Junction X by Erastes (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

He frowned once, hesitating as if he was trying to work out what I was saying. I couldn’t blame him; I had hardly been coherent. Then he reached out without stepping closer, taking the box from my hands. He stared at the paper for long seconds, his face unreadable, but I swear he knew what was in that box before he ripped the paper off. I felt my heart race as he stood there, staring at the Mallard’s picture on the box.

“Why did you do this?” He didn’t look up for a moment.

“Because you wanted it. Because I saw your face—”

He moved forward, holding the box between us. “I can’t.”

I felt then that I’d known he couldn’t. It was too much. Too expensive But I was still disappointed. I was hopeless at any kind of gesture. I always seemed to do too much—or too little.

“I…I know. I’m sorry.”

He put the box on the workbench and held out his hand. “Thank you, though.” I shook his hand; in a heartbeat, he darted forward and kissed me hard on the lips.

I have tried to describe that moment to myself and to Alex a hundred times, but how can one explain a death and a rebirth? How can one explain the end of everything and the terrifying future of a half-opened door with no idea what’s beyond it? I can’t speak of the taste of his mouth on mine because I don’t recall how it felt to be born, not the pain or the joy of it. All I do recall was crushing his hand and, for one long second, letting him kiss me before pushing him away. But I knew I’d waited too long before reacting, and now he would know.

He was still too close, and his eyes were anxious but held something else—hope, perhaps?

I could only echo what he’d said to me. “Why?”

He was still holding my hand as if he’d never let go. “Because you wanted it,” he said simply. “Because I saw your face.”

Chapter 10

My heart was thudding so hard that I had to focus consciously on what he had just said, and my blood was on fire. As I looked at him, I couldn’t ever remember thinking of him as anything but what he was—not an awkward gangly child, but a beautiful young man.

“I can’t tell you how many times I imagined doing that,” he said.

I think his words were more shocking than the fact that he’d kissed me at all. I wasn’t handling the moment well. I should have said something, given him something in return for what he’d given me, but I just stood there and stared at him, a deer in headlights, teetering between fear and elation.

I swallowed. “I… You. I didn’t know.”

“Neither did I, at first,” he said. His voice was calmer than mine, as if he was in control. I think he was. “About you, I mean. But you looked at me sometimes as if you wanted to touch me…”

I couldn’t say what I wanted to. Yes. I’ve wanted to touch you, to feel your skin under my palms, to put my fingers into your hair, to touch your mouth and see your eyes close when I…

So I just said. “Yes.” I glanced toward the garage doors, terrified that someone might have seen us, then moved to shut and lock them behind me. When I turned, he was there—close and warm and in my arms. I couldn’t stop. God help me, I couldn’t. I was in my own garage, with my children and my wife on the other side of flimsy wooden doors, and I pulled that young man into my arms and I kissed him as if it was our last moment together instead of our first. Oh God. Just the memory of that—which I count as our first kiss, for I have no real memory of the one before—is enough to make me hard every single time I recall it. I was a man fresh from the driest burning desert and desperate to drink. I was a glutton, and I pulled him to me with both hands, feeling that I could devour him. There was no gentleness in that kiss; we were rocks, crashing against each other.

My hands slid down his back and he curved towards me with a groan. Down my hands moved and I swear they were shaking, even then, even though I had lost myself in his mouth. They slid down over the curve of his backside and my legs went weak. To hold him like this was everything—and yet not enough. It could never be enough. Frantically, I pulled his shirt from his trousers, the cotton cool against the heat of my palms. I plunged my hands under it, seeking his skin, but touching it broke the spell, and I pulled away from his lips, breathing as hard as if I’d run from the Junction.

“Don’t stop,” he said. “Please. Please.” His hands were on my shoulders, clinging with the tips of his fingers, as if he’d fall if he let go.

I muttered incomprehensible rubbish, the sort of nonsense spouted by people with backbone. “We mustn’t. I’m sorry.” I even made the pretence of moving away, but I didn’t mean it. I wanted to make him decide, and I’d do whatever he wanted, whatever it was. My heart nearly burst when he pulled me to him, closer and closer still until there was nothing but a double layer of cloth between us from chest to hip.

“No. We must.” His voice was surprisingly fierce. “Who knows when we’ll get another chance?”

This time the kiss was softer; my eyes closed as I surrendered to him, his hands moved up to tangle in my hair, and I was bolder, exploring the smooth warmth of his torso. I could feel the waistband of his trousers—tantalisingly loose—skimming the edges of my palms. I could slide my hand into his