Chapter 19 #3
I couldn’t stand the distance another second. I closed it in two strides and pulled him into me, pressing his face into my neck. His arms locked around my torso, holding on like he was afraid I might disappear. I didn’t tell him to loosen his grip. He needed this.
“I don’t hate you,” I murmured, kissing the crown of his head. “And I’m not saying you relapsed.” I held him tighter. “I was just scared. I was worried about you.”
Iggy nodded against my neck, breath hitching. “I promise I’m okay. No Oxy.” He pulled back just enough to look at me. “I promise.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
Relief washed over his face, tension draining out of him all at once. He sagged against me, then reached up and pulled me into a kiss. I didn’t hesitate. I never did with him.
The kiss started soft, exploratory, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
Iggy’s tongue brushed against my lips, tentative at first, asking rather than taking, and I opened for him without hesitation.
I let him set the pace, let him lead, giving him the space to steady himself.
To use me as an anchor while the storm inside him still raged.
He moaned when our tongues met properly, the sound light and breathy, and I felt the way his body reacted as he pressed against me.
The heat of him. The stiffness in his shorts when he ground his hips forward.
It shouldn’t have felt right to get hard then.
I didn’t think I would. But my body had never been particularly good at ignoring Iggy, and blood rushed south before I could stop it.
He noticed immediately.
A low groan left him, and before I could process what was happening, I was being guided backward, the backs of my knees hitting the bed as Iggy pushed me down onto the mattress.
I threw my hands out to steady myself, still a little disoriented from how quickly everything had shifted.
I barely registered him dropping to his knees until his hands locked around my hips, firm and unyielding, his face pressing into my crotch.
“I love you, Bodhi,” he whispered, looking up at me through wet lashes.
My breath hitched.
His hands slid to my zipper, fingers deft as he opened my pants.
The relief of pressure around my hardening cock made me hiss, and Iggy leaned in, dragging his tongue slowly over the cotton of my boxers.
The rough fabric, dampened by the warmth of his mouth, sent a sharp jolt through me, my fingers curling into the sheets beneath me.
“I don’t want you to hate me,” he murmured, his voice soft and raw as he freed my cock from its fabric prison. “Don’t want you to worry about me.”
He wrapped his warm, clammy hand around my length and stroked once, slow and deliberate, his thumb tracing lazy circles through the precum gathered at the tip. Then he let go and brought his thumb to his mouth, licking it clean with a happy hum.
And that was when I noticed it.
The way his hands shook. Not with eagerness, but with strain.
The way his eyes still watered, not from pleasure, but from something sharper, deeper.
I started to reach for him, instinct kicking in, but it was like he sensed it coming.
He ducked his head before I could stop him and swallowed my cock in one sudden motion.
“Fuck,” I groaned, jaw tightening.
He took me deep enough to gag, but he didn’t pull away.
He forced himself to breathe through his nose, waited for his throat to relax, and then let the tip slip even deeper.
I stayed as still as I could, fighting the urge to thrust, terrified of choking him.
But when he swallowed around my cockhead, my control faltered.
A sound tore out of me, and my hips twitched until Iggy pushed them back down against the bed with both hands.
He pulled off with a wet, obscene pop and stared up at me, mouth open as he panted.
His hand kept moving, stroking my length with the slick of his saliva, easing the friction.
Tears streamed down his cheeks, cutting through his mascara and leaving black tracks against flushed skin.
His eyes were dazed, unfocused, and yet there was something almost wild in them too.
“Iggy—”
“Love me, Bodhi,” he whispered, dipping down to kiss the head of my cock. “Don’t stop loving me.”
He sucked me down again, faster this time, moving up and down before pulling away once more.
“Want to make you believe me,” he murmured, words tumbling out between breaths. “Don’t want you to run away.”
It didn’t sound like he was talking to me anymore.
It sounded like he was talking at me. Or to himself.
Like he’d forgotten I could hear the truths spilling from his mouth.
The words kept coming. Broken phrases. Anxious pleas.
Soft, fractured prayers whispered between desperate attempts to take me deeper.
His hands shook harder, his rhythm faltered, and his breathing hitched around quiet sobs.
My body still reacted, traitorous and automatic. Every touch, every pull of his mouth sent pleasure sparking through me. But my orgasm felt distant. Unreachable and wrong. I couldn’t even imagine finishing while he was like this.
I tried to tell myself he needed it. That he needed the closeness, the intimacy, something solid to hold onto. But the discomfort in my chest wouldn’t ease. The sickening sense that I was taking something from him instead of giving. He didn’t feel present. Didn’t feel fully here.
And even if he wanted this . . . I didn’t.
When he sucked at the tip again, I reached down and cupped his cheek, gently urging him back. Immediately, he whined, hands scrambling at my thighs like he was desperate to return to what he’d been doing. Like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
Ghost’s words echoed in my head.
“He was frantic. Like, really frantic.”
“Iggy,” I said softly.
He didn’t respond.
“Iggy.” I gripped his shoulders, firmer this time.
He stilled and looked up at me, eyes glassy, voice hoarse. “What’s wrong?” Then, quieter. “Did I do something wrong?”
My chest tightened painfully.
“No, baby,” I said, cradling his face, wiping at the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “I just . . .” My voice faltered. “I don’t think we should do this.”
His whole body locked up. His gaze dropped to my chest.
“What?”
“You don’t have to do this,” I tried again. “We need to get ready—”
He shot to his feet so fast I had to lean back to avoid being headbutted. I reached for him, but he stepped away, putting space between us like a wall.
“I think you should go,” he said, voice flat and hollow.
“Iggy—” I started, tucking myself away.
“No.” He snapped the word out, sharp and sudden. “You clearly think I’m damaged goods because I took some fucking painkillers.”
I stood. “No. I would never—”
“And you don’t even want me to suck you off,” he continued, throwing his hands into the air. “So what’s the point? You might as well fucking go.”
I moved towards him again, but he retreated, wrapping his arms around himself like he was bracing for impact.
“Iggy, please,” I said, the word tearing out of me. “It’s not like that. I just—”
“Bodhi,” he interrupted softly. “I really think you should go.”
He sniffed and tried to smile, a thin, fragile thing I didn’t believe for a second.
“I’m sorry,” he went on, voice careful, practiced. “You’re—you’re right. I’m tired. We were talking about heavy stuff. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Baby.” I reached for him again.
He took another step back, until his shoulders brushed the wall. There was nowhere else for him to retreat, and still he put distance between us.
“I’m just tired, Bodhi,” he insisted. “That’s all this is. I just need to sleep, and we’ll start again tomorrow, okay?”
I wanted to scream. To grab him by the shoulders and shake him. To tell him I could see it, that I knew he wasn’t fine, that this wasn’t just exhaustion or bad timing or a conversation gone sideways.
But Iggy was a grown man. He was sober, by his word. He’d looked me in the eye and told me he hadn’t been using.
Without proof, all I had was trust.
And trust meant leaving when he asked me to.
I closed my eyes and nodded once. “Okay.”
I turned away before he could see what it cost me. Grabbed my suitcase from beside the dresser and wheeled it towards the door, every step feeling heavier than the last.
Before I left, I looked back at him.
“I’ll see you on the bus?”
He smiled again, but it was barely there, a ghost of something real. And the way my heart started to race told me everything I didn’t want to know. That something was wrong. That things were slipping. That this wasn’t okay.
“Yeah, Just Bodhi,” he murmured. “I promise.”
And just like that, I left him there.
Left to wait for him on the bus, hoping he was right.
Hoping that tomorrow, somehow, everything would be okay.