Chapter 32 #2
“I’m sure my parents will ask me about it when I’m home for break.” Even as I say the words, the rock in my stomach grows heavier.
Suddenly, I don’t want to be at this party anymore.
I don’t want to be pretending. I don’t want to be surrounded by all of these people who I can’t have an honest conversation with when I could be spending my last night in bed with Chase, memorizing every detail of him like it’s the last time that I’ll ever get to experience it.
“I’m going to call it a night. I have an early flight tomorrow,” I say, already standing up, my fingers itchy to text him and see whether he’s still awake.
Coop nods, standing up, too. “Yeah, dude. I should do a lap. Play host and all that.”
I look around the room. Everyone is dancing or talking or making out, though I do appreciate that the couple at the end of the sofa seem to have taken their moment somewhere a little more private.
But before I go, I turn toward Coop, looking him in the eye. “Thanks for everything this season. For keeping tabs on me even when I wanted to disappear.”
The muscles around his jaw twitch, his voice full when he finally says, “I wouldn’t let that happen.” A heavy silence hangs between us for a few beats. “But, you’re doing better now? And it’s okay if you aren’t.”
My smile, thinking about Chase, is genuine. “Yeah, I am. A lot better.”
I’m pulled into his crushing hug before I realize what’s happening.
When he finally pulls back, I can see that his eyes are glassy.
I don’t know why, but I know that me being okay means a lot to him.
Maybe more than I’ve ever realized before.
“You’ll let me know if you need anything, right?
While you’re at home? And I’ll see you at the Blizzard Cup in ten days, okay? ”
I clasp my hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “I will.”
I use the key that Chase gave me a few weeks ago to enter the apartment as quietly as I can. I can still smell the dinner that he and Lyla ate earlier–something Italian, if I had to guess–as I take off my shoes and quietly pad up the stairs.
My whole body softens when I push open his bedroom door, which he left slightly ajar, probably after he responded to my text. Chase is lying on his side of the bed, with a small reading lamp on his bedside table illuminating his gorgeous body, which is uncovered down to his waist.
He looks up at me, through his adorable glasses, and his face breaks out into a smile. “I wasn’t sure if you got lost on the way.”
God, I needed to see this face. See him.
“I figured that I should pack for my trip before coming over.” I took an Uber home, even though I didn’t really drink, and then I showered, threw a week’s worth of clothes in a giant duffel bag, and scurried over here as fast as possible.
I couldn’t stand the idea of spending one more second away from him. He’s become so much more than an exploration of my sexuality or a way to forget about how lost I used to feel. He’s embedded himself in the place where my bruised and battered heart lives, and somehow, he’s started to heal it.
That same healing heart flutters when his smile morphs into a smirk. “I didn’t peg you as the waiting until the last minute type.”
Instead of answering immediately, I pull off my hoodie. “If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little busy lately. Spending all my time with you, mostly.”
“Except for tonight. How was the party, by the way?” he asks as I strip out of my joggers.
“Boring.” I look at him with a glint in my eye that makes it clear exactly what I have on my mind.
He puts his book on the bedside table, and beneath the covers, I can see how his legs bow outward from his hips, like he’s inviting me in between them.
I don’t need to be asked twice. I climb onto the bed and then up the comforter until I’m positioned between his muscular thighs. The blanket is still covering him, but I can make out the faint outline of his need, trying to push through the thick bedding.
Gently, I run my hand over him. “Seems like maybe you were waiting for this, too?” I ask playfully.
He groans when I push my hand down, which makes it so that I can cup his erection more fully. My mouth is already watering, thinking of drawing him deep and working him until I hear those breathy, quiet little moans that he can’t stop himself from letting out, even though we need to be quiet.
I slide my hand up the covers and wrap my fingers around the edge so that I can pull the barrier between us down. I can’t wait any longer. When we’re together, especially like this, all the voices in my head finally quiet. And pleasuring him becomes the only thing that I can focus on.
“Did you miss me?” I ask, neediness in my voice that I don’t try to hide. Even if I can’t have what I want, I can have this.
I’m waiting for his answer as I drop my face down to his crotch, where his cock is still covered by his underwear. I fan my palms out against his thighs, spreading them open wider.
With the bedside table lamp, I can see that his irises are blown out, his eyes hungrily tracking my movements.
He moves to take off his glasses, and I put my palm down on his chest. “Keep them on. I like the whole hot but nerdy thing that you have going on when you wear them.”
His eyes grow even darker, but he puts his hands back down against the comforter, fisting the material. “We have to be–”
“Quiet. I know,” I say quickly but softly, glancing back toward the bedroom door that I shut and locked when I arrived.
The few times that I’ve stayed over when Lyla’s here too, we’ve only slept. But I haven’t been able to taste him in too long, and I can’t leave tomorrow without it. I hoped that he wouldn’t turn me away, and I almost groan when his hand wraps around my neck, keeping me close to him.
Not wasting anymore time, I lick against his underwear.
He groans, and I’m engulfed in his warmth and scent and I want to cry from how good it feels, to touch him like this.
I settle for an indulgent moan and swirl my tongue where I know that his tip is, the wetness from my saliva mingling with the precum already leaking through.
“Asher,” he whispers, his fingers pushing harder into my neck. “Please, baby. Don’t tease me. Not tonight.”
I’ll give him anything, if only he’d ask for it. If what he’s asking for, right now, is my lips and tongue playing with him until he explodes in my mouth, then that’s what I’ll give him.
I sit back on my knees, using both of my hands to pull his underwear down.
He lifts his ass up, so that I can fully free his cock.
I’ll never get tired of seeing him light this.
Vulnerable and exposed and mine for the taking.
Instead of using my mouth again, I stroke him up and down with my hand, savoring the warmth radiating from him as I move along his length.
With my fingertip, I play with his head, still leaking from how ready he is to come.
And suddenly, it’s all that I can think about.
I’m overtaken with my need for him. For all the things unsaid between us that drown out during the brief moments when we exist in this liminal space. Two bodies coming together.
I drop my head and take him in my mouth.
He moans, and I moan too, the vibrations causing him to dig his fingers harder into my scalp.
I want to go slowly–to draw his pleasure out–but I can’t.
I feel almost frenzied, overtaken with a heat threading through my veins that’s burning me from the inside out.
Does he feel it, too?
I draw him in deep, relaxing my throat so that he can press inside of me. One day, soon, I want us to really fuck. I don’t care if it’s him taking me or me taking him, but I want us to be joined together, our slick bodies moving in tandem until we both explode.
The idea makes me suck him harder, and at the same time, his hips start to thrust into my open mouth. Small beads of sweat are dotted along his stomach, and if I wasn’t so needy for his come right now, I’d stop what I’m doing and lick them off.
But I can feel how he’s starting to rut into me harder, fucking my face like his life depends on it. His head’s finally tipped back against the headboard, and I watch him through lidded eyes, wondering what could possibly be better than this?
I get my answer when his whole body freezes with one last hard pump of his hips, and his salty, warm come coats my throat. I lick it up like a man starved, sliding back so that my tongue can swirl around his tip, savoring every single drop.
When I’m sure that I’ve gotten everything, I crawl up his body and lay as much on him as in the space next to him in bed, my weight pinning him in place.
His glasses are askew, and I push them gently back in place before kissing the corner of his mouth, which I can reach without moving.
“Your learning curve is a little bit terrifying,” Chase finally says, his chest expanding against mine, pushing our sweaty bodies impossibly closer.
I smile against his sternum and place a light kiss there, too. “I have a really good teacher.”
He’s quiet, then, his fingers tracing patterns up and down my back. Finally, he says, “When’s your flight tomorrow?”
“Early,” I answer, dreading the city traffic to get to the airport.
“Lyla and I can take you. Would that be okay?”
I look up at him, and he’s already staring at me, an intensity in his eyes that I don’t know what to do with.
Like he wants more, too. Only, he won’t let himself have it.
We’ve already blown past every rule that we’ve already set, but I haven’t dared to let myself hope that he could really let me in.
I swallow and tighten my hold on his torso. “I love hanging out with you both, but I’m sure it’s not going to be a fun drive.”
He toys with my hair, curling the edges around his fingertips. “She and I can make a day of it in the city. Distract ourselves from missing you.”
I scratch down his abs, loving how his muscles tighten under my touch. “Yeah?”
“We both feel it, when you’re not here. It feels like something is missing,” he admits. “And telling you that is so fucking scary, but you deserve to know.”
Chase is one of the most direct people that I’ve ever met, except when it comes to his heart. To what he wants and what he needs.
But what he just told me is not nothing.
I press my head against his chest, smelling him and feeling him and doing everything I can to bottle this moment and keep it forever. I place a kiss against his chest, right where his heart is. “I know exactly where I belong.”