The air-conditioning nips my skin as he puts one hand on my back, pressing my upper body down a little. With the other, he swipes a finger up my seam from behind, and that single touch nearly turns my legs into limp spaghetti noodles.
I reach back, my fingers brushing across the warmth of his thigh, and my heart skips a beat when I realize his pants are already down, leaving him as bare as I am. The heat of him is unmistakable, and I shift, searching for more. A second later, I feel it: the blunt head of him pressed to my entrance, hot and eager, sending a jolt of anticipation through me.
Damian’s hands clamp down on my hips as he pulls me back onto his cock, and as he slides inside me, each inch of him makes my body coil until I’m a spring about to snap. I’m so wet, it only takes one deep push for him to be fully seated, and I nearly cry out from the sudden feeling of fullness.
I throw my head back onto his shoulder as he reaches around me, planting one hand against the bookcase for support. Theother inches up my chest to my throat, and as he pumps into me—slowly at first then faster, like he’s feeding a need that’s consuming us both—I half expect him to cover my mouth to stifle my cries just like he did the last time we were here in this position.
Instead, he curls those long, skilled fingers around my chin and turns my face toward his to kiss me.
We lose all sense of reason after that, and as he slams into me over and over again, hurdling us closer to our impending orgasms, I realize this time together feels less like the lie we keep telling ourselves and more like a foregone conclusion. Though, what that conclusion is, I still don’t entirely know.
There’s only one thing Iamsure of as the heat inside me rises to boiling point, and I clench around his cock, his mouth devouring my cry of release. And as he follows suit, groaning against my lips as his pistoning hips slam into me one final time, I sense that he’s aware of it, too.
That hate that engulfed us, that tension…it’s gone, like a candle snuffed out by the wind. I can feel the weight on my chest lift at once, and I know then we’ve succeeded. That by coming together again here of all places, the past between us raw and exposed, we’ve managed to rewrite whatever complex equation we were before, those variables of hate and tension canceling out to leave…this. Something new. Undefined, maybe, but real.
Damian props his chin on my shoulder, but doesn’t pull out, as if he doesn’t want to lose this physical link tethering us. I know I don’t. His cock throbs inside me, and I wish we were anywhere else—his room, a hotel. Fuck, I’d even take the back seat of his car. Anywhere that would keep this moment from ending.
In my peripheral vision, I catch the mischievous grin spreading across his face.
“I’m starting to think libraries are severely underrated,” he breathes, wrapping his arms around me from behind and pulling me tight to his chest.
And as he turns my chin to kiss me again, I notice that, for the first time since what happened last spring, this thing between us doesn’t feel like something broken.
It almost feels like a beginning.
El árbol que crece torcido, nunca endereza – The tree that grows crooked will never straighten
Translation: You can’t undo the past, but you can start a new chapter. So, maybe it’s time to let go and move forward.
It’s official: I am the world’s biggest coward.
I had the perfect opening to tell Blondie I like her—the opportunity presented itself on a freaking silver platter—but I didn’t take it despite spending these past few weeks working up to that exact moment. Each time we slept together since that night in Guadalajara, my determination to confess would only grow stronger, and that voice in my head would say,This is it. This is the day I tell her.But then, lo and behold, every time without fail, I would shrivel up like an old ball sack.
I kept convincing myself that it just wasn’t the right time, that I’d get another chance. But last night in the library?Thatwas the moment, I’m sure of it. And I completely fucked it.
Blondie was practically begging me to validate this thing between us, to reassure her she isn’t alone in feeling confused about what this fauxmance has become. But I was too scared of what Ithoughtshe was trying to say—that her wanting to wipe the slate clean meant she would call this whole arrangement off—and subsequently too stunned by what sheactuallymeant, that I wasn’t prepared for the opening when it arrived, smashing into our conversation like the Kool-Aid man minus the enthusiastic, “Oh, yeah!” Not that Blondie gave me the opportunity to get a word in edgewise, but still, I could have told her if I really wanted to.
Maybe I didn’t because last night was about her, about whatsheneeded, but I hate myself for not at least trying. For letting her walk away after the single most intense sex of my life without telling her the truth. Without telling her what it meant to me. It kills me to think that she might now be wondering if these past few weeks—and even that redo she asked for—have been nothing more than casual sex in my mind instead of something more, somethingelsebeyond that wonderful chance for forgiveness I’m still not convinced I deserve. Something I’m terrified to put a name to, even though it’s tearing me up inside not to.
I flop back against my pillow with a frustrated groan and stare up at the ceiling, my brain replaying every second of what happened in the library yesterday in excruciating detail until I’m so hard I have to jerk myself off just so I can think clearly again. My orgasm hits me so fast I get whiplash, but it unfortunately does little to uncloud my thoughts. Maybe nothing will until I finally come clean with Blondie. About my feelings. About what I want us to be.
About everything.
Perhaps, more than anything, that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I like her. It wasn’t timing, it wasn’t even my own lack of courage (though that was certainly a factor), but the simple fact that she’s in pain, and I don’t have the goddamn cajónes to tell her I know about her mom.
Maybe, on some incomprehensible level, I don’t want to stir up shit between her and Ronnie, since I don’t think Blondie knows her rabid chihuahua of a bestie told me about her current predicament. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Ronnie would admit to, and if Blondiedoesknow, I’m certain she would’ve mentioned it when I revealed what happened to Jamie. Plus, her not knowing explains why she never invites me inside her house. Why she seems to jump out of her skin any time I broach the subject of stepping beyond the boundaries of her porch. Because she’s afraid. She’s afraid I’ll see her mom and figure out the truth.
Besides, Ginger Spice might be a she-devil, but it’s obvious she’s a fierce and protective friend, and I don’t want to do anything that would ever jeopardize that for Blondie, not just because she’s already lost so much, but because coming between two friends like that—especially when Blondie doesn’t have very many—would be a major dick move. And evenI’mnot that big of an asshole.
Mostly, I think I don’t tell her because I’m terrified of how she’ll react. That she’ll be embarrassed I know the truth about why she needs the money from our agreement, and that she’ll pull away from me—from what this is becoming—to protect herself, even though I would never judge her for it, not for one moment. What wouldn’t I give, what depths wouldn’t I sink to, if it meant bringing Jamie back? Shit, judging Blondie would be the last thing I’d do.
And I’m sure, after hearing about my brother, she knows that on some level, but still…even after yesterday, I can’t help fearingshe’d use it as an excuse to take the easy way out and break things off. That she’d insist we go back to the safety and distance of the facade. And though I’d give her whatever she wants, do anything to make her feel safe and comfortable, it would destroy me inside to do that. I don’t want to lose this part of her that I only get to see in those moments, when the walls are down and we don’t need to lie.
I don’t want to lose any of her at all.
My chest heaves with another sigh. This situation is so fucked up. The fact that Blondie had to answer my ad in the first place just to help her sick mom is so fucked up. Has the system always been rigged this way and I’ve been too blinded by my own privilege to notice? It feels like such a cop-out to say willful ignorance kept me from seeing the obvious power imbalance that exists because of my money and because of her desperate need for it, but that’s exactly what I’ve been: ignorant. Before Ronnie told me about Blondie’s mom, this felt like a mutually beneficial arrangement, and I could dismiss that imbalance. But now, I’m awake to the truth, and I just feel dirty, like the sex we have is only because Blondie feels indebted to me, even though the explosive attraction between us is enough to assure me that’s not true. Still, that voice of doubt is loud. Sometimes, it’s so loud I could scream.
With another agonized groan, I force myself upright and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I hate how helpless I feel. I hate knowing that Blondie is in any way suffering and that I’ve only contributed to it. Hindsight is a bitch, and while I was unaware of her situation at the time of the bet, it isn’t an excuse, nor does it help me figure out what to do about it moving forward. I just wish there was something I could donow, some way I could be useful beyond my fucking wallet. Anything to guarantee her mom’s story has a different ending to Jamie’s.
