Chapter Twenty Nine
Benjamin
What?” My voice is so soft—so quiet. He’s crying quietly again, letting go of my wrists as he sits on top of my hips, peering down at me. You love me.
“We both know it. The same way that you know I love you.”
“Stop.” I’m trying to push him off of me but he won’t budge.
“No. You have to listen.”
“No—I don’t. I don’t believe you—I don’t want your love, even if it were true. Leave me alone.” He’s an immovable force, dead weight. My world is flipping upside down.
“I’ve loved you since I was seventeen.”
“Stop it, Aaron.” My voice is a warning.
“It’s killed me every day. Seeing you with Drew—not being able to touch you. Turning you away.”
“Aaron.”
He has to stop. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I was so scared I’d hurt you or ruin the only home you had. I know now it was stupid but by the time I realized it—that I could have just told you—it was too late.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Fuck!” I’m punching him in the chest as hard as I can and he’s wheezing but doesn’t stop me—doesn’t yell at me.
“After I got back to my dorm after that Christmas—the one where Drew came to the house—I tried to experiment with a guy to see if I could get over you. It didn’t work.”
“I’m fucking begging you, Aaron.”
“I didn’t realize it at the moment, but I picked up some guy who looked so much like you.
Like I couldn’t stop looking for you even then.
But it sucked, it wasn’t the same.” I’m sobbing, I’m not even fighting him anymore.
“That day in the bathroom at Brews—he cornered me, trying to get me to see him again. I tried to hurt his feelings and get him to go away but it took quite a bit of shit-talking. That’s what you heard. I was never talking about you. Never.”
I have my face covered with my hands—trying to understand him, trying not to listen. My brain knows I can’t trust a single thing he’s saying—but my heart—fuck, it wants to.
“Please look at me. Please.” He’s pleading. I can hear that he’s still crying. I let him pull my hands away. “You know it, Benjamin. You’re telling me you’ve never seen it on my face? Felt it while I was fucking you? While I held you through every breakdown?”
I think of a thought I had so long ago—when Drew tried to convince me that Aaron didn’t love me.
But that longing—it felt so much like love. When his hips slammed into mine, when his teeth sank into me and those eyes met mine, all I could hear was please, please, please.
Maybe…
“Fuck, yes—yes, I feel it. We’re connected, Button. We can’t live without each other now.”
Every time he saved me—showed up where he shouldn’t have been, the jealousy—the claiming. The night I told him I wished he’d have taken my virginity…
“You look angry. You look like something has been taken from you—when it was supposed to be yours. Someone's stolen from you.”
“They have…. In my own house…. It was supposed to be mine—supposed to be me…. But we both know that if I’d taken that from you, I never would have let you walk away from me. Even if you wanted to.”
I look up at Aaron now as he sits on my lap—crying silently, those calculating green eyes begging me to believe him—to love him back.
“But I… Aaron—I’m no good. I’ll ruin you.” He’s shaking his head, angry through his tears.
“Bullshit. You’ve been mine for over a decade. From the moment we met it was set in motion. If that’s true, then I’m already ruined and I accept it.”
I can’t speak—I don’t know what to say to him. If this ends up being a lie… if tomorrow comes and this is taken from me after I’ve accepted it—believed in it—I will die.
But if it’s true—if it’s real and he loves me just as much as I’ve always loved him—he’ll be the one to die. By my own hands, I will pull the life from his eyes, bit by bit. I’m just no good.
“Button, tell me.” He pleads, his tears falling—soaking into my hair, drenching my neck.
“Tell me you’re in love with me too—that all this time we’ve been coming back to each other over and over wasn’t just because I can’t live without you—but you can’t live without me.
” He’s sobbing now, hunched over, staring right at me with so much hope—so much fear. I could never lie to him anyway.
I bring my hand up to his cheek, my palm now drenched with his tears. He’s shaking against it with the force of his cries.
“My little blue bird.” I coo at him, hoping to calm him but it just makes him sob harder. He holds my wrist, making sure I can’t pull away. “I have always loved you. I will never love anyone else the way I love you. With this kind of devotion.”
Aaron’s forehead falls to mine and he grabs my cheeks.
“I’m sorry.” He cries. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there.
I should have chased you down when you ran from the café despite what Felix said.
I should have kept following you…” His voice cracks.
“At that fucking party. I should have kept following you. I would have saved you. I should have and I failed you. I’m so sorry. ”
“Shhh.” His face is buried in my neck and I’m trying not to sob with him. I didn’t know he was holding this guilt. I gave him this guilt. It’s already begun.
“I hate him. He should have been with you. He was allowed to be with you. He didn’t… He didn’t help you.” He’s talking about Drew, I know he is. My little blue bird.
“Hey—” I grab his face, bringing it in front of mine. He’s wrecked—tears everywhere, face red, hair matted. “Fuck him. I never loved him. He sucks.” Aaron nods. “None of that is your fault.”
“I should have—” I kiss him. I kiss him and taste his tears and swallow his cries.
“I love you.” I tell him, kissing him again. “I worship you.” He rolls off of me, pulling me on top of him.
“Benjamin.” His eyes are so watery, so serious and full. “Let me take care of you. Let me love you.”
Leaning down, I lick his cheeks, collecting his tears with the metal ball. Aaron moans, gripping my hips tightly. And so I lie to him—for the very first time I lie to him.
“Okay.” I whisper, grinding my hips down onto him naked and hard. “Okay, my Aaron. My darling God.” Aaron sits up—wrapping an arm around my waist, kissing me rough—hard.
His other hand wraps around the back of my neck, taking me with him as he stands onto his knees.
“I spent years dreaming of this.” He says—laying me down under him, watching me with this uncovered fire I’ve only ever seen the surface of. Fuck. He really will eat me. “Dreaming of you like this—under me, loving me.”
“Aaron.” I’m moaning and he hasn’t even touched me yet.
“Yeah, baby.” He slides his hands under my hips to grab me and lift them off the bed. I watch him as he licks and kisses my stomach—my hips, the tops of my thighs, the top half of me still lying on the bed. “I want to be so embedded into you that no one ever looks at you again.”
He’s still holding my hips up to him—my hard cock in his face. His eyes are raking over my body.
“Please—” I start to beg.
“Fuck, Button—I’m trying not to come.” My dick jumps, hands tightening around the comforter. “I just… fuck—I have you, right? You’re all mine now? For real this time?” He looks down my body to my face—searching my eyes.
This is not a lie. I am relieved to give him a truth.
“Yes. All of me.” No one else will ever touch me again.
“Fuck.” He shudders—bringing his lips back to me, taking my dick into his mouth with one big inhale.
“Aaron!” I scream, my hands flying to his hair, yanking on it like I might die. One arm wraps under my hips to hold me where I am—the other hand snakes down my stomach, ghosting fingers all over me—sending shock waves through me as he chokes on my dick over and over.
“Hnghh.” He groans—eyes on me, hooded and so fucking filthy. He’s staring at me like he’s thanking me for letting him suck it—for feeding him.
“Aaron, I’m already so close—ahh—baby please—I’m—” He pulls off of me, panting, lowering me back to the bed.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Benjamin. Your whole life you’ve been so fucking beautiful.”
“Please.” I hear a cap opening and I know he’s about to open me up—ready me for him.
I feel the cool gel spread over me, his finger circling, rubbing.
“You used to lay by my pool in those tiny little shorts. All sweaty and hot. I’d be suffocating watching you.
Watching those hands trace your skin. I’d dream of you, Benjamin.
I’d dream of you so often.” I’m whining as he tells me—groaning as his finger slowly starts to slide into me.
The burn is very mild, but the stretch is uncomfortable.
“I…I…” But I don’t know what I’m trying to say. He’s sitting over me like a fucking lion over a gazelle and my hole’s being stretched open so sweetly.
“I’d come to the thought of you—saying your name into my pillow while you slept next door.”
“Oh, fuck.” My moan is loud and raw, my back arching. The pressure of his finger mixed with his words is brutal.
“I know, kitten. I know… I’d imagine opportunities where I could seduce you—bring you to my bed and make you come.” I feel him add another finger slowly—trembling under the pressure, babbling something I don’t understand. “Aw, you look so good like this. Just like this. Fuck—I love you.”
My eyes shoot open as I groan. Aaron is staring down at me with that look and I’m trying not to come.
“I love you too.” I whine and he pulls his fingers out.
“Are you ready?” I might not be as loose as I could be—but I’m also done waiting. I nod.
Aaron rips the rest of his clothes off and slowly—softly—lays his body down onto mine. Every move is intentional, every touch is a confession, a promise.
“Aaron—” I breathe. “It feels different.” Because it does. Everything about this is different.
“Yeah,” he says, kissing my cheeks. “This time, I’m making love to you.”
Something in my chest shatters and I feel myself begin to cry as I wrap my arms around him, tucking my ankles around his thighs. Slowly—painfully—he sinks into me.
His face stays buried in my neck—a hand holding under my thigh. Once he bottoms out, he doesn’t move until I grind down on him, needing the friction.