Doppelbänger

Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

GOOD AUGUST

MIRROR MIRROR

By the time I wrap the towel around my waist, my hands have stopped shaking. With fluid, deliberate movements, I wander back into my living room to take stock.

It’s warm for the first time in months. Instead of a place I dive into bed to hide, it’s calm and it’s cosy, not awful, not lonely.

For once, I’m not worried about where someone is, or who they’re with. I know that August’s either asleep or working on his problem, just like he told me he would be, and my chest feels full and warm thinking about him.

Like I just drank a hot Coke.

The microwave’s glowing invitingly at me, and I almost make one, just to feel like he’s here.

But I have to sleep sometime, reluctant as I am.

What an incredibly long day. A lifetime since he turned up on my doorstep this morning. I’m done with Jon, and I’m falling for August… My life is in no way what it was forty-eight hours ago. Bleak and hopeless then, now it’s all promise.

August can figure this out. If he found a way to break into other universes and land right here in front of me, I know, with enough time to work on it, he can find a solution.

Maybe he’ll create a wormhole, or a portal between worlds. Two worlds, and we’ll date back and forth for as long as it takes to find somewhere we can be together.

Together.

The thought takes my breath away. I’m so desperate to do this boyfriend thing that it would be embarrassing with anyone else. But not with August. He knows me. He knows me so completely, and he never, ever judges me.

He likes me.

Every moment of the night cycles on the reel that already played over and over while I showered.

August’s dark eyes and long lashes. August’s finger brushing mine outside the elevator and the entire universe of meaning it held for me.

August’s jealousy, his spiteful quips in the van, and how I thought he’d never kiss me. Then when he grabbed me, took my mouth…

My fingertip lands there, my lips begging to relive it—the press of his mouth, the scent of his skin, the command, the jealousy in his movements.

It turned me on more than he could ever imagine…

but afterwards… when he pushed me up against that wall…

There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t have let him do.

If it had just been us, I would have ripped his belt open, sunk to my knees, and shown him exactly how much I like him.

I wonder what he would have done.

I’m so lost in my delicious thoughts, wandering around my apartment, that I stumble slightly when my knee hits the base of my bed. My low-slung towel falls to the floor, and I’m about to stoop to pick it up when I catch sight of myself in the mirror at the foot of the bed.

Me, completely naked.

Except it’s not ‘me’ I see.

It’s August Blackthorne. And his dick is so hard for me it hurts.

I want to please him. I want to make him feel how much I need him.

The bed springs crunch as I ease down onto the quilt, my hand landing softly on my thigh.

Maybe I shouldn’t… Is this weird? This is weird.

Does it matter if this is weird? Not when those are August’s eyes watching my every move, pupils blown with how badly he wants me.

Or… they’re almost August’s eyes…

All dignity and self-preservation fly out the window as I lunge for the dresser drawer. Top shelf, left, behind the socks, my hand falls on the very thing I need. A long, and hard, and cool case.

I flip it open, then slide on my old glasses.

They’re not exactly the same as his. His are nicer. He’s nicer than me in every way. But the moment I look up, a wisp of air catches at my lips.

August.

My hand’s back on my thigh, but this time I’m not going to stop. I let it trail up the inside, sweeping over my sensitive skin, and I’m not regretting a single leg day leading up to this.

August will like my thighs. I know he will. I’ve seen the way he looks at me, at my arms, at my waist, at my lips. The way he’s looking at me now.

Closer, closer, my hand drifts across hot and bare skin, adding to the billion tingles already throbbing through my body from my hard and desperate dick, which wanted him so badly tonight.

Now’s the time. Now August gets what he wan—

‘Into the Groove’ cuts into my fantasy as my phone goes off on the mattress behind me. I glare at the thing, expecting it to be the last person in the world I want to hear from right now. But I catch the glowing message: No Caller ID.

I snatch it up, pressing it feverishly to my ear. “Mmmh?”

“August? Hey.” His gravelly voice sends a fresh thrill through me.

“Hey.” Hey, I’m naked. Thinking about fucking you. You up for that?

“I wanted to…” He pauses, just like my hand’s paused, fingernails scrunching into my thigh an inch from my firm dick. “I wanted to talk.”

“I wanted to talk too.” Maybe my voice is a little sultry, but he did tell me I should do this. That I should tell him how I dealt with my insane attraction towards him. “I wanted to tell you—” He starts speaking at the same time, so we both cut off.

His deep laugh down the line is so hot I barely even need to touch myself right now. “You go,” he says.

Alright. Here goes nothing. “I like you.” There’s no sound, and the line may as well be dead. I guess he’s waiting for me to finish so he doesn’t interrupt me again. “I already told you that. But tonight, um, outside your room…”

His breath fills the speaker with something akin to a sigh, only a little sharper.

“I didn’t want to go,” I tell him.

Softly, “I didn’t want you to go.”

“And when you pushed me against that wall…” I’m already so turned on, the words just fall from my lips.

“I want you to kiss me like that. Again. Now. I want to feel your lips. And I don’t want you to stop.

And I’m here at home, and I’m in my bed, and I’m thinking about you. And I wish you were here with me.”

His breath again, tingling down the line, sweeping over my neck, over my shoulders, down my abdomen. My cock throbs with want, and I let out my own hot breath. I shouldn’t do it, not with him on the phone, not knowing what he thinks of this. But if he’d just give me the go-ahead…

“Are you…” A little pause. I think I hear him swallow, and I can see the curve of his throat. How I want my tongue there. “You’re in bed?”

“Mmhmm.” More or less. Close enough to give him the image I hope he likes.

“And… what are you wearing?”

Calm down, beating heart. But are we doing this? Maybe we’re doing this. “Nothing at all.”

His voice turns playful. “Not a thing?”

“Nothing.”

“And you’re in bed?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Thinking of me?”

“Yep.”

Another pause, and I think he must be deliberately breathing into the phone like that because it’s sending me wild. “And is your dick as hard as mine?”

Oh god.

Oh god, he’s perfect.

He’s… Answer him!

“Harder.” I try to sound some kind of coy, some kind of alluring, but I’m sure he can hear the raw plea in my voice.

“I don’t think that’s possible. Because ever since you were here, I’ve been trying everything to stop imagining you. But my dick won’t quit.” How does he speak like that? So throaty, so deep.

I open and close my hand on my thigh, my breaths coming shorter, faster, the movement pulsing desperation between my legs.

“You don’t know what you’re doing to me, August. And if I were there—”

“You’d what?” I rasp out desperately.

“I’d have my lips plastered to yours, and I’d have my hand wrapped about your big, hard cock. Can you feel it? Can you feel my hand on your cock?”

Fuck. He’s very good at this.

I press my thumb, slow and gentle, to the oversensitive skin on top of my dick, letting the other fingers wrap around in a maddening, relieving, gorgeous pressure. “I can feel you, August…”

“Feel me stroking you. Slow… Soft…”

I run my hand up my length slowly, just like he says, gentle pleasure radiating through me. It’s beautiful, but it’s torturous to keep it like this. He knows that. I can tell he knows that by the smile in his voice.

“August…” His name slips from my lips like a song.

“Louder.”

“August…” I sigh out, imagining a time I’m going to be screaming that name, closing my eyes to let the thought of him drift over me. But not for long. I want to see. I want to see him. “I have a…” Is this embarrassing? Do I care? “Mirror…” Yes, I’m embarrassed. Dreadfully embarrassed.

“You have…” Another taut silence. “Are you watching us?”

Fuck yes! “I can see your hand, and your body…”

“Your beautiful body, August. I’ve wanted you since the second I laid eyes on you, do you know that? Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?”

“No…” Please tell me.

“You’re completely irresistible. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. I could barely resist fucking you on the hill tonight.”

My breath intakes sharply. “Tonight?”

“I wanted to push you down onto the wet grass. I wanted to kiss you everywhere, bite your neck so hard I’d draw blood.

” Holy fuck! “I wanted to tear your clothes off and lick every inch of skin on your gorgeous body.” An actual whimper breaks out of me, my hand moving faster despite my best intentions.

“I wanted you to fill my mouth so full with your cock I’d gag on it.

I wanted you to explode down my throat. I wanted to take your hair in my hand, and fuck you from behind until you screamed our name so loud you’d wake all of London. ”

I can barely stammer out a sound, pleasure screaming through every point of my brain, down my arms, ringing through me. The words, his fantasy, the surprise and intensity of it.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” I rasp out, hungry and desperate for more. “Yes. Please tell me.”

“Kissing you was the best thing I ever did. All I can think about is your lips, all I can imagine is fucking you. The way I’d have shoved you up against that wall, ripped your jeans down to the floor. Spit in your hand.”

“Wh-what?”

“Spit in your hand, August.”

I do exactly as he says.

“Take your cock with it.”

I let out a small and broken sound at the sensation.

“That’s my mouth, August. Can you feel me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to fuck my mouth?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck it. Fuck into me, just as hard as you like. Fuck me.”

A moan rips out of me, and I almost drop the phone, barely holding it to my shoulder with my cheek so I can grab my balls while I’m fucking into my fist like he told me.

“I can hear you, August. I can see you. Can you feel me watching you?”

“Oh, god.” His eyes, hard and unguarded, devouring every inch of me while I fuck myself for him, fuck his mouth, lose myself in his words and his body and his fantasies. His fantasies about me. Him wanting me like I want him. “Are you… Are you…”

“You’re going to make me come. Just by fucking my mouth, you’re going to make me come all over the floor.”

“Fuck, August…”

“I want to taste you. Fuck me harder. Harder, August, finish me. Fuck me.”

“Fuck!” A cry racks out of me, hot cum shooting between my fingers, bursts of it, more, more, shuddering pulses of bliss taking me, lifting me, ending me. August and August and nothing but August, drenching me, adoring me, holding me.

I open my eyes, find them in the mirror, then hear the grunt that slips from him, crackling down the line, driving a final burst of ecstasy through my core, through every inch of me.

He came. I made him come. By fucking myself.

Did I make him come by fucking myself?

I’m losing it. I’m obsessed with this man.

I swipe some tissues from the bedside table then curl into a ball, turning away from the mirror, listening hard for him. His breath is heavy, like mine, then his gravely voice. “August…”

“I like you so much,” I whisper.

His laugh, tired, spent, gorgeous. I wish so badly he were here. To kiss him, to sink into him. “I like you too. But I think you know that.”

“I do now.” We both chuckle, and in lieu of saying goodnight straight away, even if it’s past three a.m., I ask, “Was there a reason you were calling? I feel like you were going to say something when I… slightly stopped you.”

Silence, all except for his hand on the receiver, then, “I like your way of doing things better.”

“Was it… a maths thing?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

“So tomorrow?”

Another stretching silence. “Tomorrow. Or today technically. When do you want me?”

Every minute of every hour. “First thing?”

“First thing.”

“Oh, fuck,” I splutter out as an unwelcome memory snaps me from my pleasant stupor. “I forgot. I’ve got work.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can’t miss it. I totally forgot. Um… Shit. I’ll be done by about two… but then I have to take my landlady to an appointment.”

“You have to?”

“I do, kind of.”

“Have I mentioned I’m getting yeeted out of this universe any day now?”

My laugh is bittersweet. “I know. But as much as I’d rather do… literally everything with you, I still have a life of my own.”

“Alright. That’s only fair.”

“How about… five? Come over in the evening. And you can tell me what you worked on all day. Bring it with you if you like?”

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

“Five.”

“Five.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night, August.”

He hangs up too fast. I’d have liked to fall asleep with him on the line, but that’s weird and immature and…

I have it so bad for this guy. I should try to act like a normal person.

I have a date with him. A proper date. That’s enough, and I should be satisfied.

My phone sings. I snatch it up at light speed. “August?”

“I just… I wanted to say, I like you too. A lot. You’re the loveliest man I’ve ever met, and every minute I have to wait to see you feels like an eternity. It’s not… I mean… I want you to know that. That’s all I’m calling about.”

My heart could burst. I cannot believe this is happening. “I feel the same way. All of it.”

“I don’t want to go to bed. I wish I were there. I wish I’d come over tonight.”

“I do too. But we have tomorrow. And…” I want to say, for as long as he’s here. But how long will he be here? And I feel so ridiculous for carrying on with my life tomorrow while this is going on. While August might be about to walk out of my life forever.

Weeks. He said we have weeks to figure this out.

“Goodnight, August,” he says.

And what else can I say? “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

“Night.”

“Night.”

“Night.”

“Night…”

“Night…”