“I told you to live in the moment. To not let your memories, or lack of memories, interfere with you living your life. What if… What if I should have said something else?Donesomething else?”
“I haven’t had a panic attack in a while. I’m enjoying my time here with you. My time getting to know you. I feel better when I’m with you, and that’s all that matters.” How far I’d come.
“What if it’s not all that matters? What if the truth matters more?” His frustration seemed internalized.
“The truth will come to me when it’s ready. I’ll get my memories back if I’m meant to. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” He seemed more dejected than convinced.
I scooted forward so that his legs could circle me, working from instinct instead of my head. We embraced, hard enough that he grunted from the discomfort, hard enough that his cock pressed into my stomach. His rapidly swellingcock. My own cock stirred, pushing against the thin fabric of my lounge pants to slot between the covered crease of his ass.
Solace moaned, the sound reverberating against my skin from where his mouth and nose now rested against my throat. He rocked his hips, and it was my turn to moan from the friction.
“What are we doing, Solace?” I breathed as he continued to thrust in my lap.
“I don’t know.” He eased back to look at me. “But I want to do it, whatever it is.”
This moment had been building for weeks, and I was done trying to outrun it. Done trying to live in my truth—in my physical attraction for him—while somehow also playing it safe.
He raised his arms, and I followed his lead, removing his t-shirt. He tore away the elastic keeping his hair up, and I caught some of the thick strands in my hand, holding it out of the way so my other hand could explore the lean muscles along his back. We didn’t dare tear our gazes away from each other.
Solace continued to dry hump my cock while my fingers roamed his skin. Neither of us were in a hurry to move on to other things just yet. His eyes smoldered with passion, and his body warmed with the heat of the fire and exertion. Sweat slickened his back, a bead of it trickled down his spine to drip onto my hand, provoking another image. An image I’d seen several times before, one of a sweat-slicked back and hair wrapped around my fist.
I curled my fingers tighter around his locks and yanked him back. Solace sucked in a razor-edged breath, his hips stilling as we panted into the silence. A memory of a scent saturated my nose until I thought I might suffocate from it. My mouth then flooded with a flavor that was familiar yet out of reach of my memories.
“Noon? Wha-what’s wrong?” The haze of arousal clouded his eyes.
I swallowed past the choking taste, eyes frantically darting over his features as I twisted my fist around the length of his hair. “Why do I know that you taste like mint with a dash of sin?” I asked accusingly, without knowing what the hell I was accusing him of. We were so close we shared breath, and not a hint of mint assaulted me. I couldn’t recall ever smelling it on him. Still, the sudden surety that he would taste like it—or should taste like it—was something I would’ve gambled my life on. I needed to know why.
“I-I don’t,” he whispered, scrambling to climb off me. I flipped him to his back, unleashing my weight on him, searching for the truth through his fear.
“Prove it,” I said through ragged breaths. Indecision and terror turned him to stone beneath me, and so I took his mouth with mine, stealing his option to refuse.
Nothing. There was nothing to substantiate my accusation. Solace tasted of chamomile and warmth, and kissing him felt like returning home, yet mint gorged itself on my body.
It overtook my mouth, then spread like wings throughout every part of me, embedding its flavor into every organ, every cell. I wanted more of it. Hating the taste while loving it. Hating it but loving that it came from him, yet didn’t. I couldn’t distinguish fact from fiction, memories from the here and now.
Solace’s stone facade crumbled beneath me. I’d offered him no choice. It was either give in or be taken, even though both looked and felt the same.
We were like animals, the kiss turning bloody when one of us nipped the other’s lip. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to inhale the man currently fighting for air underneath me.
He squeezed my ass while I devoured him, urging me to move between his spread legs. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but search for answers within our kiss. Once I could move, once I’d gained awareness when the tug in my mind gave way, I pulled back. The air was clear again, my tastebuds mint free.
I thought back on our exchange before the kiss began.
“Why do I know that you taste like mint with a dash of sin?”
“I-I don’t.”
Maybe he hadn’t lied, but my gut told me that wasn’t the whole truth. I glared down at him with accusing eyes again and whispered, “Liar.”
Solace
Then
WE HAD SEXeverywhere and all the time. Baptizing the sins of this house away, even cleansing the walls. The only space we didn’t touch was Gavin’s room. He was innocent in all this.
I groaned from atop Patrick’s desk as Noon thrust between my legs. It was the only thing in his office that hadn’t been tossed into the fire pit. That and the desk chair I’d rode Noon on less than an hour ago. The broken pieces of the chair littered the floor, and I had a nice kneecap bruise to show what the force of our lovemaking could do.Break and rebuild.