Page 34 of Regret Me Not
“We have to wait two days?”
“I hate to tell you this, but I can still give you blowjobs. You heard the guy—the risk of HIV through swallowing is—”
“Too big to risk,” Hal snapped, glaring at him. “Handsies all the way.”
Pierce glared at him, making diabolical, slow, and sensual plans that would make “handsies” look like a gift from the gods. “Sure,” he said. “Handsies. ’Cause we’re fourteen-year-olds grabbing each other in the locker room. Handsies.”
Hal unlocked the doors with a gentle beep, hiding a smirk.
“What?” Pierce asked, swinging into the CR-V and cursing the stiffness left over from his morning workout. Dammit—he was seriously going to have to keep swimming if he ever wanted to move again.
If he ever wanted to possess Hal, completely, or pull his knees up to his chest and let Hal take him.
“Thirteen,” Hal said, closing the door and starting the car. “I was thirteen, old man. What? Did you save your hand job cherry for college?”
“Graduation,” Pierce muttered, embarrassed. “Some of us werenotthat cute in high school.”
Hal paused in the act of pulling his seat belt on. “What makes you think some of uswere? Cute in high school, I mean.”
Pierce rolled his eyes. “Do I have to say it?” he asked, mortally embarrassed. “Are you really going to make me tell you this?”
Hal stared at him through those big amber eyes. Pierce had noticed, this last week, how lush his black eyelashes were, how strong his nose was, straight bridged and not too big. What a strong jaw he had, and how his smile was as innocent and bright as his mouth was sinfully wicked.
“Tell me what?”
Truth was a compulsion. “You’re beautiful,” Pierce said, embarrassed. “You… I was so embarrassed, that first day, because you were so pretty—so beautiful, and you were talking to me, and I was at my worst in my entire life. I couldn’t even see your eyes then. And your eyes are beautiful. And your mouth is beautiful. I don’t know how you could have been anything but beautiful in high school. I… I just don’t understand.”
It was his turn to look away, avoiding Hal’s eyes.
Hal fumbled for his hand, but Pierce still couldn’t have looked at him.
“Isowould have blown you when I was in high school,” Hal said fervently.
“And that would have made me a creepy old guy molesting an underage boy.”
Hal laughed shortly. “Look at me. We’re wasting gas.”
Pierce turned reluctantly because he was right. “What?”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“I know that.”
“I’m only a little stupid.”
Pierce couldn’t help the faint smile. “Aren’t we all.”
“I wanted you from that first day. Hurt and pale—it didn’t matter.”
“Because you’re crazy,” Pierce said slowly, like you spoke to crazy people so as not to set them off.
Hal dragged the knuckles of his free hand down the side of Pierce’s scarred cheek. “Because you’re a unicorn,” he said. Then he kissed Pierce, one of the softest, most tender kisses Pierce could ever remember. Aching with gentleness, it undid him, leveled everything in his heart, in his mind, that could have stood against Hal’s incursion into his soul.
Hal pulled away and stroked his lower lip again. “Don’t try to deny it,” he whispered, and while Pierce was looking for words that wouldn’t shatter either of them, Hal pulled away from the clinic. “So—should we try for wrapping paper this time?”
“How about rubbers and lube,” Pierce muttered, unsettled and vulnerable. “We could start there.”
“Sure. Zombie Apocalypse Central, here we come.”
