Chapter 45
Jesse
All along the dusky walk back from Alex and Ellie’s, it’s all I can do not to blurt my feelings to Tris. And yet, I make myself hold them in.
Tris has never had anyone take the time to make him see how stunning and extraordinary he is, and I’ve promised myself that, at every opportunity, I will be that person. I will not rush or blurt or hurry through any chance to show him that he is worthy of so much more than life has given him.
The apartment Tris and I step into is a different place than the one I returned to that night weeks ago, weighed down by the threat of Alex’s ultimatum that I find myself a date or be left to the questionable mercies of Todd.
Now, every surface is cleared of the superficial clutter that once lined the fringes of the space, and in the once under-furnished living room, a wide, comfortable couch sits across a low coffee table from my old chair.
The bookshelf in the corner is crammed fuller than ever, the brighter colored spines of Tris’s quickly growing collection of contemporary romances mixed in among the more subdued covers of my books.
Tomorrow morning, when I open my now highly organized kitchen cupboards, I know I’ll find multiple boxes of appallingly sugary cereal tucked beside my tub of oats.
Last week, I even hired someone to come out and tune the piano.
And all of it is Tristan. The countless ways he’s worked his way into my life, leaving touches of brightness behind him at every turn.
With a sigh, Tris flops down to lie on the sofa, tilting his head back and grinning up at me when I cross the room to stand beside the arm, running my hand through his hair.
On the way home, he’d talked nonstop, making up for my silence as he’d chattered on about the evening, filling my already overfull heart to the breaking point.
Now, for the first time tonight, he’s quiet.
“Did the twins wear you out?” For a moment, I consider sitting on the arm of the couch so I don’t have to make Tris move, but he’s already sitting up, making space for me to sit before lying back down with his head in my lap.
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “Just…thinking.”
His voice is quiet and should sound completely innocent, and yet the way his eyebrow lifts slightly as his eyes track up my body to my face makes my skin feel suddenly hot beneath my clothes.
Except really, maybe that’s just an excuse.
I’ve by now fully accepted that I can’t be near Tris without wanting him.
“What about?” I slip my hands into his hair again, taking back up my slow stroking as I comb through the soft, black strands. The way his head is cradled in my lap, I know he has to be able to feel my dick thickening in my jeans from just this simple closeness.
“Do you remember why you first said you were going to buy this couch, sunshine?”
My breath rushes out with an incoherent sound because, yes, I do remember. At least, I remember what Tris had claimed I’d been saying. Perfectly clearly. And now, my dick isn’t half hard anymore but fully straining at my jeans where it’s trapped against my leg.
Tris turns his head to the side, his eyes never leaving mine.
He presses a long kiss to my shaft through the fabric, and my lips part on a silent moan.
“I want you to fuck me, Jesse. I don’t want to rush you, and you know I’ll wait if you’re not ready, but I want it so bad. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Every cell in my body must be about to combust. I can feel it, the blazing, molten heat rushing through my veins. Fucking Christ, I can hardly breathe.
Much as I’ve wanted to and much as I know Tris has wanted to, we haven’t.
Not yet. In my useless fight against the fact that I’ve been in love with him all along, I’ve held back, still stupidly clinging to the idea that it might stop me from falling as utterly and completely as I’ve fallen even without it.
Except now…
My pulse, and my dick, leap at the realization that now, I have no excuse.
That there’s nothing to hold me back from doing what I can’t deny I’ve been dreaming of for weeks; sinking deep into him, feeling his hot, slick channel clench and shudder around my length.
How he’d fuck himself back onto me, as tight and eager as he always is for my fingers…
“Tris—” His name is all I can manage, and even that’s more of a moan than actual speech.
Apparently it’s all I need to say for him to understand though, because his eyes go wide, the black of his pupils swallowing the coppery green that surrounds them as his head falls back in my lap. “Holy fuck, sunshine. Really?”
“Really.”
I’ve barely choked out the word before he’s on me, straddling my lap and kissing me, his tongue a hot tangle with mine as he pins me against the back of the couch.
And maybe I was wrong to wait to let myself fully give in and have him, wrong at least to think it could possibly stop me from falling head over heels in love with him, but now that I’ve surrendered to the truth of my feelings, every touch of his hands and mouth and his body against mine feels like the air I need to breathe. Like home. Like sunshine.
In the last few weeks, I’ve kissed Tris hundreds of times; all the best kisses of my life. Even so, none of them have felt like this.
My dick is so hard it hurts, throbbing and leaking against my thigh as Tris squirms in my lap, thrusting his own erection against me with each roll of his hips as his mouth devours mine.
He’s all need and passion like this, and I can’t stop myself from groaning into his kisses as the smell and feel and taste of him consume me.
The startled gasp he gives when I stand, lifting him with me off the couch, melts into a beautiful moan as my hand that’s not still tangled in his hair slips under him to grab and hold his ass. His legs wrap around my waist, but he pulls his mouth back from mine as I start toward the bed.
“I thought you were going to fuck me on the couch.”
I’d laugh at the way he pouts if it weren’t for the fact that he’s managed to somehow pull my sweater halfway off, and now both his hands are working over my chest, his thumbs circling and teasing my nipples in a way that goes straight to my dick and turns my laughter into a moan.
“Next time,” I promise as I half drop him onto the bed, following immediately after to blanket his body with mine the moment I’ve stripped my sweater the rest of the way off. “Tonight, I want room to have you in all the ways I’ve imagined.”
“Ohhh fuuck yess,” he whispers, ending on a whimper as I drag my teeth down the side of his neck, nipping and sucking just above his collarbone where I know the feel of my mouth makes him wild.
Only when he’s writhing and panting beneath me do I stop, pulling back enough to see the blotch of purple blooming beneath his pale skin.
“Shit, Tris, I’m sorry—”
“’m not,” he shakes his head, flashing me a smoldering, gorgeous smile as he brushes his thumb over the darkening bruise. “I want your marks on me, sunshine.”
Christ, the sight of him stroking his fingers over the spot has absolutely no right to be as hot as it is.
“Take your clothes off,” I breathe against his skin, reluctantly shifting off his body so he can sit up to strip out of his shirt and shimmy free of his pants.
Before pulling off my own jeans though, I make a detour to my top drawer, snatching up the bottle of lube and a condom and tossing them on the bed.
“Jesse.” Tris’s use of my real name stops me short, halfway through tugging off my jeans.
He’s gloriously naked, kneeling on the bed a foot from where I stand, his lower lip tugged between his teeth as he looks up at me through the curtain of his bangs.
The jolt of passion and tender possessiveness I feel at the sight of him like this almost makes me overlook the nervous expression on his face.
Almost.
“I went and got tested. Two weeks ago.” He reaches forward, holding something out toward me, but my thoughts are so utterly focused on what he’s saying that I hardly process that he’s offering me his phone. “I— Sunshine, I just want to feel you. You can see my results, they’re all clean—”
I don’t let him finish, just reach for the phone, push it out of his hand.
In the same movement, I catch him around the waist with my other arm, dragging him to the edge of the bed and ducking down for a searing kiss that leaves us both panting when, with a gasp, I pull away, pressing my forehead against his.
“God, Tris,” I groan, closing my eyes at the silky warmth of his skin as I drag my hands up his sides and over his back.
“I only want to feel you too. You have no idea how much. And I’m clean too, it’s just been a little while since I’ve been tested.
I haven’t been with anyone since though.
I’ll find my results if you want to see. ”
He shakes his head against my forehead, and I open my eyes to see him staring at me with an expression that’s as soft and vulnerable as it is hungry. “I trust you, Jesse. Always. Now,” his gaze turns wicked and as his lips tilt up in a devastating, sinful smile, “are you finally going to fuck me?”