Page 177 of Untouchable

“Two things,”Parker says, holding up two fingers to illustrate. “First off, your cock has technically never been in my hand, but whatever. Second...” he puts his hand down and nuzzles back into Harp’s neck. “I get that entirely. It makes a lot of sense when you explain it that way, and I see… I see why it would really freak you out.”

He trails off for a moment, thinking. He’d always assumed Harp wanted to go slowly because he thought Harp didn’t really trust how Parker felt about him, but this puts things in a different light. What they’ve done together so far has been so intimate, so lovely, that it had never occurred to him to compare it anything but favorably to his previous experiences. But Parker can see, too, how the same thing might happen to him—there had been times when Cole had been fucking him from behind, when he couldn’t see Cole’s face, when Parker had felt so small and so alone, desperate for intimacy. It’s hard to imagine ever feeling that way with Harp, but…

He understands Harp’s fear.

“Just tell me,” Parker says at last. “Tell me what I can do to make it better. Tell me if you want to try something or if… if what we’re doing isn’t… is making things bad again.”

He lays the full weight of his head on Harp’s shoulders and reaches for Harp’s hand, twining their fingers together.

“What was your first kiss like? With a guy, I mean. If—if you are okay with telling me.”

* * *

Harp smilesand puffs a laugh through his nose.

"It wasn't what I expected. You go so long thinking that doing anything with a guy is this impossible threshold, this thing that you can never come back from. And so on top of that, I built up that it would be different than any kiss I'd ever had. Because how could it be anything like kissing a woman?"

Parker traces Harp's big knuckles one by one.

"But it was just the same. I couldn't believe it. Just... a soft mouth and soft lips. It felt wonderful but underwhelming—like I'd spent my whole life being afraid of a monster only to find out that it's a mouse."

Harp chuckles. "I guess the first time I kissed a guy with a beard it was a little different. But... people are just people, I think. And I just happen to be more attracted to men. It was less profound, in the end, than I thought it would be when I was young."

“How’d it happen? Like, who was it with?”

"The bar was a place called Pete's Coral Reef, on some off-season resort barrier island I've forgotten the name of. I forgot the guy's name, too, if I ever knew it. I was across the state for a corporate meetup for one of the freelancing gigs I'd landed. I was bored and lonely and wanted to be drunk. I accidentally ended up in a low-key gay bar and purposefully stayed. And I met him there. And that was all that happened."

“Do you think it was Pete?” Parker says seriously. “Do you think you kissed Pete himself?”

"Absolutely not," Harp says, laughing. "He was way too young to have owned anything so lame."

“My first kiss was Scott,” Parker volunteers, “who was a senior and the captain of the varsity soccer team. I was a sophomore and I kissed him at a party. It was, um…. well, it was okay. He was… not a good kisser, but also I’m not very sure I was a good kisser then, either.”

Parker brings Harp’s hand to his mouth, planting soft kisses across each of his knuckles.

“What about other stuff?” Parker asks in between kisses.

"Do you wanna know about the first time I got a guy off who I cared about?"

A smile curls on Parker's lips and he nods.

"Well, the two of us were at my house on the couch and there was a fire going. We'd spent the whole day together—we were snowed in, actually—and even though we said we were just going to kiss, he was too perfect... and I had to..."

“Oh, stop it—” Parker says, and he bursts out laughing. He pulls Harp in for a long, sweet kiss, and he laughs the whole way through. “You’re… you’re such a sap.”

“Too much?” Harp asks.

“No,” Parker says. “But… you’re making me blush.”

"It's true," Harp says. "All my firsts before you were mechanical. It wasn't like this... like any of this."

He stops, because he's starting to freak himself out a little. It's true, after all, but Parker doesn't need to know how far Harp has let himself go in his mind, how much of him already belongs to Parker.

He snags both of their champagne glasses and passes Parker's over.

"And, to be completely honest with you, I don't want to know about any of your firsts. Not yet. I'm too jealous. If I ever meet first-kiss, captain of the varsity soccer team Scott, I'll already want to break his nose," Harp says with a smile to let him know he's at least half-joking. "And all he got from you was a kiss."

Parker smiles.

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