Page 12 of Doors & Windows
The process of unpeeling themselves from their clothes was a lot less graceful than they made it out to be in the movies. Their shirts went easy enough, but there was a lot of awkward shimmying, tangled limbs, and puffs of breathy laughter in taking off their jeans.
The sensation of so much skin-on-skin threatened to swallow Liam whole. It was enough to distract from the self-consciousness of putting himself on display—his pale thighs, the freckled plane of his chest and stomach, the dusting of bronze hair over his body. He couldn’t imagine being like this with anyone else.
Having Jonah this way, giving himself so completely in return, was more than he could have imagined before. It was easy to recall the night from the hotel pool almost a year ago, watching beads of water drip down the column of Jonah’s neck to gather in shallow pools at his clavicle, and Liam quashing the unbidden desire to follow their trail with his tongue. Even then, even when Liam would have rather died than cross a boundary with him, Jonah had awoken some part of him that Liam didn’t know existed.
Jonah’s body was different now than it had been in that pool room: sturdier, healthier. But most notably was the smooth expanse of unbruised skin. So rarely had he seen Jonah without the smattering remnants ofviolence. Liam wanted to put his mouth to every inch of him.
He couldn’t help himself. Liam threw his arms around Jonah’s neck and clung to him, burying his nose against his shoulder to breathe in the reminder of his safety. The gesture was oddly wholesome in contrast to the heat of the moment, and Jonah went momentarily still. Only for a second. Then, Jonah’s body melted into the embrace, tilting his temple against Liam’s. He could feel the words there between them, beating to the rhythm of his own erratic heart:I love you, I love you, I love you.
Before he could voice it, the hand resting on Liam’s side smoothed down his flank, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Fingertips skimmed the sensitive skin just above Liam’s waistband, sending a shiver through his body.
Jonah pulled back to meet his eyes. “Do you want me to?”
God, Liam was dizzy with wanting. His head spun at the idea of Jonah’s hand on him.
There was only one thing he wanted more.
“Wait,” Liam breathed, unable to keep the desperation from his voice.
In every iteration of this moment he had ever played out in his head, it was Jonah lost to pleasure under Liam’s touch. Sweet, perfect, selfless Jonah, who deserved for someone to put him first for once in his life.
“Can I…?” Liam cleared his throat. “I want to touch you. Please.”
Jonah drew back. The fleeting hesitation was enough to have Liam swallowing his words, reaching for a retraction or an apology.
“Only if you want,” Liam added quickly, his fingers digging lightly into Jonah’s bare shoulders. “Anything—everything—is only if you want it. It’s just… Whenever I’ve thought about this, I’ve always pictured being the one to make you feel good. I’d like to try.”
He watched Jonah’s expression carefully—the twitch of surprise in his brow, the movement of his throat as he swallowed, and finally, the curve of his lips. “You’ve thought about this a lot, have you?”
If Liam’s skin wasn’t already an inferno, his embarrassment would have been written all over his face.
But then Jonah nodded, the scratch of his hair against Liam’s cheek. “Okay,” he whispered.
“Yeah?”
Jonah nodded again, this time rolling onto his back. Liam didn’t have time to mourn the loss of his weight, because an arm hooked around his waist and pulled him close. He wasn’t quite on top of Jonah, not fully, but enough that he propped himself on one elbow to keep from pinning him down.
They were both breathing heavily, their strained pulls for air the only sound in the room. Carefully, Liam placed an experimental hand on Jonah’s stomach, transfixed by the muscles that twitched beneath his touch. He flicked his gaze back to his face. Jonah was watching him with dark eyes.
“You’ll tell me if it’s too much?” Liam asked.
Jonah nodded a third time. On some level, Liam wished he would vocalize his affirmation, but he knew that this was delicate ground they were treading, and he didn’t want to push Jonah for more than he could give. And when Jonah reached up to cradle his face between his palms and pulled Liam back into a kiss, it was easy to let his worries dissolve to dust.
He didn’t move his hand right away, allowing them both a beat to acclimate to the new arrangement. Only when fingers slid over his own, guiding his touch lower, did Liam allow himself to breach Jonah’s final barrier of clothing.
The feel of him under his hand was intoxicating, but not nearly as much as the noise that spilled from Jonah’s mouth as his body arched, his head pushing back into the pillow. Liam navigated his way by Jonah’s sounds, by his body’s reaction to his touch—a compass in the dark. He was terrified of being bad at this, at being entirely clueless on the subject of making Jonah feel good, but he found that pleasing Jonah came naturally. Liam would have chased any instinct, followed any path, that made Jonah sound like that.
He remembered the colorless tone of Jonah’s proposition the night they met—how do you want to do this?—and could hardly reconcile the memory of that boy with the one beneath him now. Had anyone ever put him first? Had anyone ever touched him with selfless intent?
This moment of intimacy was so much more than any depiction fed to him through songs and movies and books. For the first time in his life, Liam could understand this burning passion that drove people tomake art, to try to put the feeling into a language that could transcend words. And still, Liam knew that it wouldn’t have been like this with anyone else. It was because he was here in this room, with this person, that everything made sense. That everything was perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
CHAPTER 4
Jonah
The first time Jonah had sex, he’d thought he was in love. The night Liam followed him up to his bedroom in the Queens house, he was sure that he was.
