62. Addicted To Love #2
“It’s like front-row seats on a roller coaster, the click-click-click up the track, higher, higher…
“then you hit the peak, and the car teeters over the edge and you’re forced to stare down at the drop with no clue when the gears will let go.
Inside, my head’s manic. I’m screaming, terrified, cursing myself for ever strapping into this seat, ‘cause what the fuck was I thinking, right? But there’s also this breathless thrill.
It feels like flying, and it feels like dying.
And my body can’t handle all that whiplash. ”
That beautiful,
suffocating cocktail of emotions.
My shoulders sigh against the wall.
“That’s why I throw up.
“And you can’t fix it.”
He rolls his head slow from side to side.
“I didn’t say anything about fixin’ it.”
“It’ll always happen.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not tryin’ different things—”
“Sonny, I said okay, okay?” He jams his thumb to the tile next to him, where a notecard’s sitting after the tape came unstuck from behind the door. “What I wanna know is why the fuck this says don’t kill the spider?” He leans closer, brows up. “What spider?”
A laugh tumbles out of me,
and his head inches back.
“Do you know what’s worse than seein’ a spider? Not seein’ a spider. So tell me right now—
“where’s the fuckin’ spider, Allison?”
I shrug.
His eyes widen.
“You don’t know?”
He slaps at the back of his neck, then swipes his hair. Looks behind him fast. “Yeah, nah. We’re leavin’,” he says, climbing to his feet, then bends down to scoop me up so fast my arms fly around his neck.
“What?” I’m still laughing.
“Nah,” he says. “I’ll sit next to puke.
“I’ll sit next to a rotten carrot.
“I’m not sittin’ next to no goddamn spider.”
// DEC 26, 3:07 AM //
My eyes crack open.
The room is black except for Manhattan spilling in through the window from all the golden squares climbing chrome towers. The time blinks 03:07 a.m. in bleeding red neon from the record player. Means I slept for almost eight hours, passed out as soon as my body hit the floor.
Andrew’s face is wedged between the blanket and the place behind my ear.
Our heartbeats knock against each other.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom.
A sleepy duet.
I close my eyes and hear him breathe,
warm and steady against my scalp
and down the side of my throat,
while the city hums below us.
The window’s cracked open an inch,
wet tires, truck brakes,
and sirens rising and falling.
The winter air crawls right in
and kisses our exposed skin.
We’re in my writing studio,
a tangled heap of limbs,
trapped under a nest of blankets,
a wall of pillows surrounding us.
I didn’t want to sleep in my room.
He didn’t want to sleep in Room 613.
This is the only place that felt right.
My oversized tee is damp from his feverish skin—the only article of clothing between us—and my thigh is pinned under his knee, numb and buzzing with pins and needles.
I shift, only one inch to move my leg out from under his.
He flinches, whole body.
He thinks I’m trying to leave,
and that panic trickles through him—
heart racing,
chest pulling deeper,
breath falling shorter.
His grip bites into my hip,
dragging me back under him.
But when his cock slides up my thigh, it twitches, and a low, rough sound escapes his throat.
“Sonny,” he murmurs,
groggy and drunk with sleep.
He turns his head,
mouth brushing my neck.
“Lemme sleep in you.”
His cock is hot, pulsing,
leaking all over my skin.
“Sleep in me?” I whisper in the dark,
running my palm down his back,
following the line of his spine,
over the slope of his ass.
His face digs deeper into my neck,
his hand tightens on my hip,
and then he’s grinding up,
the head of his cock catching at my lips,
making his hips stutter,
making him shiver.
“Mmhm… I wanna sleep in you.”
His hushed voice is low against my ear.
“Inside my girl.”
He doesn’t want sex.
He wants to crawl inside my body,
and settle, sleep, stay…
never leave.
His hand leaves my hip
and slips down to my thigh.
He grabs the underside
and spreads me wider.
I rake my fingers up his scalp,
tilting my hips up,
opening for him,
and he sinks his cock inside me,
burying deep
until his pelvis crushes mine.
His throat traps his sleepy groan.
I barely have time for my next breath when his cum spills hot inside me in pulsing waves.
I take it, take all of him,
gasping as his hips grind into mine,
trying to push himself even deeper.
Then he melts into me,
a rough breath stamping my neck
with a—“Fuckin’ embarrassing.”
A small chuckle vibrates through me,
but it’s only to hide the way my throat goes tight with the sudden, sweet urge to cry. ‘Cause even this became one more thing that could be taken from me.
So when the pulse leaves him
and his hips relax,
my pussy grabs him,
squeezing him tighter—
a wet chokehold,
not wanting him to leave.
Andrew feels it, hums into my throat.
Then in the dark, his lips find mine,
and we kiss without a pace,
lazy, lingering mouth against mouth,
almost as if we’re not kissing at all,
we’re resting in each other.
“You’re my comfort person,” he murmurs, nerves sewn into his breath. “Like, when the world’s worldin’?
“It’s only you.
“Only you I wanna be with.
“Only you I wanna fall asleep in.”
We kiss until we’re falling asleep in each other’s mouths—
slow, parted lips,
all tongue and soft moans.
At last, we've arrived on the same page.
And for one unarmed, naked second,
everything falls away
until it’s only the two of us, surrendered.
I am at his mercy. He is at mine.
We belong to each other,
inevitably, despite all fight,
both of us looking straight into the barrel of truth, utterly helpless.
We both see it, we both feel it,
and neither of us is blinking.
His heartbeat fades to steady,
his breath pulls deep again,
his mouth slides back to my throat,
and we sleep with him tucked warm and soft inside me,
just like this.
Just like this.