I yawned in his face. “Honestly, it’s not a cat,” I insisted when he released my ear.
“Dare, knock it off,” Peter commented drowsily as he sat up and looked out the window.
The ceiling light ticked on as Darryl opened the door. Peter’s face was half in shadow, but the illuminated side was imprinted with my seat design. I’d never had the opportunity to think of Peter as cute. Right then, he was ridiculously so.
“Why are you grinning?” Peter yawned, managing to look even more adorable as he tried to simultaneously give me a suspicious glare.
“Darryl told me to be your rock. People say I can’t follow directions. I gotta disagree.” I pointed to my crotch.
Peter laughed quietly.
“Loser,” Darryl said and grabbed the cat. It yelped as he yanked the box. I opened the door and flipped the seat up so Peter could scoot out.
The driver’s side door slammed, and the distant echo of Begone’s howls told me that Darryl was almost inside the house by the time Peter gathered up all our paperwork and dislodged himself from the backseat. He lost his footing partway out and fell into my arms.
“Well, hello there,” I said, nose-to-nose with him.
His eyebrow shot up. “You’re really strange tonight. My arrest makes you horny and goofy?”
I palmed the hair away from his face and kept an arm circled around him. He smelled like sweat and cigarettes. I didn’t care. He felt amazing. “You look cute.”
“Fumbling and exhausted?”
“Vulnerable and unguarded.” He took that as a cue to mask his near-smile and pull away from me. “Shit. Goddammit, Peter, I thought we were getting somewhere.”
“We are. I just…things are happening so fast with you. I can’t sort what’s real from what’s just these intense situations we’re forced into.”
“Join the club,” I muttered.
I took a deep breath and shut the car door quietly, bending to pick up the papers he’d dropped when he stumbled.
He crouched down next to me, adding forms to the pile. “I like you. You like me. I keep saying that. Can’t we decide what that means later, in your bedroom or someplace quiet? Not out in the parking lot where reporters were, and maybe still are, lurking, along with ex-girlfriends, and friends.” He paused. “Ugh, Cai’s inside. With Rosa and Darryl and the FBI. Privacy isn’t an option, is it?” We both stood, Peter running a hand through his hair.
“Go back to the part about my bedroom.” I clicked the car alarm, tucked my keys in my pocket and used that free hand to cup his neck, pulling him into a kiss.
Still warm and languid from sleep, his body sighed into mine. His lips parted, tongue leisurely delving into my mouth as if he’d been waiting all day for me to take this initiative.
He tasted of apple juice. He tasted of cigarettes. He tasted of salt and sweat and every one of my fantasies. I sucked his tongue, my pulse climbing unsteadily. He moaned, and I dropped the papers to the ground, ignoring their fluttered protest as I held Peter to me.
The hot heavy sounds of our breaths, the feel of his body against mine, the taste of him, all of it overwhelmed the outside world. The night closed in around us, sheltered us from nosy neighbors and other interruptions. There was just us, molded together, with his hands on my hips and mine cradling his face.
My stomach fluttered with warmth. “Peter,” I breathed, tilting my mouth and capturing his lips again. He answered with a whisper of my name, fisting handfuls of my jacket.
His needy moans urged me to push him back against the car. I reached down, buckled his knees with my hands and lifted him atop the hood. His shorts rode up and my hands lingered at his thigh, rubbing up under the fabric, feeling the soft copper hair under my palms. He folded his legs around my waist, grabbed my collar and yanked me into him again.
I crashed into his mouth and met his tongue with a fierceness born out of weeks and years of denial. Seeing him spread out on my car, his stomach heaving with breaths, lips wet, eyes hooded and dazed; my cock ached with how badly I needed to fuck him, how desperately I wanted to watch his body jerk with the force of my thrusts. I shuddered with need, digging my nails into my hands. I took a deep breath and got myself under control.
This wasn’t about me. It was about Peter. My stone angel, battered by the world and refusing to back down from it. Peter, who never asked for anything for himself.
I took advantage of his vulnerable state to be the aggressor. Gripping the sides of his shorts, I jerked them down below his waist, pulling him to the edge of the car at the same time. His t-shirt rode up, revealing pale skin with sharp shadows of muscle. With a gentleness I didn’t feel, I traced each one with my tongue and dragged my mouth along the valley at the center of his stomach.