Chapter 8
EIGHT
NORTH
This is maybe the best and worst mistake of my life. I’m going to regret every second of it the moment it’s over, but right now, all I can think is that Leo tastes exactly how I imagined.
Except no, he doesn’t. He tastes better.
He kisses like a fucking dream. His tongue is powerful and demanding, yet somehow also needy. He trembles like he’ll fall apart if I don’t hold him in my arms, and his nails dig into my skin like he’s terrified to let me go.
He doesn’t seem to notice how unpracticed I am—how bad at this I must be—and it makes my head spin.
I swallow down his first moan as I try to match the movement of his tongue, and when I get it right, he rewards me with a second.
As I pull him closer, his legs tighten around my torso, and my dick kicks hard in my jeans like it’s trying to break free. God, I’ve never been touched like this. Never been held like this, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to give it up now that I have it.
My cock starts to leak as I feel a sudden, powerful urge to come. I breathe through it as I break the kiss, trying to pull more air into my lungs, but he doesn’t let me get far.
“Leo,” I murmur. I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea what’s meant to come next. All I know is that he wants me and that he fist-fought his own brain to admit it.
And I don’t think the moment will last if I hesitate for even a second.
This is my first and only chance with him.
“Lean back,” I tell him. I have no idea where any of this is coming from, but the way he obeys me is fucking heady. It’s going to ruin me for the rest of my life, for any other person I ever sleep with after this.
I’m going to leave most of my heart and part of my soul on this bedroom floor, and I won’t be coming back for it.
Leo stares up at me under his long, dark lashes. He’s the same man I’ve always seen: shattered, exhausted, shaped by injury and grief. The man who doesn’t believe he deserves a second happily ever after. But he’s also something else now.
Not quite mine, but I’m allowing myself to say he is, only for this moment.
Lifting higher onto my knees, I creep my hands along his thighs and begin to tug the robe open. He doesn’t stop me. He watches with fevered eyes, one turned in slightly, but still so fucking focused on the way I’m touching him.
I’m terrified something I say or do is going to break this spell and he’s going to banish me from this space, so I take my time drawing the tie on his robe open so I can see all of him.
And every inch is fucking gorgeous.
His dick is smaller than mine, and it’s fat, cut, and leaking at the head, so thick it dribbles down his shaft. I have to bite the inside of my cheek and curl my fingers into fists to keep from tasting or touching him there.
I know I have him spread out for me, but I need to be sure he wants this. I don’t think I can live with myself if I become one of his regrets.
Leo swallows thickly as I try to find the words I want to ask him. It clicks in the back of his throat. Then he exhales, and his breath trembles. “Am I…not what you expected?”
“No.” He stiffens before I can finish, so I quickly add, “You’re so much better. Tell me if you want me to stop. Tell me if I should—”
“I want it. It’s been so long.” His words are simple, but his tone is shattered. “Please?”
I don’t want him to beg. Not this time. If the gods of the universe grant me another shot at this, maybe it’ll be different. Maybe I’ll tease a little and play a lot.
But not this time.
I have one singular focus tonight, and that’s making him feel good.
Steadying my hand as much as I’m able, I trail fingers up his thigh, then graze them over his balls. They’re hanging fat and heavy between his spread legs, and just for a moment, I wonder what the wrinkled skin on them would taste like.
Closing my eyes, I bow my head and then put my hand where I want to touch most. Where he wants it. He gasps loudly as I squeeze him in my fist, and then a broken moan rips from his throat as I begin to jerk him off.
“Uh, uh,” he says, the sound involuntary, “Uh, god, fuck. North.”
Christ, the way he says my name. My own dick is pressing hard against the zipper of my jeans, and the pressure of the too-tight fabric is torment. I spread my knees a little wider, making the pants more taut, and then I start rocking my hips.
I can’t help it. I need to feel some kind of friction as I do this. Pressing my forearm to the top of Leo’s thigh, I tilt my hips forward and dry hump the air as my arm moves faster. I stroke him harder, his dick getting just a little longer as it hardens completely.
“North, please,” he whispers again. He reaches out with trembling fingers, searching, and his hand lands on my shoulder before moving down over my arm. My ink mostly covers up the scars there, but the way his touch stutters tells me he can feel them.
For a moment, I feel a rush of terror, like he’s going to interrupt this to ask about that.
But he doesn’t. He grabs my hand instead, fingers linking with mine. The gesture is so intimate, so odd in this moment. I don’t know what the fuck to make of it.
But his palm is warm, and it’s so soft, and the way he’s holding on to me like he needs me is too fucking much. I can’t hold back. Just the pleasure of his skin against mine has me careening over the edge, and as hard as I try to stop myself, I can’t.
My only saving grace as the orgasm rips through me is the fact that he’s coming too.
He’s loud about it, his head tilted forward, jaw loose, lips parted on his sharp cry. His hips fuck up into my hand as I pull the climax from his body, and he lets out the loudest, most profane fucking groan before falling backward.
I look down and see he’s coated the entire back of my hand in his come.
Jesus, it’s so hot, so thick—pearly and sort of opaque. It immediately starts to dry the moment cool air touches it, and I can feel it tightening against my skin.
I can’t stop staring. It takes all my self-control not to lick my hand clean, but he’s watching me, and I don’t know if I should continue to sit here in my soggy jeans or if I should run away.
Option two is starting to feel pretty good because now that I’ve come untouched, the humiliation hits me square in the guts. I hadn’t realized how desperate I was—how pathetic—until I creamed my pants like when I was an overly hormonal teenager with no control over his body.
And I have no idea if Leo noticed.
“I—” The single, stuttered letter comes out tense and ragged. I can’t meet his gaze. He says nothing, and in that silence, I feel it: his possible disdain, his probable regret. “I should go.”
There’s a very long pause, and then he says, “Okay.”
Okay. Just like that. No asking me to stay, no telling me it was fine. Just, okay.
I stand, unable to look over him, but with my back to where he’s still lying, I ask, “Are you going to be alright?”
“Always am.”
His tone is strange. I can’t read it, and I don’t know if I want to try. There’s every chance I’ll get it wrong, and I’ve made a fool of myself enough today.
“Catch you later.” It seems like the wrong thing to say right now, but I don’t know what’s right, so instead of trying to make it better, I put one foot in front of the other until I’m walking out the door in uncomfortable, stiff, wet jeans.
And the moment I’m far enough from his house that I know he can’t see me, even if he gets up to look, I start running.
Stretching my legs out in front of me, I cradle the bag of homemade duck food and reach in, grimacing at the wet grapes, though the big doe eyes of the two mallards in front of me takes the edge off my discomfort.
I throw a handful down to the pair and sigh. “These are my friends.”
“You’re friends with crows and ducks now?” Rune asks with a dubious frown. He’s watching the pair chase after the few grapes before they go after the rest of the seeds and lettuce.
“No. I just know these two. They’re at this park every year.”
I don’t actually know if that’s true. I looked it up the fourth spring when I saw them toddling along this road.
Every single site on the internet said that ducks don’t mate for life, and it’s not like I can tell them apart from all the other mallards, but somehow, I just know these two are the exception to the rule.
They have to be, because if there’s hope for them, there might be hope for me.
“That’s kind of sweet. My—” He stops abruptly. “I know someone who’d really love this.”
I want to ask who, but it’s clear that whoever it is, he doesn’t want to talk about it. I let it be. “This is my happy place,” I tell him as I watch the male duck nip at the female’s neck. She bites him. Hard.
Good for her.
Rune digs into the bag and tosses out another handful of food, and the ducks, once again, go after the grapes. “They’re not like dogs, right? They can eat grapes and not die?”
“Dude. I’m not trying to kill them.” I huff for a moment, but I know he doesn’t mean it maliciously.
I think I’m feeling a little sensitive after yesterday—after running off and then spending half the night expecting Leo to show up and promise me that he didn’t hate every second of what we did.
Then, after the world’s shittiest night of broken sleep, I woke up panicked, certain Easton was going to show up and bash my face in for fucking his baby brother.
Neither of those things happened.
Once my panic calmed down a bit, I went for a jog to the station and found Rune there, looking pissed off because Easton had requested a new monitor after knocking his off the desk.
I suggested the park in an attempt to keep him from murdering my best friend, and I have to say, it was the best idea I’ve had in a while.
I still feel like ass, and my heart kind of hurts about the way Leo dismissed me like what we did was nothing, but at least I’m in the shade, feeding ducks. It takes the edge off losing at least part of my virginity—my jack-off virginity—to a man who hates my guts.