My mind is racing and I’m not sure if I feel like screaming or stomping out of the room or throwing something against the wall. I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to have sex. I want to be wanted. I don’t want to deal with gossips or think about the fact that I haven’t talked to Uncle Hudson in a month. I just want to feel like myself again. I want to be in control of my raging hormones.
But I’m not. So I burst into tears.
CHAPTER 35
JT
My shitty dayjust got shittier. My reaction times were slow at practice, which meant Coach was shooting daggers at me, and then I spent three hours at the library working on a group project. I’ve got a Pre-Calc test tomorrow that I didn’t study for, and Griggs keeps blowing up my phone because Curtis’s parole was granted, and he thinks the three of us should celebrate his release.
Not fucking likely.
What I need is a shower, a chance to jerk the fuck off because I want Maggie so damn badly that I can’t see straight, and to fall into bed and sleep with my girl in my arms. Maggie’s embrace is the only place I get any peace these days.
Instead of sleeping soundly, Maggie’s waiting up for me. She wants to talk about the future, and I don’t have answers. My scholarship covers room and board, meals, and a small stipend for basic expenses. We’re okay right now, and I’ll go back to landscaping as soon as the semester is over. Cash isn’t going to be a problem once I get called up, even to the minors. Having a job during the season is a big no-no. Would I love the extra money a part-time job would bring in? Sure. But I also love the few hours of sleep I manage toget each night. There’s too much to do and not enough of me to get it done, but that’s just the way it has to be for now. I’ll figure out how to support my family, and I’ll do it without stressing Maggie out. She has enough to worry about.
Tossing my jeans and hoodie in the hamper, I grab my towel from the hook on our closet door. I’m leaving my boxers on because even though they can’t hide my erection, they at least create a barrier. I turn back to Maggie and kiss her forehead, my dick already painfully hard just because I’m this close to her. God, she looks so fucking good in our bed, so sexy in my t-shirt even though it’s stretched to capacity across her breasts and belly.
I know she wants me to crawl into bed with her, to wrap her legs around my neck and not come up for air until she’s come apart all over my face. I know she wants my dick just as much as I want to give it to her. I know she needs the release as badly as I do.
But I can’t give her any of that, so instead of seeing the look on her face as I let her down once again, I swing my towel over my shoulder and head for the shower. I take three steps before she bursts into tears and my heart cracks in two. Closing my eyes, I tilt my head up to the ceiling and pinch the bridge of my nose to release the pressure building there. I count to five, but it doesn’t help. I try again, but I’m turning on my heel and making my way back to her before the numbers appear in my mind.
Lying next to her, I pull her close and press another kiss to her temple. “Hey, hey. It’s okay, Cinderella,” I say, doing my best to sound soothing while I studiously ignore the way her full tits brush against my arm as she sucks in a breath and tries to calm her tears.
“It’s not okay,” she says around a hiccup.
“What’s not okay? What do you need?” I know the baby is fine. We just got a glowing report this morning, and she’s farenough along that if something changed, we’d be calling the doctor or going to the hospital.
“I need you,” she tells me, and I can see in her eyes that the words leave her feeling raw and exposed. “You haven’t touched me since we moved in two weeks ago. You hug me like I’m a baby bird you’re afraid of hurting. You could barely look at me just now. Why? Why, JT? Because I know you love me and that you think I’m beautiful. You say it all the time, but you haven’t come near me. And god, if you think I’m unattractive now, just wait. We have fifteen more weeks to go and?—”
“Stop right there,” I say, my control snapping in two. My lips find hers and I put everything I have into our kiss. All the love I have for her, all the fear that’s running through my brain, all the need that’s coursing through my veins. We break apart, both needing to come up for air. Slipping my hand into the waistband of my boxers, I stroke myself a few times. “To quote your bestie, ‘Be so fucking for real right now.’ Does it look like I don’t find you attractive?”
She cracks a smile, then sobers. “I just wondered because?—”
“No need to wonder, Maggie,” I say, stripping down and replacing my hand with hers. She holds me just right, and it’s all I can do not to rut against her leg like some sex-starved idiot. “You want to know why I take long showers every night?” I ask. “Because I’m fucking my fist to thoughts of you. Because you’re asleep when I come home, and I’ve been thinking about you all day and I can’t help myself.”
She presses her body to mine, her tits grazing my chest, her belly brushing my stomach. Her hand has a chokehold on my dick as she jacks me, and it feels so good I’m about to lose it.
“If you want me so much, then why don’t you wake me up?” she asks.
I could placate her with a lie and tell her I know she needsher sleep. But the one thing going right in my life currently is my love for Maggie, and I’m not going to fuck with that any more than I probably already have. So, I tell her the truth. “Because I’m terrified. Not of sex—I know that’s safe. I’ve read the books. I know we can do whatever feels good as long as it feels good and doesn’t involve any major acrobatics. But Maggie, I watched you stand in my doorway and was scared shitless that the floor was going to give way underneath you. I’ve never been that scared in all my life. You needed me. Both of you needed me,” I say, running my hand over her belly, “but I couldn’t get to you. I was so afraid the floor would give out the same way the stairs did. That’s why I’m treating you like you’re made of glass. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but sometimes when I look at you, that moment flashes through my mind and I just get paralyzed. I was so fucking scared,” I repeat, burying my face in her neck and not caring that my eyes are leaking.
“I was scared, too. I was frozen solid for a second,” she admits. “But we’re fine now. Mickey was there and he did what you would have done. We’re okay, I promise. But if you keep treating me like I’m going to break, we won’t be. I need your affection. I hate the way that sounds, but it’s true. I need your touch. I know you’re stretched so thin with school and hockey and the warehouse, and I shouldn’t pile one more thing on, but I need you, JT.”
Something in her tone tells me there’s more she wants to say. She doesn’t just need my physically. She doesn’t just need me to take care of her body. “What else is going on?” I ask.
Maggie blushes and turns her head to the side. Our foreplay momentarily forgotten, I tip her chin so she’s looking at me. “Tell me.”
“It’s just hard, that’s all. I don’t look the way I used to. I don’t feel the way I used to. My body isn’t my own anymore and it makes me feel insecure. I’m probably paranoid, but I swear I get looks when I’m walking to class or sitting in theunion. It’s like I can feel the judgement radiating off people I don’t even know. I shouldn’t let that bother me. Fuck them if they want to gossip, but it just makes me feel out of place, you know? Then, when you wouldn’t touch me, it felt like a confirmation, I guess.”
My lips find hers again and I kiss my way down her throat. “Guess I’m gonna have to prove you wrong, huh? Take you so good it drives all those insecurities right out of your head. Is that what you need, Maggie?” I ask, tugging at the shirt I’m never getting back. She lifts her arms and I pull the fabric off her body, revealing the perfection underneath. “I’m not sure where to start,” I say honestly. “I could kiss your tits because they’re begging for it. I could put my face between your legs because I miss the way you taste. I could fuck you hard so you remember just how much I want you. What do you think, beautiful girl? Which one should I pick?” My hands are tracing the exaggerated curves of her body, and my cock is a steel post that’s dripping pre-cum.
“Yes,” she answers, arching her back and presenting her body to me.
I chuckle. “It’s a multiple-choice question, Maggie. You’ve gotta pick one.”
“All of the above,” she tells me, and even though that technically wasn’t one of her options, it’s the best answer I’ve ever heard.
My mouth moves to her breasts because they’re so damn kissable. And lickable. Andfuck me, why did I think keeping my girlfriend on a sexless pedestal was a good idea? Suddenly, my body doesn’t need sleep, it just needs Maggie. I’m starving for her, and I hate myself for denying either one of us. I hate that my anxiety made her feel unwanted, but I let go of all that and focus on the task at hand: making my girlfriend so delirious with pleasure that she forgives me for being a dumbass.
