The kiss went on, hungry and hard, his mouth grinding over mine, mauling. I could feel how much he wanted me, and when he crossed my wrists, holding both with one hand, the other sliding down over the front of my shorts, I jolted under him.
“Oh,” I husked, “what did you do?”
His smile was wicked and warm at the same time. “I figured out the puzzle that is Eli Kohn,” he murmured, leaning over and kissing me again, his tongue stroking over mine, his teeth catching my bottom lip, not letting me breathe, just feasting as my body heated under his.
When he broke the kiss, I was panting.
“You need to know you’re loved and be reminded that you’re in love, and guess what, sex is suddenly on the table.”
“I don’t—”
“You love me, yeah?”
“Of course. You know that.”
“I do know that, and I thought it wasn’t enough, that it wasn’t what I needed, but it turns out, it’s more than either of us knew.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s like this: I don’t need to wait and see if you develop romantic feelings for me, because they’re already there.”
I was confused. “They are?”
He chuckled, but I could tell he wasn’t laughing at me. He was laughing at the situation, at us. “I missed that we’ve been dating this whole time.”
“I—yeah, me too. Jer and Ian and—they all think we’ve been dating.”
“And everyone at the company thinks the same thing,” he said, kissing my throat softly, gently, seductively. “We’ve been together for a while now.”
“It feels like that.” I was having trouble focusing with his hot mouth on my skin and his hand massaging me through my shorts.
“It does,” he agreed, groping me, squeezing my dick, making me try and lift up to meet his touch, enjoying the friction. “I just need to show you where you are in this relationship. Like the you-are-here arrow on a map in an airport.”
“Cel,” I breathed out.
“I want to do whatever I want,” he whispered, his hand slipping under the elastic waistband of my running shorts to my briefs. “Tell me I can do whatever I want.”
“You need permission?”
“Of course I need—”
“No, you don’t,” I said, my breath hitching as his hand slipped over my skin, trailing down my thickening cock. “You’re my best friend, you’re my—Cel!” I rasped, bucking up off the bed, into his hand, loving the feel of his fingers tightening around my length.
He scrambled over me then, dragging my shorts and briefs down my legs to my knees, releasing my cock, which bobbed free, hard and ready.
“Oh, Eli, look at you. You’re beautiful all over,” he said, his voice thick and husky before he took me down the back of his throat in a fluid movement that had me howling his name.
It would have been embarrassing—my reaction, the awe, appreciation, and wanting in my ragged whisper—but this was Cel, who knew me, inside and out, and would never find anything wrong with what I wanted, needed. I could be honest with him, never hide, let everything out in the open. Most importantly, the vulnerability I hid from everyone else, I could show him.
The reason was simple, and there was no denying it when he was dragging his tongue over me, laving every inch in absolute worship.
He loved me, and I loved him back.
I lifted my head and found him on the floor between my legs, and seeing him there, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and fisting my hand in his hair, lifting his head, making him when he resisted, so that he had to meet my gaze. The blown pupils and swollen lips were almost too much to bear.
“Kiss me,” I begged, sounding gruff, like it was an order, but it was a plea.
“I want you to come,” he told me, “and I want to swallow it all, and then I want to be kissed and fucked because that’s what I love, but no one ever can or does because everyone is too weak and can’t hold me down.”