me, his bare chest broad against my narrower frame, his blonde head bent to my neck, his arms wrapped around me. And me, flushed, my lips swollen from the kissing, my eyes wide, sitting in his lap like I was made to fit there.
His mouth moves to the side of my neck. He drags his lips along the tendon below my ear, tasting, and the scratch of his stubble against the tender skin there makes me grip his forearms harder. My hands dig into the muscle and he makes a low sound against my neck.
“Do you know how many nights I’ve thought about holding you like this?” he says against my ear. His breath is hot and his lips graze the outer edge. “Lying in that bed. Thinking about pulling you against my chest. Running my fingers through your hair. I dream about your hair, Benji.”
His hand lifts from my ribs and slides into my hair. His fingers push through from the crown to the back of my skull, spreading wide, the pads dragging across my scalp, and my head tips back against his shoulder. The sensation of his big hand moving through my hair is so good it makes my eyes flutter shut.
“Smelling your hair,” he says. His nose presses into the spot behind my ear and he breathes in deeply. Being smelled by Mickey, him pulling air through my hair and holding it in his lungs, undoes me more than the kissing did. “I imagined what it would be like to wake up every morning with the smell of your hair on my pillowcase.”
“God, Mickey.”
“Kissing your neck.” He presses his mouth to the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, and the kiss is open and wet. His teeth find the muscle there and bite hard. He keeps going, his mouth never losing contact, the scrape of stubble leaving a trail of fire across my shoulder. “Feeling the goosebumps come up under my mouth.”
He’s right. They’re everywhere. I can see them in the mirror — my arms covered in them. Every word he says against my skin raises a new wave and the waves keep rolling.
“Every single night I think about this,” he says. “Having you against me. Feeling your skin under my hands. Finding out what makes you come apart. I thought I would never get the chance and now you’re here.”
His hand slides out of my hair and down. Across the side of my neck, over my collarbone, and onto my chest where his palm flattens. He holds there for a moment. Feeling my heartbeat the way I felt his. Then his hand begins to move with the flat of his palm dragging down the center of my chest, between the pecs. He’s learning my body the same way I learned his during all those nights with the cream, except his hands are bigger and the noises I’m making are louder.
His thumb finds my left nipple. My whole body jolts in his lap. A sound tears out of me that bounces off every tile surface in the bathroom and probably reaches the hallway and possibly the parking lot.
“Oh fuck,” I gasp. “Oh fuck, Mickey, that’s — oh my God.”
“You’re sensitive,” he says. A grin is living in his voice. He just found a button and is not above pressing it again.
“Extremely sensitive. I should’ve warned you about that before you —”
He does it again. A leisurely circle with his thumb, tracing the edge before grazing the center. His refusal to rush turns the sharp jolt into a sustained burn that radiates fromthe point of contact outward through my chest and down into my stomach.
“Mickey. If you keep —”
“Keep what?” Another circle.
“Doing that. I’m going to — I can’t — the noises, Mickey. I told you about the noises. I’m not joking. The nurse situation is about to become critical.”
His other hand comes up and finds the right one. Both thumbs now, moving in tandem, synchronized circles that are dismantling me from the chest down, and a sound comes out of me that is part moan and part plea. It’s very loud. It echoes.
He was warned. That’s all I can do.
“The door is locked,” he says into my ear. The genuine enjoyment he’s taking in what he’s doing to me is almost hotter than the touching itself. He’s having fun with my body and the fun is bringing joy back to his face. Pure, simple, joy in making another person fall apart.
I grab his arms again. My hands can’t fully close around his biceps — the muscle is too thick — and the fact that I can’t get my fingers all the way around excites me. I’ve never been with a muscular man. The men I’ve been with in Miami were lean, slender, bodies that mirrored my own. Mickey’s arms are something else entirely. I run my palms down to his forearms and the veins stand out beneath the skin, thick and branching. I trace one with my fingertip from his inner elbow to his wrist. The vein pulses faintly under my touch. His blood running just beneath the surface, alive and insistent.
“Your arms,” I say, tracing another vein. “I’ve never — I’ve never been with someone built like you. I can’t get my hands around your bicep. Do you know how insane that is? My brain is short-circuiting.”
“Yeah?” His mouth is on my shoulder. He bites gently and my hips shift in his lap.
“And these veins? What the fuck are those? There’s a vein on your right forearm that I’ve been staring at since Tallahassee. It runs from your elbow to your wrist and every time you gripped the wheel rim it stood up and I had to look away so I wouldn’t lose my goddamn mind. I thought about tracing it with my tongue. I’m confessing this to you right now. I’ve been fantasizing about your veins.”
His laugh shakes through both our bodies. The vibration travels from his chest through my back and into my ribs. His hand drifts down from my chest. Fingertips trailing along my stomach, light and exploratory. The muscles jump under his touch, and when he reaches the waistband of my pants he pauses. His thumb hooks the elastic and rests.
I’m hard.
I’ve been hard since he pulled me into his lap and the thin fabric of my pants is hiding nothing. From where his hand is resting, his knuckles are an inch from my dick and we both know it.
