“I’m just looking at you!”
“You’re looking at my boobs!”
“It’s very hard not to!”
“Dial it back about forty percent. Pretend I’m the turkey.”
He tries again. His eyes lock onto mine with an intense, unblinking focus.
“Okay, now you look like a serial killer who’s in love with the turkey.”
“I don’t know what to do with my face!” He laughs, dropping his head back against the cushion.
“Oh my god,” I say, running a hand through his hair. “We have so much work to do.”
We practice for another five minutes and it gets worse. Every time he tries to casually look at me, his eyes drift south and I have to smack his arm to reset him. At one point he tries to maintain eye contact so hard he doesn’t blink for a solid ten seconds. I’m laughing so hard I start wheezing.
“Okay,” I gasp. “Okay, we’ll figure it out. Maybe I’ll just weara turtleneck.”
“To the Christmas party.”
“It’s December! Turtlenecks are seasonally appropriate!”
He lifts his head. He’s right there, his face inches from mine, still laughing. Then the laughter just fades. Because I’m still topless. I’ve been topless for this entire ridiculous conversation about his inability to control his face at a party. His eyes drop, and this time I don’t smack his arm.
“You’re looking again,” I say quietly.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t move his eyes. “I am.”
The shift happens so fast I barely track it. One second we’re laughing about turtlenecks, and the next his mouth is on mine. His hand grips my waist, pulling me into his lap, kissing me like he’s been holding back all night and finally snapped. I can feel the difference in his mouth, in how deep the kiss goes, in the way his tongue moves against mine. I make a small, desperate sound into his mouth, and it makes him pull me tighter.
He lays me back against the couch. His mouth moves down my neck, his teeth grazing my skin as he breathes heavily against me. His hands trail across my stomach. This time there’s no Christmas interruption, no brain malfunction, no sudden conversational detour about his secret Canadian family. He pulls my jeans and underwear down together. I’m now completely naked and suddenly intensely aware of the fact that nobody has ever been this close to me under so much light.
It’s incredibly vulnerable. My heart hammers against my ribs as he kisses my hip bone, then the inside of my thigh. I can feel his warm breath against my skin, and the sheer intimacy of it makes my chest tighten. That’s exactly when my anxiety decides to betray me in the worst possible way, again.
“Wait,” I say.
He stops immediately and looks up at me.
“Okay, so I just want to say that I didn’t know this was going to happen tonight so I didn’t prepare. I don’t even know whatpreparing would look like, but I feel like there’s supposed to be some kind of—” I gesture vaguely at myself. “Also, the lighting situation is really not ideal. I’m not sure I smell—I mean I showered, but that was this morning and I’ve been walking around all day. I don't know if there's a freshness window for that kind of thing like an expiration or a best use by?—”
He doesn’t say anything. He just turns his head and rests his cheek affectionately against my inner thigh, looking up at me, waiting for me to finish.
“—and I’ve read that I’m supposed to taste like... something? But I’ve never actually checked because how would you even check that? What if I’m not wet enough, and you get down there and it’s just as dry as the turkey my dad is going to make at Christmas?”
His thumb rubs a slow, reassuring circle on my hip while he watches me, completely patient, not interrupting a single word.
“—or what if I’m too wet and it’s messy, and that’s gross, right? Is that gross? I feel like nobody talks about the logistics of this, and I should have googled it, but googling ‘what if I’m too wet for oral’ felt like something I can get arrested for and?—”
I stop and take a deep breath, looking down at him, praying he doesn't run away.
“Do you have any complaints, concerns, comments?”
He lifts his head from my thigh. “First of all,” he says, his voice incredibly gentle, “you smell amazing. Genuinely. I want to bury my face right here and never leave.” He turns his head and kisses my thigh. I feel his breath, warm against me, and my whole body shivers in response.
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this, and absolutely nothing right now is disappointing me.” He props his chin on my leg and looks up at me, but his eyes dart to the side and I know he’s lying
