12. Chapter 12
Noah
I drift out of sleep to find something hard pushing against my backside, along with someone breathing deeply against my neck. Asher.
He’s still asleep, I think. He’s not moving much, but the feeling of?…? that part of him pressed up against me makes my skin tingle.
Last night, he seemed to think my inexperience was hilarious.
If ever something were to happen between us, which I scarcely dare hope, would he start laughing if I did something wrong?
I don’t know. I don’t feel ready to find out just yet, and besides that, it doesn’t make sense that Asher would even want to find out.
He said I’m punishing him, and if that is truly what he thinks, how can he endure being close to me? How can he ask me where I want him to touch me? How can he listen to one of the most painful experiences of my life and then let me cry in his embrace? It doesn’t make a lick of sense.
I shift a little, lessening the curve of my back.
The movement brings me closer to Asher, and I feel?…
I feel him, there, lined up against my left buttock.
With us both lying in the fetal position, his thighs and knees are lined up to the backs of mine, even his calves, all of him pressed to all of me, as close as we can get.
Asher lets out a breathy noise, still asleep.
I want him to stay that way, or at least, I want him close.
Awake, he’s unpredictable: affectionate one moment, abrasive the next.
Asleep, he’s warm, and he’s close, and he can’t question me about the complicated aspects of our relationship.
He can’t accuse me of?…?of punishing him.
I would never do such a thing. He’s been punished enough.
We both have. What we need is some respite from the outside world, and I want nothing more than to give it to him, even if he might never forgive me for it?…
Another shift of my body sends him out of sleep with a jerk. When he realizes what he’s doing—what part of him is pressed up against me—he sighs and rolls to his back.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
I roll over to look at him. “For what?”
He raises an eyebrow, glancing down between our bodies. “For that .”
“It’s not something to apologize for.”
“Well.” He smiles wryly. “I thought it might be uncomfortable for you, since you’re a virgin and all.”
“It’s just morning wood. It happens.”
Asher smirks. “Oh yeah? Did it happen to you too? Let me see.”
My cheeks heat up in a panic. I don’t know what to do, so I turn back around.
He chuckles softly. “Kidding, kidding. Fuck, I love it when you get shy like that.”
He rolls toward me, spooning me again and sliding his hand into my hair. I sigh as he gives it a playful tug. His hand inches toward my cheek, then, and further still, cupping my jaw, the side of his hand pressing lightly on my throat.
My breath stills. I could stay like this forever. That touch of his is rooting me to the center of the earth, and it’s doing something else too?…?something that stirs the heat between my legs, making me squirm.
“Hmm,” Asher mumbles. “You like that, do you? How about this?” He tightens his hold on my throat, and a full-body tremble courses through me.
“Wh-What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I’m just holding you. Don’t worry—I’m not going to touch your dick if you don’t want me to. I’m not even sure I want to. But this?…” He slides closer, and I feel his erection press against the curve of my ass as his hand grips me even tighter. “This feels nice, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I gasp. “It does.”
Oddly enough, I don’t feel scared or unsettled to have him hold me like that. It feels?…?comforting, in a way. I can’t make sense of my feelings, but I don’t care; I just want his hands on me, regardless of the consequences.
He mumbles low into my ear, “You like this a lot.”
“Yeah. I like it.” My pants feel constricting, the fabric stretched so tight over my crotch that I fear my cock might rip right through it. I could end this at any moment, yet I feel completely in Asher’s control, under his mercy. And I like it. “Do you?”
“Yeah. I feel your pulse?…?It’s so quick. But you’re not afraid, are you?”
“No. Not afraid.”
“What, then?”
“I?…?I don’t—”
“Shh. I know what you are.” His grip tightens to the point I have to fight to get air into my lungs.
I feel weightless and dizzy in a pleasant way.
Next, he slides his other hand under my shoulders, and he lets the thumb of that hand travel up my chin and skirt my lips.
I part them willingly. Further, further, he presses down on my lower lip, and I invite his thumb into my mouth, my tongue meeting the salt of his skin.
His other fingers dig into my cheek, the touch as demanding as it is affectionate.
He inhales a sharp breath behind me, and his hips press tighter against my ass.
At the same time, he slides his thumb deeper into my mouth, and I groan at the pressure.
A searing heat spreads through my body.
A whimper tears from my throat.
Asher presses himself against me, tighter, tighter, and I feel it distinctly: his erection twitching, so hot and hard that even with unrestricted airflow, I wouldn’t be able to breathe right.
“That’s it,” he mumbles into my ear. “Whimper for me, Noah.” His thumb slips out of my mouth, and he rubs my own saliva across my lips, back and forth, making them wet and slippery. “Let me hear you,” he groans, letting some of the pressure off my throat.
“Ash?…” His name comes out as a breathless whimper, pleading and wanton. I didn’t even know I could make a sound like that. “Please.”
“Fuck,” he groans. “Oh fuck?…” His hips push hard against my ass, swiveling, jerking, shaking. He lets out a long, wrecked moan, his hand gripping me so tight I can’t get an inch of air into my throat.
Then?…?it’s over. His grip on me lessens. The tension that was previously palpable in the air snaps and evaporates, and Asher rolls to his back, away from me. I turn around too, and we lie next to each other, panting.
“Sorry,” Asher mumbles, for the second time this morning.
“For what?” My voice feels raw, affected by his grip, his touch.
He rolls over to his side, facing away from me. Now that I don’t have his hands on me anymore, my own hardness is rapidly dwindling, even if the ache is still there. That’s fine. I don’t have to come; I just have to make sure Asher is okay.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t you like it?”
He lets out a snort. “I liked it too much.”
Can there be such a thing? He seems to think he did something wrong, but I can’t see what would be wrong about what just happened between us.
I can still feel the indents of his fingertips on my throat, and I want to look at them in the mirror.
I want to see the evidence of his desire.
I want him to bruise me further, put his mark on me, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to go on.
Seems more like he wants to forget the whole thing even happened.
“I liked it too,” I say, desperate to reassure him, to do anything to make him change his mind.
“Yeah? Well, maybe you shouldn’t have.”
“Why?”
He drags a hand through his hair, sighing. “Did you, really? Like it? Me just?…?using you like that? Hurting you?”
“You weren’t hurting me. I liked it. I like it when you touch me.”
“Even when I touch you like that?”
“Yeah.”
“It didn’t feel?…?bad?”
“No. None of it.”
He sighs even deeper, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “Okay. I just?…?I need some time alone.”
“Okay. But?…?you’re okay, right?”
“Are you?”
“Don’t worry about me, Asher.”
He snorts again. I try to understand, I really do, but his actions right now don’t make much sense to me. The more I try to reassure him, the more disturbed he seems to get. Is it because he’s straight, and he regrets it?
That might be it. He might be disgusted with himself for what he just did in his desperation, stuck here with someone who lacks the body parts he’s truly attracted to. On the other hand, he’s always been the instigator of our intimacy.
This time, it just went further than we’re used to.
He found release by touching me, and I found another type of release by letting him do what he wanted and by having his attention solely on me. We comforted each other, that’s all.
Why would he think we were wrong to do so? I can’t make sense of it, and when I can’t make sense of something, I go into the forest, hoping the wisdom of the trees can provide me with the knowledge I lack.
On the other hand, the forest has never made me understand humans better.
Maybe that’s part of the problem— my problem.
I never know the right thing to do or say, and in these situations with Asher, I’m even more clueless than usual.
If he’d only let me in—if he’d only let me know what is bothering him?…
I consider disobeying his wishes and staying by his side, but his rage can be so sudden, and after all those touches and all that warmth, I’m not sure I can handle having him snap at me again. Forest it is.
I rise from the bed, but before I go, I send a look over my shoulder. Asher is curled up on the bed, facing away from me, and even though I can’t see his expression, his body language spells it out loud and clear.
Guilt.
Torment.
Regret.
And I don’t know why.