Page 71 of Trigger Discipline

And like that, his mind was quiet.

Like a marionette with its strings cut, Blake went limp. He had never felt anything like this. They said that kissing should be like fireworks—explosions of sound and color, but with Gabriel, it was the opposite. Nothing else mattered. His whole world narrowed down to the places where their skintouched. To the taste, smell, and feel of the man holding his cut strings.

And in this newfound peace, Blake found something new—desire.

Blake had kissed before. He’d been kissed. But it had always been halfhearted. Attempts to put slot A into tab B. Formulaic, and while pleasant, it wasn’t like this.

Gabriel’s kiss was like a full-body experience. It started at his lips and gained momentum as it raced all the way down to his toes, licking like a drug along his veins, lacing him with a need that was quickly turning into an addiction.

He wanted more. He pushed onto his toes so he could kiss him back. Chasing more of that high, that heat, that pulled and pushed him in ways he’d never known. Blake’s lips parted, and Gabriel sought more contact, his tongue licking along the seam of Blake’s bow in a question whose answer promised so much more than a deepened kiss.

Blake wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s neck. The soldier groaned softly as he licked into Blake’s mouth, his tongue hot, warm, and insistent. He tasted like mint and beans, which should have been unpleasant, but Blake found it was only adding to Gabriel’s appeal. Like weeks from now, when he was parted from these lips and this man, he might eat a can of beans and brush his teeth just to bring himself back to this moment.

They kissed until they were breathless. Until Gabriel’s hand had slid around Blake’s hip, fingers burrowing under his borrowed hoodie to just barely caress the hint of skin over his belt.

You’re my type.

Gabriel had said that; it felt like a lifetime ago, but had only been days. Dog years, he’d also said. And it felt like that. Like this kiss, this passion had been building between them from the moment Blake flung open his ambulance doors andtold him to get in. And now it was here, and they were caught in its wake, andBlake didn’t want to fight it.

So he went.

He kissed; he touched. He didn’t stop to think about the whys or the what’s, didn’t get in his head about how things looked, or if Gabriel wanted it done a certain way. Blake was solostinthemthat he didn’t care.

Gabriel was the first to pull back. He curled his fingers in the soft hairs at the base of Blake’s neck and rested his forehead against his, breathing like he’d just been running.

“Blake,” he began, his eyes still closed. “I didn’t mean to spring that on you. I should have?—”

Blake set his jaw. “Why did you kiss me?”

That made Gabriel open his eyes. He blinked down at Blake, taking in his swollen lips and skin pink from stubble burn. His gaze lingered, eyes going dark with hunger. Blake watched his throat bob as he swallowed.

"Because I had to," Gabriel answered, voice scraped raw with honesty. "And not just because there are aliens outside." He touched Blake's cheek, eyes earnest. "Because you're you and I'm me." He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "Because whether there were aliens blowing up the Earth or we were standing in line at a coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon…I would have kissed you.”

Blake flushed. “So do it again.”

Gabriel was a good soldier; he knew an order when he heard one.

They came together again, and this time it was more fervent. The uncertainty was gone, and in its place was desire so hot Blake felt like he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fill his lungs with oxygen because he was too busy breathing in Gabriel. Want thrummed in his veins, it smoldered inside of him until he had to shift, seeking friction against his aching erection. He’d never been so hard. Not for anyone. He waslightheaded with the speed at which all his blood drained into his dick.

Blake thought he knew about sex and about orgasms, but with Gabriel’s touch branding his skin, he began to realize why people killed and died for this. For this anticipation, thisheatthat spoke to him in a way his mind never could. A primal thing that his body understood but his mind didn’t.

When he pressed his hard cock against Gabriel, his hold tightened, and Gabriel pushed until Blake’s back hit the wall.

With better leverage, Gabriel was able to slide his hand down until he ended up resting on the swell of Blake’s ass. His fingers squeezed, releasing slowly like he didn’t want to let go.

“God, fuck, Blake, you’ve got to—I want you so much. I want—tell me to stop. Tell me to stop and I will.”

He should. He should push Gabriel back and tell him no. Not now. Not when they had spent the last week trying to survive—living off adrenaline and the innate stubbornness of humanity. He should tell him that this was all just biology. A need to be close, to feel something other than fear. Hell, he should tell him he’d never been with a man before.

But this thing between them transcended labels or logic. It felt like an inevitability. Like, all of this was just an elaborate plot to get them here, right now in this apartment with too much beer and not enough vegetables.

Gabriel was the whisper that silenced the screaming in his mind.

Blake reached for Gabriel’s belt, jerking him closer. “You know…tomorrow is uncertain….”

“Are you seriously trying to use the whole ‘we could die tomorrow’ trope to seduce me?”

“Is it working?”