But then he said: "Fuck it."
His hand grabbed the front of my shirt, and he kissed me.
Not like the corridor. The corridor had been slow and deliberate and thorough, Cross making a decision and executing it. This was something else, this was what lived underneath the decisions, and it hit me like a physical fact.
His mouth and his hands and his body walking me backward until my shoulders found the wall and then staying there. I made a noise into his mouth that I was not going to analyze and kissed him back with everything I had.
My hands went to his lapels first, then his shirt underneath, then his waist, learning the shape of him through fabric, and he kissed me like he'd been keeping this somewhere for a very long time and the somewhere had run out of room. I slid my hands under the hem of his shirt and found skin and he inhaled sharply. It was that sound again, the unguarded one, and I swallowed it and wanted more of it, wanted to spend a significant amount of time finding out every version of it.
"Cross—" I pulled back enough to breathe.
His forehead dropped to mine. Both of us breathing. His hands were at my sides, thumbs against my ribs, and I could feel his pulse.
"Nathan," he said.
“If we're—" I stopped speaking as his thumb moved against my ribs. "Nathan."
That landed somewhere I wasn't prepared for.
I'd been calling him Cross for months, in my head and out loud, Cross the wall, Cross the problem, the Ice Doc, all of it, and he was standing in my apartment with his forehead against mine telling me his name like it was something he was handing over, and I didn't have a system for that either.
"Nathan," I said again.
His eyes closed briefly. Opened.
I kissed him again, slower this time, and walked us farther into the apartment until he was the one against the wall properly, and that was—that was something, Cross against my wall in my chaos, precise and controlled and completely undone, and I was the one doing the undoing, and I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted to hear that sound again.
I touched him, and he groaned.
Low and involuntary, the same quality as the inhale in the corridor but longer, deeper, and I hadn't known. I genuinely hadn't known I could like a sound that much, hadn't knownit could go straight through me like that, hadn't known that undoing Nathan Cross would feel like this particular flavor ofyes.
I made a mental note to do it again. Immediately and as often as possible.
My hands found his belt.
He looked down at my hands and then up at my face, and whatever he found there made something shift in his expression. He said nothing, just watched me, and that was its own answer and I took it.
I dropped to my knees right there in the middle of my living room, the carpet rough under my shins, and looked up at him.
Nathan.
The name still felt new in my mouth, like something I’d stolen and wasn’t ready to give back. He was braced against the wall, chest rising fast, that icy composure already cracking wide open. His hands flexed at his sides like he didn’t know whether to stop me or drag me closer.
I didn’t give him time to decide.
My fingers worked his belt open, the metal clink loud in the quiet apartment, then the button of his slacks, the zipper. I tugged everything down just enough—boxers too—until his cock sprang free, already hard and flushed dark at the tip.
Thick.
Jesus.
“Wesley,” he said, voice low and rough, like the word had been scraped out of him.
I grinned up at him, slow and filthy, because I couldn’t help it. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”
Then I leaned in and took him into my mouth.
The first slide of my lips over the head made his hips jerk. I sucked gently, tongue swirling around the tip, tasting salt and skin and something that was just him. His hand came down tomy hair—not pushing, just gripping, fingers threading through the blond strands like he needed an anchor. I took him deeper, hollowing my cheeks, and that low groan tore out of him again, longer this time, raw.
