Heat - 16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

My turn. I grab his face, kiss him hungrily. I pull him onto the couch next to me, push him down so that I’m on top of him. I run my hands down his body, feeling his curves and lines. The parts of him that are soft, the parts of him that are hard. I want to know him. Deeply and thoroughly. I run my tongue along his jaw line, nibble his ear, brush my fingertips under his waistband. Then I roll off of him, onto my knees next to the couch. I reach out and unzip him, slowly.

When the first burst of flame shoots out of his body it takes me by surprise. I have to leap back to avoid getting fried and end up knocking the coffee table on its side. It leaves a perfectly round hole in the side of his pants, about the size of an orange. His face has gone pink. “Sorry. I’m just excited.”

I laugh. “Heard that one before.” I stand up and, unceremoniously, I drop my pants. “How about we just skip that part.”

He giggles. “Yeah, ok.” and stands to remove the rest of his clothes as well. Both naked now, we take a moment to look at each other. Lust is written across his face. More than that, he can’t contain himself. His left hand keeps turning into flame and then rematerializing. He looks at it and says, disappointedly, “I don’t think it’s safe for me to touch you right now.”

“That’s all right.” I give him a devious grin. “I’m sure we can think of other ways to have fun.”

I start to slowly masturbate. As I do, I nod for him to kneel in front of me. He looks confused (oh right, no internet) so I step closer to him and carefully, hovering my hands an inch off his skin, guide him to his knees. Now he gets it, and he starts to jerk himself off as well. I’ve never actually done the whole “bukake” thing before. To be entirely honest I don’t super get it but looking down at Asher’s face as I get closer and closer to cumming is a singularly intense experience. I think he agrees because as I hit the point of no return he leans back a little so that it all lands on his chest.

Seconds later it’s his turn. I’ve never seen anything like it. His whole body dissolves at the moment of orgasm. One moment he is there the next there is a roaring bonfire in my living room. Spurts of liquid flame shoot out and land on the blanket we had been using yesterday.

"Oh shit!" I curse, and grab the blanket - tossing it in the kitchen sink and switching on the faucet. Fire cum. Right. We forgot to consider the possibility of fire cum.

"Sorry!" he says, a little out of breath but fully rematerialized. As he stands up to try and help I see a perfect burn in the shape of his legs on the rug. "Oh no. Oh God."

I can tell that it's actually messing him up so, shutting the sink off, I step up to him. "Hey it's okay, I knew what I was getting myself into here. This is all replaceable. I'm not worried about it." I wrap my arms around him. He's actually a little cooler than he was when we started now. The power of sex as a stress reliever cannot be understated, I suppose. "That was really fun. We can work out the kinks later. Or work them in if that's what you're into."

He laughs, looking into my eyes with all of his old joyfulness back. Then he leans down and kisses me with smiling lips. "Thank you, Kenan. Thank you for everything."

…

We dress and clean the place up as best we can. I end up tossing the blanket and the rug both in the trash. I open the windows to let the smell of burnt plastic out and in the end we end up deciding to go out for dinner.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” I ask when Asher suggests it.

“They already know I’m here. If they wanted to find me they could. I don’t know what game they are playing but I’m not going to stop living life because of it.”

Fair enough. I still insist we take my car, just in case they don’t already know what it looks like. No point in making it easy on them.

We end up at Braums because I want ice cream and he has, somehow, never had it. “It’s a staple!” I insist. “The peanut butter cup ice cream is incredible.”

I get three scoops. He gets one. “Ok, it is pretty good.”

“Good! It’s delicious! Divine! Delectable!” I reach over and swipe some off his cone with my finger.

“Hey! Eat your own.” he cups his hand around his ice cream protectively. “And it is fine. I prefer Culvers.”

“First of all, how dare you. Second, what is a Culvers?”

“Oh my god. You’ve never lived.”

We carry on like that for probably too long. Avoiding the discussion, it turns out, is a skill we both share. Still, it’s nice in the middle of everything to feel like a normal couple on a date for a minute. We both finish our ice creams and then we are left just looking at each other for a bit. I don’t want to speak, shatter this brief moment of contentment. In the end though I finally succumb to the guilt crawling around in the back of my mind and redirect the conversation. “So… I promised I would tell you something back at your place. First I want to say, you were right. You’ve shown a lot of trust in me and I’ve still been keeping things from you. I’m sorry for that.” Outside the sun has set. We’re the only people dining in at this particular Braums tonight and I can hear country music echoing from the kitchen as the staff cleans up for the evening. My voice is muffled by the clatter of dishes and the croon of Kelsea Ballerini. There’s still a poster of her in my sister’s room. Right. My sister. I forgot to feel bad about that for a second, and now I have a new, even stronger reason to be guilty.

Asher sees my distress, places a hand over mine across the table. I take a deep breath. “So I owe it to you to tell you what happened. I just… I don’t want you to look at me any differently than you do now.”

“I won’t. Of course I won’t.” Once again I can’t help but believe him, despite myself. So I tell him everything. Even the stuff I’m not proud of. What I did. The way he said no and I didn’t stop. The way he looked at me after. The way I’ve avoided all of them ever since. The way I never really apologized.

Afterwards there’s a second of silence and in that second I tell myself all sorts of lies. It’s ok if he leaves me. I understand why he would feel that way, after all I haven’t forgiven myself for it after all this time why would I ever expect him to forgive me. I’m really better off alone anyway. Worst of all there’s a moment in there where I even feel a little relieved - at least now it’s already fucked before it even really got started so I don’t have to worry about fucking it up any more.

Then, finally, he says “I understand why that was hard for you to talk about. Thank you for telling me. And, before you ask, no I don’t hate you now. You made a mistake. Admittedly it was a big one but you obviously feel genuine remorse. I think you need to talk to them, Kenan. You might be surprised at what they say. Even if it’s the worst thing you can possibly imagine, all that does is give you a reason to avoid them in the future and since you’re already doing that it won’t be a very difficult transition.” Then, a smile that somehow manages to say are you ok and I’m here for you at the same time. A small squeeze of the hand. “I know you don’t want to think about it, but you’re still mourning and cutting yourself off from your entire support structure isn’t good for you. I’m here for you now, but you need more than just me. Reach out. Have the conversation, even if it’s hard. You might just come out better off on the other side.”

I wonder if most relationships start out with this much crying. Probably not, but then most relationships aren’t made up of a brand new orphan with trust issues and a man made of living flame on the run from his evil family. I nod, tears in my eyes. I’d like to kiss him, to maybe transmit a little bit of how much his words meant to me with my lips, but this place is far too public for the kind of intimacy I am feeling right now. Also, this is still a small town nominally in the south so it’s always a risk-reward calculation when it comes to outright public displays of affection. Instead I squeeze his hand, hard.

Then he sighs. “Then I guess that means it’s my turn. Time to tell you the hard part. I hope you’re ready because I know I’m not.”