Twenty-one
Teagan
Three days later, it’s hot. I’m hot, my skin misting with sweat and threatening more. My window unit barely keeps up with the ninety-degree weather outside, but that isn’t the only reason the bedroom is steaming.
Each breath I take gives me half the air I need, bringing me in and out of reality. One moment I’m floating in a warm haze, as if my bed was the soft sand of the beach, and the next I’m back in my bed, gasping, shaking, my thighs tightening around my hand while I tangle Heath’s hair between my fingers.
The pleasure rushes through me and I have to stop myself from leaving him bald. I move my hand to grip the sheets instead.
A moan slips slowly from my throat as my hips grind against him. “Come here,” I beg. “I can’t do it again like this. I need to feel you.”
He hums a no against me. “I’m not done yet.”
Talk about an upgrade. I dumped a man who thought oral sex was disgusting, and now I have one who whines if he doesn’t get a taste. I let my head fall back and beckon orgasm number two.
The warm sand swallows me. My breathing grows quicker and quicker as I get closer. Suddenly he stops, leaving me on edge.
Heath rolls on the condom with impatient speed, then falls forward onto his palms, his hips settling between my thighs in one fluid movement. He looks down at me with a knowing expression. As if doing a dance we’ve practiced a million times, I lift my knees to tilt my hips toward him and he sinks inside me with no hands. When he starts to move, I’m lost again in the heat of summer—breathless, hot, and loving every second.
Every rough thrust slides me up my satin sheets until my head leaves the edge of the bed. Then my shoulders. “Heath,” I moan. “I’m falling.”
“I got you.” I fear he has me in more ways than one.
My upper back dangles from the mattress while my hips stay firm in his grasp. In my arched position, he hits me in all the right places. Over and over, the pleasure shoots through me. His eager pace and his desperate grip make me so hot. I love when he takes me just how he wants me.
“Oh my god,” I whine, gripping his wrists to hold on the best I can. My legs are tense, my pussy tight around him. “Oh my fucking god.”
His hand moves from my thigh to my stomach. He rubs his thumb against me in time with his thrusts, making the pleasure burst inside me. I call out loudly, my body shaking with my impending climax. “Come on,” he commands with impatience. “Let go.”
My body melts for him, and then it hits me. “Ah-ahh!”
I come hard. My knees snap together, my body shakes. He goes harder, pulling my hips down to meet his. As it rolls through me, my eyes open to an upside-down world that quakes with every move he makes.
“Yes. Yes ,” I moan as my orgasm continues to wash over me.
He lets out a deep groan and stops. His hips shudder between my thighs. I feel the relief radiate from him, and in it, I find my own. Like clouds gathering over my imaginary beach, I welcome the cool calm of satiation.
Gravity brings me down from my high with each breath. But then I realize it’s bringing me down literally .
“I’m falling.” I try to call Heath’s attention back to reality, and reach for his hand. “Heath, I’m—” I slip from him and fall to the floor, landing on my upper back, my knee smacking against my forehead. “Ow!”
He bursts into laughter.
I rub my head and glare at him. “You’re an asshole.”
His laughter calms, but that smile remains. “Don’t act like I did you a disservice,” he says. “Come here.”
He extends a hand to me. I take it, crawling back onto the bed and onto his lap. I brush his hair back, tilting his head so he looks up at me. “You dropped me on my head, you prick,” I tease him, making his smile widen. He’s pretty and I’m still coming down from the hour-long high he just gave me. When he looks up at me and drags his fingers down my back, it’s clear he feels the same. “Say you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he says in a sexy, growly voice.
I drape my arms over his shoulders, laughing to myself over his willing compliance. “Thank you.” His smile fades when I lean closer and pull his face to mine. Wait.
I catch myself, awkwardly hesitating with my lips a mere inch from his.
What am I doing? Our contract is very black-and-white, but this? Whatever this is feels very gray. But he doesn’t care. His smile perks up in a little laugh before he pulls me closer to close the distance.
Our lips can’t touch before the sound of a door catches my attention. We both look toward the sound. Jeremy’s laugh carries from up the hall. “Shit. You have to go,” I say in a frantic whisper.
“What?”
“Right now.”
Heath rolls his eyes. “The condom’s not even off yet.”
“Well, take it off and get out.” I scramble to gather our clothes, tossing his shirt against his chest. He groans in frustration.
Once I’m dressed, Heath’s barely in his pants. “Go out the window.”
His eyes widen. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” I start to open it.
“Oh my god, will you chill?” He pulls my hands away from the latch. “Jer barely talks to the guys anyway—it won’t be the end of the world if he finds out. He’s not a snitch, and even if he was, it’s just sex.”
“You know it will turn into a thing. And even if he doesn’t snitch, he won’t let me live it down.” I smooth my hair and open the door. “Just stay here and shut up.”
“Whatever.”
I walk out of my room and up the hall, pretending everything is normal. Jeremy and Chet stand in the kitchen giggling about something. “Hey, guys,” I greet them. “When did you get back?”
Jeremy looks at me with a sheepish grin. “A while ago. You were too busy getting your back blown out to hear us come in.”
Shit .
“That man had you screaming,” he says. “I’m jealous.”
Chet waves to remind Jeremy of his presence. “Um, hello?”
“There’s no way that’s Lenny.”
“Definitely not.”
“Then who is it? I’d love to meet the sex god.”
“It’s no—” I stop short when Jeremy brushes past me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m just gonna say hi.”
“What? No! Oh my god, stop!” I jump on his back, as if I could stop his burly mass with my body weight alone. “Jeremy, stop it. Don’t—”
The door swings open, and there is Heath, caught halfway through putting his shirt back on. Jer’s mouth drops open in shock. “Heath?”
He looks between the two of us. “Uh . . . hey, Jer.”
I drop off Jeremy’s back and wish every curse would fall upon them both. My mind races through what every person in our circle will say when he tells them. Jeremy might not be a snitch, but he’s a gossipy bitch.
“Well, I gotta run but I’ll see you at the bachelor party, right?” Heath asks while walking past him.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. See you then. Bye, Chet!”
“Bye, Heath!”
The door closes behind him. Jeremy’s eyes stay glued to me over a conniving smirk.
I press my palm against my forehead. “Don’t say it.”
“You and Heath are—”
“I said don’t say it.”
“Oh . . . my god,” Jeremy gushes with a wide smile. Just as I expected, he’s living for this.
“It’s nothing. Just a one-night stand kind of thing.”
“A one-night stand on a Wednesday. Cute.”
“It’s not a thing. Seriously, drop it.”
“Wait until the guys hear about this. They are going to lose their shit.” He grabs his phone. I yank it from his hands and smack it down against the countertop.
I know he’s trying to rile me up, but part of me worries he’ll actually do it. I have enough drama lined up this summer. “You’re not going to tell anyone.”
“I’m not?” He cracks a smile again. “Is that where you’ve been on weekends? Shacking up with your—”
“Don’t even go there,” I stop him.
“Honey, be nice,” Chet defends me. “She’s a busy girl. Let her get it where she can and leave her alone.”
Jeremy’s wicked smile shows all the ways he plans to blackmail me.
“What do you want?” I ask with a sigh.
“I want to break the lease.”
The words take a moment register. My brow tenses in confusion. “What?”
“Do you want to tell her or should I?” Jeremy asks his man.
“Honey, I didn’t want to do it like this.”
Jeremy takes that as a green light and turns around with excitement. “Chet proposed. We’re moving in together.”
It’s too much information for my brain to process at once. “Wait, what? You’re moving—you’re getting married? He proposed?”
“Yes.”
“I mean, congratulations! But what the hell? When did this happen? Today?”
“Two weeks ago,” Jeremy says, as if I’m the last person to know. Am I the last person to know?
“And you weren’t going to tell me?”
He crosses his arms. “I was going to tell everyone at Ryan’s dinner, but Heath and Brett had their fight. Then I was going to mention it after the reception, but Ritchie went and tried to make shit about him and I figured it wasn’t a good time, so, between you running around a million places and our friends being rabid shitheads, I didn’t get the chance.”
“This is huge news. You should have told me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
The news mixed with the potential loss of my secret gives me whiplash. “I’m happy for you both, seriously, but you can’t break the lease. Even if I wanted to live by myself, I can’t afford this place on my own.”
He snorts. “Yes, you can. You just have to kiss up to daddy dearest a little more.”
Funny how I just had this conversation on Sunday with Heath and now I’m facing something similar. My family has money. A lot of money. My parents could buy this entire building tomorrow if they were so inclined, but that’s not the point. It’s one more thing they would get to hold over my head. One more thing I’d feel like I owe them.
I owe them for saving me from an orphanage I can’t remember, providing me with safety, security, and all the support I would need to achieve their wildest dreams. But they don’t see that. It’s a line item in a ledger, another quid pro quo. But what do I have left to give them?
“When are you moving? Where are you moving?”
“Philadelphia. Next month.”
“Phila—Philadelphia? Jeremy!”
“I’ll be at the wedding, but you know I wasn’t planning to go to that hetero-as-hell bachelor party.”
“Well, yeah, but you have to tell the guys. This is major.”
“Is it?” he asks. “Do you really think they care? We’re friends of proximity, we always have been. By the time you graduate law school and we get married, we’ll barely talk,” he explains. “Why would I keep hanging out with passive homophobes like Brett and Ritchie longer than I have to? They don’t even respect you and you’re only half gay.”
“Half? I’m bi not—what? Ugh, rewind.” I press my palms into my eyelids, hoping it will help me make sense of what’s happening.
“It’s time for us all to grow up, Teags. This is how life works.”
My body is warring between anger and anxiety. “Just like that, you’re going to leave me on my own?”
“You’ll have Heath.”
His facetious comment earns him my glare. “That’s supposed to be a compromise?”
“This is what I want, Teags. To be happy and start the next chapter of my life.” I want that for him, but it doesn’t stop it from hurting. “I’ll pay the remainder of the lease so it doesn’t fall to you, but I’ll be out after Ryan’s wedding.”
“Okay.” That’s all I can say.
He walks away, leaving me with a guilty-looking Chet. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
The swirl of uncomfortable emotions churns in my stomach. I watch the two of them grab cardboard boxes from Jeremy’s room. I wonder how long the boxes have been there. Had Jeremy been moving out piece by piece for weeks and I didn’t notice that either? They slip by me, Chet tossing another look of remorse my way.
Once they’re gone, I don’t know what to do with myself. Fuck , fuck , fuck . I wince and pull my bloody fingertip from between my teeth. The only respite I get from drama is when I’m with Heath. The fuckboy of my nightmares has become my only source of calm.
Guess the world is ending and I’m looking for a new roommate. Damn it .