This, for a moment, was paradise.

Then, healing bruises and freshly pink scars where garrote wire had cut cruelly into Genma's neck made him flinch from Raidou's mouth. Made his breath catch and his eyes go wide. He was pinned, half-blinded, entirely vulnerable. Only the fact that it was Raidou doing the pinning made it possible to keep his wits. That and the unbearable, desperate longing to keep going with those kisses.

The fact that it was Raidou doing the kissing was what, ultimately, did make Genma stop. He took a long, groaning breath, loosed his fingers from Raidou's hair, and pressed his palm gently against Raidou's chest, just to the right of the bandages.

"Rai." It came out a husky gasp. Genma took a deep breath. "Wait."

He wasn't sure what to say. Couldn't stand the flicker of confused hurt he saw in Raidou's eyes, when Raidou pulled back with a red-cheeked cough and muttered, "Sorry."

"No, don't be sorry. Gods, Rai, please don't be sorry. That's what--" Genma struggled for words. His fingers tightened into the cloth of Raidou's sweatshirt, not letting him go. "It's just.... It's just that's what I don't want. I want you, and I don't want you to be sorry. You're..."

Where were the words? Where were the words to explain why, when his heart was still racing and his cock was more than half-hard, and all he wanted was for Raidou to pin him against that wall and let their kisses turn into something far more serious, why he was putting on the brakes?

"You're not just some guy I think is hot that I want to fool around with. You're... You're you, you're--" Genma swallowed and licked his lips, staring hard at the face of his best friend. "If we keep doing that, I'm not going to want to stop. I'm never going to want to stop. I think it might kill me if we started, and then stopped. So before we go there..."

It was already killing him, and they'd barely begun.

"Before we go there, I want you to be sure it's really what you want. I don't want you to be sorry."