Page 125 of The Lies We Play
“Okay.”
The word is too small for what it agrees to. His gaze drops to my mouth.
Not for long.
Long enough.
The room changes.
His hand shifts on the table. Halston leans first.
Barely.
A question measured in inches.
I meet him halfway.
Our mouths touch.
For half a second, neither of us moves.
It is not tentative.
It is worse than tentative.
It is careful.
His lips are warm. Firm. Softer than the rest of him. My hand closes around the edge of the table because if I touch him too soon, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep it as a kiss. He exhales against my mouth, and that small sound goes through me with an accuracy I'm not prepared to survive.
Fuck.
This is not curiosity.
This is not chemistry.
This is not the natural consequence of two men sitting too close in a hotel suite after champagne and honesty.
This is recognition.
My body knows him in the first real press of his mouth. Not from before. Not from memory. From need. From the sudden, brutal understanding that there are people you meet and people you arrive at, and Halston Saint Claire has been standing somewhere inside the future without either of us knowing how to name the road.
His hand comes up.
Stops near my jaw.
His fingers slide against my face, and the kiss opens. Slow. Deep. Controlled until control becomes another form of wanting. He tastes like champagne and restraint and the clean bite of something he has been holding back for too long. I kiss him harder, not rough, not careless; just honest enough to make him breathe my name into my mouth without sound.
Creed.
He doesn’t say it.
I feel it.
My hand finds his wrist.
His pulse is fast beneath my thumb.
Halston pulls back first, but only enough to breathe. His forehead almost touches mine. His eyes stay closed for one second, then open, and whatever he sees on my face takes the last defense out of him.
