Page 76 of Someone Like You

He licked his lips, overcome with emotion. “Abby said that?”

“Yeah,” Ian all but laughed. “Pretty matter-of-factly, too. She also said…” His forehead creased. “I think the exact phrasin’ was:‘There’s nothing I can do about grapefruit, but I can let him have you.’Whatever that means.”

“I’ll explain later.” Phil frantically fisted Ian’s t-shirt to yank him down to his eye-level. “Can we fuckingkissnow?”

A slow, devilish smirk formed across Ian’s lips. There was an emotional glint in the blue of his eyes.

“No objection.”

“Great.”

Phil grabbed Ian by the neck and very ungently pulled him into a kiss so frantic and messy it felt like a matter of life or death, all pants and teeth, and lips relentlessly chasing lips despite the burn of the beard and the oxygen running out fast.

It was a funny feeling — the reverse height difference he wasn’t used to, expanse of solid muscles filling his arms, unafraid of his strength, and the loving, passionate touch of Ian’s lips upon his own, hungry and eager but carefully responsive to his most subtle cues, indulging every title of his head, every brief hesitation, every experimental shift. Kissing a guy so much bigger and stronger than him made him feel so small and fragile…

Kissinga guy.

Phil laughed into the kiss.

Ian pulled back. “What?” His arms stayed around Phil, hands splayed on the bare skin of his back. The hoodie had fallen to the ground and no one was interested in picking it up.

“Nothing. Just… Ah.” Phil dipped his head with another laugh, more than just a little breathless. “I’m like twenty years late with this sexual awakening shit.”

“Didn’t realise there were deadlines for that.” Phil could feel the pressure of every single one of Ian’s fingertips into the small of his back, hot and unflinching. His lips burned from the friction with Ian’s beard, but he could still feel the delicate swipe of Ian’s tongue, too, and that burned in a whole different way.

Phil’s arms relaxed, draping over Ian’s shoulders as he took in the breath-taking sight of the man who’d been living rent-free in his head all this time.

“At my age you just kinda assume that that ship has sailed, you know? You’ve seen the best of both worlds, stuck to one side all your life…” His gaze dropped to Ian’s mouth and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to suppress a smug grin. “Turns out the best of theotherworld was actually waiting for me in Scotland.”

Ian kissed him, a light, lingering brush that made up for all the previous violence, and whispered upon his lips: “Thank you for dragging your arse all the way to me.”

The tenderness of it awakened two contrasting feelings within Phil: the need to cry and the yearning. He latched onto the latter, not wanting to ruin the moment, but while he struggled to keep his eyes from welling up, something else happened — something that made him glance up at Ian apologetically, only to find him smiling.

“Happy to see me, Handsome?”

With a boldness that came out of nowhere, Phil pressed up closer to Ian. The flimsy running shorts did absolutely nothing to conceal his hard-on. His tongue swept at a corner of his parted lips as his eyes roamed across Ian’s body.

“I’m not seeing nearly enough of you.”

A greedy light ignited in Ian’s dilated pupils. Strong hands grabbed Phil’s hips. “Maybe a shower’ll help.”

There was a promise lurking behind the casualness of the proposal, a sweet one that made Phil’s mouth go dry with anticipation, but at the same time a visceral nervousness gripped his guts. He didn’t know what to expect from that promise — didn’t know whatIanexpected of him.

“I’ve never—”

Ian shushed him with a gentle tug that brought Phil’s erection flush against his thigh. “Just let me take care ofthis. If you say stop, I’ll stop.”

The mere mental picture ofthatforced Phil to bite down on a pathetic moan.

“And if I saymore?” he asked breathlessly.

Ian smirked and pulled him into the bathroom, where Phil watched him strip one garment at a time, leisurely, maybe because the damp fabric clung tightly to his skin, or maybe because he just loved driving Phil insane. Phil waited for the familiar sting of self-consciousness, but it was wiped away by a single, lustful look before it could kick in. Ian, who was built like a god and had surelyseen plenty of people way hotter than Phil, looked at him as if he was the most attractive human to have ever blessed his sight.

The water ran in the shower, steam pouring out and fogging the mirror and the window. Ian stepped closer to Phil, only a pair of black trunks left on him, doing a very poor job in containing a showy half-mast.

“You sure about this? We don’t have to—”

“Fuck it. I want to touch you. I wantyouto touchme.”

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