Page 66 of The Other Brother

Cody continues to stare at me, those blue eyes burning with the intensity of a thousand suns.

I can’t wrench my eyes away from him. I’m fairly sure civilizations rise and fall in the time that Cody and I stay wrapped in each other’s gaze.

He leans toward me. My breath hitches. Surely, he can’t be about to—

He kisses me.

I’m so stunned at the feeling of his lips against mine that I forget to kiss him back.

Cody draws back after a few seconds. “Sorry…” he starts to stammer.

I finally manage to react. “No.”

He cuts off his words abruptly. “No what?” he whispers.

“No. Don’t apologize.”

This time, I’m the one who closes the distance between us. I’m the one who reaches up to cup the side of his face, who presses my lips to his. It starts out soft but quickly turns heated.

Our mouths open, and as soon as my tongue touches his, an electric current flashes through my body. Kissing Cody makes so much sense. It makes sense in the way that strawberries and ice cream make sense. The way lightning and thunder are always paired.

He moans, and the sound sends me into another level of turned on. My hand slides into his hair, tugging him to me, and he comes willingly. My senses are consumed with him. The smell of his aftershave, the lingering taste of something sweet, the feel of his soft curls under my fingers.

All the feelings I’ve tried so hard to bury come rushing to the surface, like I’ve just hit an oil well. A gushing, bubbling, boiling stream of feelings for the guy I’m now kissing.

When we finally pull apart, we’re both panting. Cody’s pupils are dilated, black swallowing the blue, as he stares at me.

Damn.

Cody continues to breathe heavily, like he’s just run a marathon. But the smile creeping onto his face makes me realize that if this was a race, then we’re both sharing the winner’s podium right now.

“Holy shit,” he says.

I couldn’t have put it any better myself.

“Um… yeah.” I rake my hand through my hair, not wanting to look him straight in the eyes. Because I get the feeling that my kiss has just revealed a lot of stuff I wasn’t planning on admitting. Even to myself. “That was unexpected,” I find myself adding.

“What? You’re telling me you haven’t ever thought about doing that?” This is the thing about Cody—he calls me on my shit.

“Maybe the thought had entered my head.” I lean back on my elbows, and Cody mirrors me. I take deep breaths of the night air, trying to calm myself. The warmth from the hood is fading, but that’s okay. We’ve just proven we can generate our own heat.

Questions swirl in my mind until I can’t help but ask one of them. “So, are you bi or just experimenting or…”

Cody swivels his head toward me. “Are you asking me for a label?”

“Um… I guess.”

He sits up, folding his arms across his chest. “I thought you didn’t like labels.”

“I don’t. It’s just that I heard you hooked up with Angie Baker at Jamie’s party, so I’m just trying to get it straight in my head. Or not so straight, as the case may be.”

“I think when it comes to me, not straight is your answer,” he says softly.

“Seriously? So how not straight are we talking? A slight bend or more than that?”

“We’re talking about a ninety-degree angle. Totally perpendicular.”

“But Angie…”