A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies - Christina Lee Page 0,61
always had my back.”
“You’ve always had mine.”
Rhys took a deep breath. “Since we’re traveling down memory lane…that one night at the carnival…”
“When you went all heart-eyes over that blond dude at the basketball toss?”
Rhys smirked. “Guess I did. And you…I dunno. You got mad and distant.”
“I think I was jealous,” Emerson acknowledged. “Afraid I was gonna lose you as a friend.” It actually felt good to talk about this shit after all this time.
“Makes sense, I guess.” Rhys shrugged. “We’ve always been involved in each other’s lives. I felt the same when you were dating Morgan.”
“I did. Not that I wasn’t happy for you and wished you the best, but I…”
“What?”
“I think I’ve probably always wondered…what it might be like if you…if we…” Rhys angled his body toward him, his thumb reaching up to brush against Emerson’s cheek. “God, these freckles. They make you even prettier.”
Emerson tensed, his body betraying him, and Rhys immediately drew away. Goddamn it. His reaction was only because he couldn’t believe Rhys was touching him that way. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Wait, please.” Emerson grappled for his fingers and dragged Rhys’s hand back in position. “I just…wasn’t expecting that.”
Rhys watched him warily, his breaths fanning against Emerson’s lips as Rhys gently cupped his cheek. Emerson felt like he was coming unglued simply from his touch.
He trembled as he lifted his hand to grasp Rhys’s shoulder, as if he were his anchor. And in many ways, he was. “I’ve wondered about you too. I just didn’t realize it at the time.”
“Damn it, Em.” He bent forward, connecting their foreheads, and they breathed the same air for a few dizzying seconds. When Rhys nuzzled his face in the crook of Emerson’s neck, and he felt Rhys shudder, he drew him closer, his fingers trailing down the knobs of his spine in an attempt to comfort him, though he wasn’t even sure what the hell was happening. He was just relishing having him so near.
The next moment he trembled as he felt a faltering brush of lips right below his ear, where he was most sensitive. Emerson became perfectly still, wondering if he’d only imagined it. But when Rhys feathered his soft lips across his neck, to his throat, Emerson’s lips fell open in shock. It felt so damn good, Emerson couldn’t stop the groan that escaped him.
He grabbed hold of Rhys’s shoulder and drew back to look into his eyes. There was apprehension in his irises, like his body had been on autopilot. Yet there was something hidden underneath as well. Raw need and a longing that matched his own.
The realization made his brain go haywire, his emotions sitting heavy in his throat. He gathered Rhys’s face in his hands. “Rhys, what are you…?”
Rhys shook his head, maybe trying to clear the doubt, the worry. “Just doing what feels good.”
“Are you sure—”
“Shh…of course I am. You’re fucking gorgeous, and I…” Rhys placed his thumb against the pulse at his throat and stared into his eyes. “Can you just, for once—”
“Yes.” Emerson closed his eyes on a sigh. “Fuck yes.”
Rhys’s hand rounded the back of Emerson’s neck to the hair at his nape. As he burrowed his fingers there, the light scrape of his nails lit a fire inside him. He realized just how fucking much he wanted Rhys in that moment, how much he’d probably always wanted him.
Rhys’s mouth lingered close—close enough that he could feel the undercurrent running between their lips, like a magnetic field drawing them together. His cognac irises were iridescent ponds of heat and wonder and need, and Emerson wanted to get swept away in them.
Was this really fucking happening?
When Rhys’s lips brushed his own in a barely there kiss, the hairs on his nape stood at attention. Emerson closed his eyes and hummed. Everything he wanted, needed, narrowed down to the sensation of Rhys’s mouth grazing his own.
“Rhys,” he whispered as his entire body alighted like a fluttering of wings on the wind.
21
Rhys
Was Rhys really being this forward with his best friend? Yes, he was. He wanted him so much, wanted to show him everything he was feeling. Emerson would’ve never approached him on his own, not after what Audrey had told Rhys, so he’d worry about what it all meant later.
Rhys’s stomach clenched as he aligned their mouths together again, feeling the curve of his supple lips, loving the scratch of his scruff, and hoping like hell Emerson didn’t suddenly come