The Charm Offensive(50)

Dev feels slightly untethered from his body. “You… you like kissing me?”

“I sort of thought that was obvious after the other night.” Charlie gestures awkwardly to his body, and Dev remembers the feeling of Charlie pressed against him outside the club. He wants Charlie against him right now, but he knows he can never have that again.

“I thought you weren’t really into kissing.”

“Yes, this is sort of a new development for me,” Charlie admits quietly. The confession lands somewhere south-southwest of Dev’s sternum.

“Maybe that means you’re becoming more comfortable in your own skin,” Dev says. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. “Maybe as you continue developing genuine emotional connections with the women, you’ll find that you can enjoy kissing them, too.”

“Yeah.” Charlie swallows. “Maybe.”

They sit hip to hip in awkward silence. Dev should get up and leave. He should close the door between their adjoining rooms, close the door on this entire impossible moment. He should not reach over and touch Charlie’s knee again. But he does.

He runs through his logical arguments: his job is to help turn Charlie into the perfect prince so he can fall in love with one of the contestants, and he’s so close. Charlie is becoming an amazing star when the cameras are rolling, and he bonds with the women more each week. With more time, Dev knows he can help Charlie get his happily ever after. But not if he keeps doing this.

They’re both staring at Dev’s fingers on Charlie’s navy sweatpants, and when Dev looks up, he realizes Charlie’s face is only six inches away. “Dev.” Charlie’s voice is thick and close.

“It could be like practice dating,” Dev hears himself say. Desperately, pathetically, so full of longing, he’s convinced he might choke on it. “To help you feel more comfortable with it?”

Charlie nods and keeps nodding until his mouth meets Dev’s in the small space between them on the bed. It’s a soft kiss, hesitant, like Charlie’s afraid he might be quizzed on it later. Dev tries to focus on the practice part of practice kissing, but as soon as Charlie’s hand touches his waist, his sentient skin overrides all his logic and drives him up into Charlie’s lap.

He stares down at Charlie as he straddles him. “Is this okay?” Dev asks. “Um, for practice purposes?”

“Yeah.” Charlie’s voice trembles. “Okay.”

Dev scrapes his fingers through Charlie’s damp hair. “Is this okay?”

Charlie swallows. “Definitely okay.”

He leans forward, his mouth hovering next to Charlie’s jaw. “Is this okay?”

Charlie makes an unintelligent sound of consent before Dev kisses his jaw, once, twice, three times, until he arrives at Charlie’s ear. As soon as Dev takes Charlie’s earlobe in his mouth, Charlie goes rigid beneath him, and he grabs onto Dev’s thighs for support. “Okay?” Dev breathes as he scratches his teeth along the skin behind Charlie’s ear.

“Dev,” Charlie says. Or sort of moans.

Dev doesn’t know if the moan means stop or don’t stop, so he stops. “Okay?”

Charlie’s hands are shaking when he takes Dev’s face in his giant hands. “Yes. Very yes.”

He arches up, meets Dev’s mouth halfway, and Dev pushes Charlie back onto the bed.

Charlie’s temerity gives way to something else. He snakes his hands up the front of Dev’s shirt. Dev wishes he could bottle the feeling of Charlie’s fingers on his stomach, use it as body wash. It would smell like oatmeal and taste like very intense toothpaste. Focus, Dev. Practice kissing.

“It’s important to know what you like, Charlie,” he says as he moves to find Charlie’s earlobe again.

“I like that.”

“I can tell.” Dev likes it, too, likes the way Charlie’s body responds to Dev’s touch like a finely tuned instrument. He traces his fingertips over the absurd undulations of Charlie’s biceps, and Charlie bites down on his bottom lip. “It’s okay to create boundaries with the women, and it’s also okay to ask for what you want.”

“I want…” Charlie starts, inhales sharply. “I want to take your shirt off, please,” he declares with perfect politeness. Charlie starts to remove Dev’s shirt, but he does it so clumsily, it’s like he’s never taken off an article of clothing before.

“You could help instead of laughing at me,” Charlie suggests.

“I literally cannot. You realize my arm is stuck, yes?”

Then the shirt’s gone, and Charlie is staring at Dev’s neck, his collarbone, his stomach. Dev stops laughing.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Charlie whispers.

It’s the same thing Charlie said at the club, but he’d drunkenly shouted it at a stranger then. Now he says it quietly, almost shyly, and the words are only for Dev.

This is just practice, Dev reminds himself.

Charlie slides both hands up Dev’s chest, one hand pausing over Dev’s heart. He counts the seconds as the heartbeats drum against Charlie’s fingers. “I think I really like you,” Charlie says, even quieter, and the confession is like nitro and Sour Patch Kids consumed intravenously. Dev’s too-big heart strains inside his chest, pushing against Charlie’s hand, and he tries to hold back all the feelings he’s not entitled to feel.