Chapter 21
21
R ubbing my temples, I did my best to ignore my phone as it lit up again. Another message. I knew I needed to reply, but I also needed to get rid of this headache, not to mention the nausea that wouldn’t go away. Everything had seemed so simple, and then it wasn’t.
I’d given Finn Carsley a hand job. I’d actually done it, and he’d reciprocated. I didn’t regret any of it, far from it. What was making my head spin was the fact that Finn had seemed to take it all in his stride, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. I was driving myself mad wondering if he’d really liked what we’d done, if he was just being polite when he said he had, whether he really had liked my body or had just been caught up in the moment…
My overthinking brain was already struggling with all that from the minute I woke up, but then I’d received an email from my computing lecturer. The nausea was already churning in my stomach from the minute I read the subject line—“important project presentation details”—and only intensified when I read the email itself.
I was expected to do a presentation as part of my group project. I’d already known—and avoided thinking about—that fact, but what I hadn’t known was that I had to do part of it completely on my own. Our group had all been given a different area of the project to focus on for our presentation, based on our strongest skill sets. The presentation would begin with all project partners showcasing our booking website, and then Connor and Niall would take their turns to present their own individual sections. Their individual presentations would be followed by mine. Alone. Worst of all, I had to do it in front of industry professionals.
My feelings were so overwhelming I was struggling to breathe. Feelings of inadequacy, fear of being laughed at, of making a fool of myself, of people judging me behind my back and to my face…it was too much.
I’d thought I’d struggled before my dance showcase, but this was something far, far worse. At least with my dance showcase, when Finn had dared me to do it, I could fool myself into pretending that no one was watching me. The audience was in darkness, silent as they took in the routine, listening to the accompanying music. There would be no way to trick my brain with this. Nowhere to hide. No Finn supporting me in the audience. No Connor and Niall at my side to help me through when I stumbled over my words and my mind went blank.
“Leo?” Connor’s voice came through the door, followed by a knock, and I quickly rubbed my hand across my face, hoping the outside of me was less of a mess than the inside.
“Come in,” I croaked, and the door opened, Connor entering my bedroom, followed by Niall.
“You got the email, too,” Niall said, glancing at my monitor, which still displayed the message from my lecturer. “Can’t believe they’re making us do part of it on our own. How are you feeling, man? Remember what happened last time we did a presentation?”
My stomach sank. Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse about it.
“Niall!” Connor smacked his arm, and he grimaced.
“Sorry. Yeah. Nah, it’ll be fine. We’ll make sure you’re ready, don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”
I appreciated their support, but it didn’t stop the feeling of sheer dread that filled me. “I just hope I don’t fuck it up. I can’t… I didn’t know we’d have to do it on our own. In front of industry professionals.”
“Yeah. The worst part is gonna be the questions.”
Questions ? I frantically scanned the email, my hand clamping over my mouth when I got to the part of the message I hadn’t read yet because I’d been too busy panicking about having to do a presentation in the first place.
Up to ten minutes allowed for questions from the panel .
The panel, which consisted of my lecturer, another member of the computing faculty, and two industry professionals.
“I feel sick,” I mumbled, doubling over and trying to remember how to breathe.
“It’s gonna be okay. You did good in our last presentation after you remembered what to say.” Niall tried to reassure me, but his words seemed meaningless. One, because we all knew how much I’d struggled to do it, and two, because my brain would never convince me otherwise.
“Why is my brain like this?” I lowered my head to my desk, closing my eyes.
Connor cleared his throat. “Give me your hand.”I obediently held out my hand, and he pressed something cool and hard onto the pad of my index finger. He muttered something to himself that I didn’t catch, and then he spoke more loudly. “Finn…? No, it’s Connor… Yeah, he’s, uh, I guess he’s okay, but I think you should come over… Yeah, right now, if you’re free… Alright, see you soon.”
I lifted my head from the desk, staring at him. “Did you just call Finn from my phone?”
He nodded. “Thank me later. Wanna play a bit of FIFA while we’re waiting?” Before I could reply either way, he forcibly dragged me out of my chair and down the hallway to our tiny communal area. He pushed me down on the sofa, handed me a controller, and he and Niall took a seat on either side of me, trapping me in place.
Their distraction technique worked for a little while, getting me out of my head as I focused on the game, but then the guilt began to pile up. People always had to go out of their way for me. No one else seemed to be this fucking needy. My friends were having to sit here and stop me from spiralling into a panic attack instead of whatever else they’d been planning to do, and now Finn was having to come here when I knew for a fact he had a study session planned today with some of his course mates.
Why can’t you be normal? I asked myself for the thousandth time.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Next to me, Connor sighed. “Don’t.”
“But—”
“The S-word is banned. C’mon, don’t worry about anything else. Just play.”
“Yeah. We’re about to win this match,” Niall added, knocking me with his shoulder, and I breathed out. Okay. My brain was twisting my thoughts again. Fucking hell, being in my head was exhausting.
The doorbell sounded, and Connor paused the game, jumping up. When he returned, he had Finn in tow. Finn, who looked a little out of breath, like he’d been running?—
Everything crashed down on me at once. I turned on him, my words lashing through the space between us. “Did you run here?”
His eyes widened. “Uh. I needed the exercise?” He gave me a sheepish smile.
“Yeah, the fit footballer needs exercise.” I launched myself to my feet. “Stop, all of you! I don’t want to be this huge fucking burden where you feel like you have to come running every time you think I might start spiralling. It makes me feel even worse, and you’re having to go out of your way to fucking babysit me when you’ve got much better things to do with your time. I don’t need you to do this, okay? I don’t want you to! I’m fine on my own! Just fucking stop!”
There was a stunned silence, and I gasped, clapping my hand over my mouth, horrified at my outburst.
But there was no taking the words back.
“Shit. I-I’m sorry,” I whispered and fled the room, barricading myself in my bedroom with a locked door and a chair in front of it for good measure.
My actions were predictably followed by a hammering on the wood, making the door vibrate.
“Leo!”
Connor.
I ignored him, and the banging eventually stopped. Collapsing onto my bed with stinging eyes, I stared up at the ceiling. I’d just managed to mess things up with three of my friends in one go, and I wasn’t sure if they’d even forgive me. They shouldn’t forgive me.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but eventually, I crawled from my bed, feeling like crying all over again when I curled up in the gaming chair Finn had bought me. I jammed my headphones over my stupid overgrown hair and loaded Lesath Legends . It was my one guaranteed escape from the world, and I needed it right now.
The in-game message alert was blinking at me. I thought about ignoring it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on the game while I was wondering what was waiting for me. Steeling myself, I clicked on the message.
HAMMERHEAD:
I unlocked the abyss campaign. Want to play?
Oh, Finn . Hammerhead’s icon showed he was online, and so I replied. There was only one answer I could give him because I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I already had.
VIKING:
Ok
HAMMERHEAD:
We got this Viking. Ready up
VIKING:
Ready
Even though my headset was on mute, I could feel Finn there through the screen. He was too good to me, and I didn’t deserve his understanding. Even after those things I’d said, he was still here, not making any demands of me, just letting me be and giving me what he somehow instinctively knew I needed.
We played for hours, communicating only through the in-game text chat, doing one campaign after the other. When the rumbling of my stomach became too loud to ignore, I typed out a single message with shaking hands, trying to brace myself for potential rejection.
VIKING:
Want to get some food?
He replied immediately.
HAMMERHEAD:
Yeah. Now?
VIKING:
Yes. I can come to you
HAMMERHEAD:
Unlock your door
His icon instantly greyed out, showing he was offline, and so I logged out, removing my headphones, and unlocked my door.
When I opened it, I stopped dead.
Finn was standing outside.
We stared at one another for a moment, both frozen in place, and then he sighed.
“Come here.” He held out his arms, and when I remained where I was, he stepped forwards, wrapping his arms around me. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the spiced apple scent of his shampoo. Stroking up and down my back, he remained silent, allowing me time to process what was happening.
“H-how are you here?” I mumbled into his throat.
“I never left. I persuaded Connor to let me use his laptop to play.”
“I…I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. Or…I guess I meant it, but I didn’t mean to shout at you all.”
“Leo.” His voice was so sad. “I wish you could see yourself the way we see you. You’re never a burden. I’m gonna tell you that as many times as it takes to sink in, even if it means I’m still telling you when we’re in our eighties.”
“Y-you still want to be my friend?”
“You did not just ask me that.” Fuck, now he was pissed off.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“Okay. No.” He drew back, releasing me for a second before he clasped my jaw, forcing me to meet his gaze. “You. Are. My. Family. That means we stick together. End of fucking discussion.”
I licked my dry lips, keeping my eyes on his despite my instinct to turn away, to protect myself. “You’re mine.”
At my words, something hot flashed in his gaze. “I’m yours?”
“M-my family.”
“I’m yours, and you’re mine.” There was something in his expression that I couldn’t read, but it gave me chills. It was selfish of me because we still hadn’t sorted anything out, but I wanted more of it.
Bringing my hand up, I mirrored his grip on my face, curling my fingers around his jaw. His stubble was sandpapery beneath the pads of my fingers where he hadn’t bothered to shave. My finger brushed over his pulse point, and I could feel it beating wildly against my skin.
“I’m yours,” I repeated, watching his eyes darken.
“Yes, you are, and don’t you fucking forget it,” he ground out, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck and yanking me into him. His lips came down on mine as I reached for him, both of us on exactly the same page.
“Finn,” I gasped out, pulling him back into my bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us. “Finn.”
“I’ve got you.”
Fuck, this was nothing like the last time we’d done anything together. There was no hesitance as we ripped off our clothes in between frantic, messy kisses, got onto the bed, and then Finn was tightly gripping a handful of my hair, tugging my head back to expose my throat, biting and sucking.
I rutted up, my dick so hard it hurt, gripping onto him, digging the pads of my fingers into the muscles of his back as he marked me up in a way I’d never even contemplated before.
“You like that?” He mouthed across my skin. “Every time you look in the mirror and see this, you’ll remember not to question what you mean to me.”
“Fuck. Finn. Let me, please.” I had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted to mark him in the same way so he knew how important he was to me. How seriously I took him. This. Us. Our friendship. Rolling us to the side, I got my mouth on his throat, licking over the salt of his skin before sucking hard, imitating his movements. I kept up the pressure until I was sure it had worked, and then I drew back, smiling when I saw the mark blooming on his skin.
“Impressed with yourself?”
I blinked up at him. His eyes were so dark, and goosebumps erupted over my skin at the way he was looking at me. No one had ever looked at me the way he did.
Instead of replying to his question, I pushed down on his shoulder. “Move onto your back, and let me show you how sorry I am.”
He shifted onto his back, bringing his hand up to push my hair back from my face. “I already told you, you don’t need to apologise.”
“I do.” Before I could talk myself out of it, I moved down the bed, settling between his thighs, my head directly above his erection. Even though I was committed to this, I needed—no, I wanted that final push.
“Dare me,” I said.
“Fucking hell,” he groaned. “You’re killing me here.”
“Dare me.”
“Fuck. I dare you to suck my cock.”
Wrapping my fingers around the base of his erection, still just as fascinating to me as the first time I’d touched him, I lowered my head. I hadn’t told Finn, but I’d done a bit of online research, and while the videos had done absolutely nothing for me—only Finn seemed to have this effect on my libido—I had a vague idea of what I was supposed to do.
I flattened my tongue and licked across the head of his dick. He groaned again, and the sound encouraged me to keep going. I licked again, tasting his precum on my tongue. I couldn’t really describe the taste because it was like nothing I’d tasted before, and I wasn’t sure if I even liked it yet, but what I did like was Finn’s reaction. He quickly shoved some pillows behind him to prop himself up, and then he buried his hands in my hair, tracking my movements with his intense, darkened gaze and parted lips. He’d told me I was beautiful before, but the way he looked right now was incomparable. I shifted, pressing my hips down into the bed to get some friction on my dick as I licked all around the head of his cock, and then down his shaft.
“Fuck, baby. You’re gonna make me come so hard,” he panted, his thighs tensing as he held himself still while I dragged my tongue all over his cock, getting it wet and messy. When I took the tip into my mouth, his grip tightened in my hair, moans falling from his throat as I took more and more of him in, doing my best to breathe through my nose as my lips stretched around his girth.
“Leo,” he choked out, tugging urgently at my hair, and I pulled back, but he was still in my mouth when he started to come, his cock pulsing as the first hit of his release went down my throat. Quickly closing my eyes, I pulled all the way back, feeling his cum landing on my face. I did my best to stroke him through it until his hand came down over mine, stilling my movements.
Collapsing down against his thigh, I pressed my cheek against his warm skin as I tried to catch my breath. I lazily rolled my hips down to keep up the much-needed friction on my dick, the sheets beneath me damp with my precum.
I’d just done that. I’d sucked Finn’s dick, and he’d come from it. Why was that so hot? Fuck, I needed to come, too.
“Give me five seconds to recover, and I’ll help you out with that.”
“Hmm?”
“You said you needed to come, and I’ll help you with that. Leo. You don’t even know… That was fucking incredible,” he breathed.
I’d said I needed to come out loud? I groaned, pressing my face into his leg, smearing his cum across his skin. Then, the rest of his words filtered through my brain. Incredible?
There was no time to think about it because Finn was already moving, and I found myself on my back with his head between my legs. I didn’t let my nerves overtake me this time because the way he was looking at me left no room for doubts. He wanted me, and I wanted him in return.
“You look fucking hot with my cum on you,” he murmured, scanning every inch of my face. “So fucking hot.”
“Y-you look hot,” I whispered, a confession he needed to hear as much as I needed to say it.
“ Baby .” His tongue swiped across his lips, leaving them glistening. Lowering his gaze to my erection, I saw him swallow hard. “I might not be any good at this.”
His lips closed over the head of my dick, and he sucked lightly. I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth. This was a feeling so different from anything else I’d ever experienced. I hadn’t even been able to imagine what it would feel like, and as his tongue carefully slid over my tip, I lost myself in the sensations coursing through me, ramping my entire body up so I was tingling all over, my dick aching and leaking, encompassed by the wet, hot suction of Finn’s mouth.
“So good,” I moaned, needing him to know how he was making me feel.
He hummed in acknowledgement, and, oh .
“Fuck. Do that again.”
Another hum, and I gasped, my head falling back against the pillows. My entire body was on edge, poised, and with another swipe of his tongue, he tipped me over. Everything became a blur as my cock pulsed out ropes of cum, my mind going blissfully blank. When I came to, Finn was wiping at his face and coughing a little.
“I need to work on my swallowing technique,” he said in between coughs, still somehow managing to grin at me. “Practice makes perfect.”
He was perfect. So perfect.
“I need more practice, too.” I returned his smile. “Finn, that was…that was?—”
“Yeah?” His grin grew even wider, and I needed to keep telling him these things if it meant I got to see him looking like that.
“Yeah. The best.”
“The only.”
“Still the best.”
He crawled up my body, flopping down next to me, and then pulled me into his arms for a wet and messy kiss.
“We need to clean up.”
“We do. Why is sex so messy? Is it just us?” I wondered aloud, and he laughed, kissing the end of my nose.
“I like it messy with you. We have fun, don’t we?”
“We do.” I was the luckiest person in the whole world, and in that moment, I didn’t want to change myself. I just wanted to be that person who made Finn as happy as he was right now. “I am sorry for earlier, though.”
“I know, baby. I think your apology was more than sufficient.” He leered at me, and we both dissolved into laughter. It wasn’t even that funny, but I guess the endorphins were getting to us or something.
My stomach growled again, reminding me I’d invited him to get food with me before we’d been sidetracked by blow jobs.
“Food,” I said. “Let’s clean up, and I’ll treat you to lunch.”
Over plates of peri-peri chicken and chips, Finn and I discussed the idea that had been building in my mind on our walk to Nando’s. I needed to be proactive. I was under no illusion that I was going to magically become a confident person, but what I could do was take steps to ensure I was as prepared as possible.
“You can do this. It’s a solid plan, and you know I’ll do everything I can to support you. You’re not a burden, and it makes me happy to help you out whenever and wherever I can,” Finn said.
He was so good to me. “Thank you. I…am going to try to believe that, I promise.”
Squeezing my hand, he dunked a chip into his sauce. “Like I said, I’ll keep telling you for as long as it takes to sink in.”
I smiled. “I know we talked about me apologising earlier, but I also wanted to say sorry for taking you away from your study session.”
He waved his chip in the air in a dismissive gesture, sauce flying off the end and splatting on the table. “Oops. Yeah, no, it’s all good. Bennett’s sending me the notes, and I’m ahead, anyway. I think I got quite a good deal out of it anyway, didn’t I? A gaming session followed by an amazing BJ, and then my best friend treated me to my favourite chicken. What’s not to love?”
I laughed, glad we were seated in a secluded booth so there was no one to overhear our conversation. “When you put it like that, I guess I did you a favour.”
“Yeah, you did.” His grin was huge. “Feel free to repeat it anytime.”
“Without the part where I have a minor breakdown and shout at you all. Speaking of, I need to apologise to Connor and Niall and let them know about the plan.” Pulling out my phone, I sent a message to our group chat.
ME:
I’m really sorry for flying off the handle this morning. I didn’t mean what I said and I appreciate you both looking out for me
I’ve come up with a plan with Finn to help with the presentation but I’d like your input. If you’re both around later we could go through it?
CONNOR:
No apologies necessary. Yeah I’ll be back at the flat in about an hour for the rest of the day so I’m all yours
Not yours in that way if Finn reads this
ME:
He’s my friend
NIALL:
What Con said. Also not yours in that way
Placing my phone down, I folded my arms on the tabletop and rested my head on them with a groan.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at the chat if you want. They’re insinuating things again.”
Finn chuckled under his breath as he read through the messages. “Fuck’s sake.” His hand stroked over my hair, and when I lifted my head from my arms, he shrugged, dipping another chip into his sauce. “Let them think what they want. We know the truth.”
He was right. On that note, I tapped out a brief reply to let them know I’d be back in a couple of hours and then muted the chat.
It was time to finalise our plan. This presentation was going to be the best one we’d ever done. I’d make sure of it.