He was good. And not just a One Size Fits All good, but good enough to match me. He was feeling me out, taking the lead gently when it was clear I was ceding power. I could taste that he was having fun with it, deepening the kiss before lightening up, making the increasingly frantic heat gathering inside my stomach rise and then simmer. I could feel a new brand of adrenaline kick up inside of me. He was challenging me. This was a duel. Fine.
I drew back slightly and twirled my tongue and I could tell by the low vibration in my mouth that it had the intended effect on him. He pulled away and looked at me, slightly stunned, an impressed brow quirked.
Huh. Good work, Keeks. Me: 1, Malakai: Oh.
His eyes twinkled and he brought his mouth back to mine, transforming my smug smirk into a small moan. Fuck. It occurred to me that this might have been my first honest kiss. Both our motives were plain. We were engaged on the same level for the same purpose; to feel and be felt. The raison d’être might have originally been to make Zack sweat, a mutual decision to destroy, a wartime treaty （Zack and Malakai were natural enemies, after all）， but with every little gentle sweet motion of suction and lip grazing I could tell the kiss had morphed into something different. Still an assertion of power, but this was a power shared, ceded, and reclaimed in the same breath, a friendly battle of thrills and a test of will. My heartbeat was drumming a frenetic, syncopated rhythm on internal djembes that got me thinking that both our ancestors were being summoned to approve of whatever the fuck was going on here.
I detected that Malakai was beginning to lose his grip on reasoning by the ever-increasing heaviness of his breath and, truth be told, I was too. This wasn’t the kiss I’d planned—this was fun and my body was engaging in it far more than I’d intended. I didn’t have to look back to know that Zack was watching us, and sure, that meant other people might be watching us, but at this particular moment I didn’t give a shit. I felt powerful.
Besides, public making out at FreakyFridayz wasn’t a big deal. As it was, I could guarantee at least eight other couples were dry humping in various corners of the room—it is a truth universally acknowledged that university club nights are one of the horniest places in existence. But even without the cloak of invisibility that general shamelessness provided, I felt good about the fact that though this guy had control, I had what it took to make him lose it. I slid my arm from around his neck so I could curve a hand around his neck and rest my thumb on his jaw, and deepened the kiss, gently slipping the tip of my tongue into his mouth. I felt the pressure of Malakai’s hands on my waist increase automatically in a way I knew he couldn’t help and then I pulled away. Just in time. Before the kiss took us someplace else.
Malakai’s smile sloped out slowly. “Well, shit.” A surprising grin snuck out of me in response. I bit my lip to curb it.
Then I heard it. Low and resounding woops curling around us, bringing me forth from whatever vacuum had been created when we stood together and our lips touched. I closed my eyes as realization dawned. That would have been the inevitable audience that gathered when Kiki Banjo made out with the new Sweetboy just after he’d had a run-in with two other queens, narrowly avoiding a civil war. I never got involved with interpolitics. I tried to settle things from the peripheral, and now I had situated myself smack dab in the middle of a particularly spicy sandwich.
When I had approached Malakai I hadn’t thought deeply about the collateral fallout, just that I wanted to make Zack implode and Malakai posed the perfect weapon. I hadn’t expected it to be like that—a whole world created in a kiss, let there be light, and it was . . . good. To my gratification, Malakai looked equally surprised by the presence of other people, eyes dancing around and above my head as if the crowd around us had just magically appeared. But when his eyes landed on me, they were back to being confident, easy, as he maintained my gaze.
“Ignore them.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” It was automatic, spit out of my mouth like a bullet, and Malakai smirked like the bullet had just lit him on fire instead of penetrated through skin.
“Didn’t you just command me to kiss you?”
“The question was implied. And you agreed. Enthusiastically.”
Malakai paused, eyes flashing brighter with the light of a swallowed smile before clearing his throat. “Trust me. Turning around now is bait. It means you’re self-aware, that the kiss was for a purpose and you’re checking to see if it lands. You’ll blow your cover. Zack will take it as a win. You want that?”