Three Parts Harmony by Holley Trent releases tomorrow, 8/19.

“Come here,” Raleigh murmured.

Theo dropped his hands from his chest and made himself space between Raleigh’s feet. “I’m here.”

“Closer.”

Theo’s lips quirked at one corner. “How much closer?”

“Lean in.”

Putting a hand at either side of Raleigh’s head at the sofa back, Theo folded himself down and met Raleigh’s gaze. “Here?”

“Closer.”

“Which parts of me?”

“Pick one.”

“Is it up to me?”

“Right now, it is.”

Theo pulled his lower lip between his teeth and looked askance. Thinking, perhaps.

Raleigh waited. He kept his hands to himself even though his palms were itching and cock was aching to the point of distraction.

With him nude and so near, the musky undertones of Theo’s cologne seemed suddenly abloom, enticing and goading, and telling Raleigh that one should be still when a panther was close enough to bite.

Or be bitten.

“Anything I’d like, then?” Theo asked.

“For now.”

“Even this?” Theo set one knee on the sofa beside Raleigh and then the other. He inched forward, glacially slow, wearing a smile that was full of sin.

What kind of sins do you know, panther?

Not desiring to conduct his movements in any way, Raleigh just waited to see where Theo would stop.

He didn’t stop until the tip of his cock nudged the placket of Raleigh’s still-fastened shirt.

“I like red,” Theo said.

“Oh?”

“When I had my own money for the first time, I bought a guitar that was red. Still have it somewhere.”

“So, you play?”

Theo didn’t respond. He eased on to Raleigh’s lap and tilted forward. Their bellies touched. Their lips almost did.

Raleigh notched his fingertips into the corduroy of the sofa. It’d be so easy for him to put his hands on Theo and satisfy his urgent need to touch, but he wasn’t entirely certain that was what Theo needed. He seemed too eager to please Raleigh and that sort of generosity often came with attachments.

It wasn’t that Raleigh was so averse to attachments. He just never managed to connect with people who wanted the same sorts of attachments as him, and for the same reasons.

If he and Stacia hadn’t been so constitutionally similar, he might have pursued her. She was unquestionably trustworthy, but he’d known that the two of them coming together would likely end in some sort of destructive disruption to the space-time continuum. He tried to be a responsible world citizen as much as he could be, and he refused to be responsible for the demise of humankind.

“Sometimes, I like red, too,” Raleigh murmured.

“It’s my favorite.”

“I don’t have favorites, but I agree that red has a certain allure at times.” Like right then. “Your lips are red.”

Theo had been pressing them together. Licking them. “You like them?”

“Yes.”

“You want to touch them, then?”

“Yes.”

“If you do, will you touch other things, too?” Theo was already tilting his head for the perfect angle for kissing and Raleigh was trying desperately not to roll his hips.

“I don’t know. Should I?”

“I don’t know about should, but I want you to. I don’t care where. Just touch me.”

“And then what?”

“Fuck me if you want. You came here. I thought you wanted to.”

“I never said I didn’t.”

“Then why are you so slow?”

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I’m always in a hurry. Things change. People change. Minds change. Please touch me once before you change your mind.”

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