Chapter 38
Jesse
I’d never realized ten blocks could feel so far, but the distance between the restaurant and my apartment felt like a million miles.
All day, I haven’t been able to get Tristan out of my head. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d told him that when I’d brought him lunch.
By some miracle, for the second day in a row, I’d still managed to have one of the most productive days I’ve had in years; jotting down pages of notes and actually writing a few thousand coherent, maybe even persuasive words.
In the spaces between each thought and word though, there’d been nothing but Tris.
Now, the feel of his fingers laced tightly through mine as he tugs me along the sidewalk isn’t nearly enough. The silence between us is charged; heated and irresistible, like the dangerous glint in his eyes every time he glances back over his shoulder with a look that makes my pulse leap.
For all that I wish we were already at my apartment this moment though, I don’t want to rush a thing that happens once we are. I’d told Tris I want to take my time with him, and god, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my life than to do exactly that.
My near desperate need to have him naked and falling slowly apart under my touch is shot through with my equally great need to find every possible way to show him how he deserves to be treated.
All the ways I want to touch him and kiss him, using my hands and my mouth to show him how impossibly perfect he is to me, keep flashing through my mind, making my dick throb in time with the heavy beat of my heart.
Giving in and just falling into bed with him as soon as I’d had Tristan in my arms tonight had been so very tempting, but it had felt too selfish after he’d worked all day and probably hadn’t had anything to eat besides the salad and sandwich I’d brought him.
Now though, after sitting through what felt like hours of the most delicious torment of his teasing, I’m seriously regretting the decision for either of us to have ever left my apartment.
It must have been raining when we first ducked out of the restaurant, but I didn’t even notice until we passed under a streetlight. Even then, I’d only realized it because I’d been staring at Tris.
The moment the light had fallen on him, it was impossible not to get lost in all the drops of water dripping from his hair, leaving damp tracks from his cheekbones down to the sharp line of his jaw, then running along his neck.
Fucking Christ, I want to pull him back against me and lick away every last raindrop from his skin.
By the time our building is in sight, it’s pouring in earnest. The pounding of the rain is loud as it pelts down around us, but not loud enough to dampen the sound of Tris’s laughter as we half run the remaining distance, trying and failing to avoid the quickly forming puddles that litter the sidewalk.
When we duck under the overhang of roof covering the stairs leading up to my apartment, he’s still laughing, flicking his head to shake droplets of water from his hair.
The motion leaves the soaked black strands in a tousled, gorgeously wet mess that clings to his cheeks and forehead, and I literally cannot force myself to look away as I pull him to a stop.
Not that I want to look away. Ever.
And much as I want to get him upstairs, I need this moment to just drink him in.
“Is this the part where you admit now how totally right I was that we should have stayed in tonight?” He smirks up at me, eyebrow cocked as he takes a step back, tugging me further under the shelter of the covered space.
“No,” I shake my head, crowding him toward the wall.
His breath hitches as my chest collides with his, and my already more than half-hard dick gives an eager throb of anticipation.
“Because if we’d stayed in, I wouldn’t have gotten to see you like this.
You’re so damn beautiful, Tris. Right now. Always—”
His hand that’s not held in mine grabs hold of the collar of my coat, pulling me tight against him as his back hits the wall.
The ravenous need that’s been building in me all day has my head spinning, and I have to throw out my free hand to catch myself against the wall beside his head as he tilts his chin, peeking up at me through the fringe of his dripping wet bangs.
It’s a look that should seem innocent, but there's a knowing, wicked edge to it that goes straight to my dick and makes me want to pin him against the wall and have him here and now.
I won’t though. I’ll make myself go slowly. Even now, before we get upstairs, I want to show him how worth savoring he is.
Before I let my mouth drop to his, I gently unlink our fingers, reaching up to brush the soaked strands of hair off his cheeks and forehead.
His eyes fall shut at my touch, and when his head tips back against the wall and his lips part, the simultaneous rush of emotion and raw desire that courses through me draws a low groan from my throat.
In answer, he arches forward, tugging at my coat to try to pull me closer as he presses against me.
When I finally lower my mouth to his, the first taste of his lips and the slick slide of his rain-drenched skin against mine turns my blood molten.
He lets me set the pace, slow and sensual and so deep that only a few seconds leave us both gasping.
And when I pull back, he chases my lips, trapping the lower one between his teeth to give it a soft tug that sends echoes of pleasure through my dick before he releases me, just so I can lean in to capture his mouth all over again.
“God, Tris, I can’t get enough of you.” My fingers close around the damp strands at the nape of his neck, and he groans when I tighten my grip just enough to tip his head back.
“Good.” He flashes me a heart stopping smirk, dimple pressed deep into his cheek. “I never want you to have enough of me.” His eyes dart between mine for a second before widening with a sudden vulnerability, as if what he just said is only now sinking in.
Heart pounding so hard it feels like it’s about to burst from my chest, I soften my grip on his hair, cupping the back of his head. He’s unnaturally still, like he’s not even breathing, as I lean nearer to whisper, “I don’t think I ever could.”
His held breath rushes out in a near silent laugh, and like the sound of it cuts something loose in me, I realize I can’t hold myself back any longer.
Rocking forward against him, I let my lips skim over his jaw before moving lower to his neck, where drips of water track down his pale skin.
The breathy moan he lets out when I flatten my tongue against his throat and lick away the drops there is so erotic, I can’t stop myself from doing it again, and again, licking and sucking at his neck until he’s whimpering and writhing with his head tipped back against the wall.
Feeling and hearing him fall apart under my touch is beyond intoxicating.
Clear as it was that he was careful to follow my lead the night before last and not push any farther than I showed him I was ready to go, it was Tris who’d unraveled me every step of the way.
Now, turning the tables and being the one to reduce him to pure, desperate need is a heady rush unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
The way his body arches off the wall, shaking as he gasps in ragged breaths, blazes through me, winding me tighter and hotter, driving me mindless with the desire for more.
More of his moans and smooth, rain-soaked skin.
More of the soft cry he gives as his hips buck forward when I grind, hard and slow, against the erection straining at his tight jeans. More of his pleasure.
“Sunshine,” he pants, fingers tugging at the fistfuls of my hair he’s grabbed hold of as I sink my teeth lightly into the skin just below his jaw line, “I need you, so f-fucking bad—”
Those words are all it takes before I’m pulling him with me, half dragging him up the stairs to my apartment.
With Tris’s hands slipping up under my coat and sweater, teasing up and down my sides, it takes me a good three or four tries before I manage to get the door unlocked, but at last, I do.
We leave a trail of soaked coats and clothes scattered across the floor as we kiss our way to my bed. By the time the backs of his legs hit the edge of my mattress, Tris is down to just his unzipped, skintight black jeans, and I’m in nothing but my boxers.
With a ridiculous amount of effort, I take a step back from him, letting my eyes trail over his heaving chest, across the lightly sculpted muscle of his stomach, then down farther, to where his length strains at the material of his grey boxer briefs, exposed by his already open jeans.
“Take them off for me.” My voice is a hoarse whisper that ends on a moan as I give in and press my palm against the throbbing hardness of my erection, as desperate for touch as I am to touch him.
“Fuuuck,” he breathes, staring down from hooded eyes as I squeeze myself through the material of my boxers, unable to stop my hips from bucking forward into the sensation.
“Tris,” I reach out with my free hand, tugging at his jeans for a moment before his hands are working at them too. I have to have him naked. Have to touch him—
I usually love that Tris’s jeans are so tight they might as well be painted on.
Right now though, soaked by the rain, it seems to take him forever to peel them, along with his briefs, down over his hips, until at last, his dick springs free, long and slim and perfectly proportioned to his lean body.
The moment he’s fully naked, I’m on him, pushing him back down against the bed with one knee planted on either side of his thighs and my hands bracketing his shoulders. Only my legs are touching him, but he’s so close beneath me that I can feel the heat radiating from his damp skin.