Senior Year #2
"Yes," she breathes against my lips, breaking away just enough to gasp for air. "God, yes."
I lift her without thinking, pressing her fully against the wall, her thighs wrapping around my hips as I pin her there with the weight of my body.
My mouth finds hers again, and the new angle makes us both moan, a harmony of want that echoes down the empty hallway.
My mouth travels from her lips to her jaw, down the column of her throat, where I can feel her pulse hammering wildly beneath my tongue.
She tastes like salt and perfume, and I want to devour every inch of her.
"I can't—" she rasps as my hips roll against hers, and I pause, chest heaving.
Her head falls against the stone wall as she shakes it from side to side.
"I can't think when you're…" She rotates her hips, pressing her hot core against my hardened length.
Then her tongue dusts over her lips before adding, "I don't want to think. Please don't stop."
I pull back just enough to look at her, a question in my eyes even though I can't speak, won't speak, because she asked me not to, and there’s no way in hell I’m ruining this.
Her lips are swollen, and the way she's looking at me through that mask, like I'm everything she's ever wanted and everything she's been afraid to reach for, makes my heart stutter.
I want her, but I don't want to be her mistake, a regret.
Her fingers thread through my hair before she yanks my mouth back to hers, kissing me with a ferocity that makes my knees weak.
Her tongue slides against mine, demanding and teasing and wrecking any semblance of control I have left.
I press harder against the wall, against her, and she whimpers—actually whimpers—into my mouth, her body moving against mine with a rhythm that's threatening to kill me.
The golden braid falls over her shoulder, and I wrap it around my fist, tugging gently until her head tilts back, exposing more of her perfect throat.
"More," she pants, her voice breaking. "I need…please, I need more."
My hand abandons her braid and slowly skates down her side as my eyes stay pinned on hers, giving her ample time to tell me to stop, to tell me this isn't what she wants.
When I finally reach the soft skin on her upper thigh, her entire body shivers, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as my hand pushes the fabric of her dress higher, and my fingers dig into her soft flesh before reaching the fabric covering the place she wants me. The only place I want to be.
"Don't you dare back out now. Don't tell me you haven't imagined this after every late-night text, every time our eyes met across the hallway, every time you couldn't decide if you wanted to fight me or—" She breaks off with a gasp the second I give her exactly what she asked for, not because she begged but because, without saying so, she's just told me she knows exactly who I am, and she's still asking.
She makes a sound of pure satisfaction as my thick digit slides all the way in.
"You can't take it back now. Don't hold back," she pleads, her voice raw with need.
And I don't. I couldn't if I wanted to, because she's right.
I've imagined this very moment countless nights after every text and even before, but none of those dreams could compare to this.
To the way she feels wrapped around me, to the sounds she makes, to the fire burning through my veins with each ragged breath she takes.
I capture her mouth again, and she kisses me back with a ferocity that steals my breath.
Her hands roam everywhere, my shoulders, my back, my chest, like she's trying to memorize every inch of me through touch alone.
I'm so lost in her, her scent, her noises, her taste that I don't realize her hands have drifted to my belt.
To undo it. I want more of her, but not here, not taken quickly in a hallway where anyone could see.
"Not like this," comes out quick, the gravel in my tone so thick I barely recognize my own voice. I'll give her this, but nothing more. If she wants me, she can have me, but it will be without a mask, where we're no longer hiding who we are from each other.
"I know who you are." Her eyes flick between mine as if those are the magic words.
"Good," I answer, laying my forehead to hers. "Say it when I make you come.” My voice is coarse and thick with desire as I slip in a second digit and capture her gasp with my mouth, pumping into her in long, hard strokes that make her forget about her other pleas.
Her hands desert my belt and glide around my hips, where her nails sink into my skin, making me harder still as my hard length envies my fingers.
I want to throw her over my shoulder and take her back to my dorm, where I can peel off this dress and have her uninterrupted, mapping out every inch of her body, every spot that makes her tick until there isn't an inch my lips haven't touched.
With every thought, my pace quickens, and I can feel her reaching her peak.
"I want to hear it," I rasp out against her sweet lips. "I want you to scream my name before you see the stars."
That's all it takes to send her spiraling, but it's not my name that comes tumbling from her sweet mouth. Instead, her words are stolen by a door slamming open at the far end.
"Asha," a familiar voice calls out. My head whips left, finding Hollis squeezing the bridge of his nose before facing away. "Shit. Asha, come on, we have to go."
"Give me a minute. I'm kind of in the middle of something." She tries to force levelness into her voice as her walls spasm around my fingers.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have a minute. It's your dad. There's been an accident. A car is waiting out front to take us to the airport."
Her breath catches as the color drains from her face and her whole body goes rigid against mine as terror floods through her. I slowly remove my hand and put her down, easing her dress back over her hips so no one can see when I feel her tremble so badly the fabric of her dress shivers.
She slides her mask up, and her lips part on a silent gasp she can't quite release before for her wild eyes find mine. "I'm sorry. I have to go." Her voice fractures. "He's all I have left."
And then she's running down the hall. Not my enemy.
Not my rival. Asha. The girl I've been messaging for months, the one who has been pouring her heart out to me in the safety of anonymity.
The girl whose father I know has been her entire world since her mother passed.
The girl who just fell apart in my arms and is now racing toward what might be the worst night of her life.
I stand there, frozen, for a heartbeat, watching her sprint away from me, her heels clicking frantically against the floor.
Hollis has already disappeared around the corner, and she's about to do the same without knowing for certain it was me.
She said she knows who I am. But does she?
Or was that just hope speaking, a desperate need to believe the person behind the mask was the one she wanted it to be?
We never got to finish. Never got to that moment where the masks come off and all doubt is erased.
My hand, the one that was just inside her, the one that still trembles with the memory of her coming undone, flies to my mask.
I need her to see my face. Need her to know with absolute certainty that it was me.
That I'm the one she's been falling for.
That every message, every confession, every promise was real.
I break into a run.
"Wait!" The word tears from my throat, breaking my silence, but she's too far ahead, too focused on getting to the car, on getting to her father.
I round the corner and see the main entrance ahead, the doors already swinging shut behind her.
Through the glass, I can make out her silhouette descending the front steps, Hollis's hand on her back, guiding her toward the waiting car.
When I finally burst through the doors and the cool night air hits my face, I stumble onto the top step, my hand reaching up to rip off my mask, but I'm too late.
The car door is already slamming shut, and through the tinted window, I can barely make out her profile.
I have no idea if she's even looking back for me.
The vehicle pulls away from the curb, red taillights growing smaller as it speeds down the tree-lined drive, and I'm left standing there on the steps, mask clutched in my hand, chest heaving, watching the car disappear into the darkness.
My skin still burns where she touched me.
I can still taste her on my lips, still feel the phantom sensation of her wrapped around me, still hear the way she gasped my name, or tried to, before Hollis interrupted.
Students mill around me, laughing and talking as they come and go from the masquerade, completely oblivious to the fact that my entire world just drove away without knowing for certain who I am.
She said she knew. But what if she was wrong?
What if she goes to the hospital, sits by her father's bedside, and convinces herself it couldn't have been me?
What if the doubt creeps in during those long, terrible hours of waiting, and she decides it was someone else entirely?
I sink down onto the stone steps, the mask dangling from my fingers. Music and laughter drift from the ballroom behind me, but all I can hear is her voice.
"Don't you dare back out now."
"I know who you are."
"I'm sorry. I have to go."
Three sentences that changed everything and resolved nothing. Three sentences that felt like a door slamming in slow motion, and I just stood there, frozen, watching her slip away.
The taillights disappear through the gate far in the distance, and something in my chest tears.
I should've run faster. Should've grabbed her hand before she got in the car.
Should've ripped this whole charade apart the second she stepped foot in the hallway.
But I didn't. And now she's gone, and I don't know what she knows.
Maybe she's already connected the dots: the sickly boy next door who she defended on the monkey bars, and the stranger she held tightly to moments ago, her pen pal, and the boy she's been determined to forget, the one that's part of a past she tried to bury, are one and the same. Or she hasn't.
Either way, the truth won't stay buried long.
Not after tonight. Not after she looked at me like I was both the answer she'd been searching for and the question that terrified her.
I won't allow it. I can't. Not when I finally saw the recognition flickering in her eyes, even if she drove away before it could catch fire.
Tomorrow, she'll wake up and replay every word, every touch, every breath between us tonight.
She'll remember things she tried to forget.
And when she does, when the pieces finally lock into place, everything will either fall apart or fall together.
I just don't know which will destroy me more.
The mask slips from my fingers and hits the stone with a crack that sounds too much like a starting gun.
Whatever comes next, there's no more hiding.