Page 85 of String Boys

Kelly grabbed his hand and led him to the bedroom, where they both stripped down awkwardly. The memory of where they’d been two years ago versus where they were now made their fingers stiff, and the action of being alone, naked, with each other, a painful rediscovery.

“Your chest grew,” Kelly said softly, coming to put his hands on Seth’s shoulders.

“I had to work out,” Seth admitted. “So I could hold the violin longer.” He grimaced. “And because my arms were developing differently, and it was weird.”

Kelly laughed, and some of the newness faded.

Seth traced fingertips along Kelly’s jaw. “Stubble.”

Kelly rolled his eyes. “Pita.”

And then, because Seth had realized he found these things fascinating—and had been to the beach enough times to be fascinated by them in other bodies, even though he hadn’t said anything—he skimmed his hands along Kelly’s ribs to the V cut of his stomach muscles.

“You work on this,” he said softly, and a sudden pulse of heat told him Kelly was pleased.

“Jimmy Durreson told me I’d never keep a boyfriend if I got fat,” he confessed, and Seth grinned.

“I’d love you fat,” he said, his fingertips pushing gently against the muscle to see how—ooh!—hard it was.

“But you like me now!” Kelly laughed, and Seth saw him then, the laughing boy, as though the pain had fallen away like an empty shell and what remained was the soft bubble ofnowthat would protect them until his alarm buzzed.

“I love you now,” Seth corrected, and then lowered his lips to Kelly’s clavicle, teasing with his teeth.

Kelly gasped, and Seth kept going, the ache in his groin blooming with the suddenness of a blow.

Kelly’s nipples. Ah! He could have stayed there forever, teasing, pulling, the sweetness of Kelly’s skin on his tongue. But Kelly tugged at his hair—growing long, the ringlets hardly tamed by oil right now—and Seth fell to his knees and looked up, asking permission. Kelly feathered a touch along his cheekbone, then skated his fingertips along Seth’s lips.

“Yeah,” he said.

Seth remembered how to do this.

He licked first, and tasted, and stroked. He squeezed slow, long, and hard. He hollowed his mouth and took Kelly in, pushing his head down as far as he could.

This time—this time, it went all the way.

Kelly gasped and started to shake, and Seth cupped the backs of his thighs so he could help support his weight.

“I’m gonna—ah! Seth!”

And Seth tasted, bitter, he’d forgotten how bitter, and earthy. And salty. And good.

Kelly sank to his knees on the patterned rug of Seth’s room, resting his face against Seth’s throat and laughing shakily.

“Augh! Oh my God,mijo. I’m not sure I can stand.”

Seth’s next sound was a whimper, because he was still hard and aching, his cock jutting from his lap like a jousting lance. He dropped his hand to it, and Kelly stopped him.

“I may not be able to stand,” he said, his voice a low, gruff rumble. When had that happened? When had Kelly’s voice sunk to gravel? “But I am going to taste you. I am going to take you apart.”

Seth shivered. Helpless. He could be helpless in front of Kelly. Kelly would guard him when his mind flew to the stars and his body shattered into glitter and twinkle-dust.

Kelly started at his throat, and bypassed the nipples so he could concentrate on Seth’s arms.

“I have a confession to make,” he whispered, licking a line down Seth’s bicep.

“Yeah?”

“I really love guys with guns.”