Fifteen #4
Like what if we didn’t stop. What if I didn’t get out of the pool. What if I . . .
I stand up. Heath looks down almost immediately, something akin to misery flashing across his face. My legs tremble as I walk toward him and resume my crouch poolside, and my voice isn’t all that steady either. ‘Do you still want to?’
His breath hitches. ‘Can I?’
I wobble as I move to sit with my legs dangling in the pool, the cool water a welcome balm to my overheated flesh. ‘Fair is fair.’
It will make you feel better, I tell myself. It’ll be even then. The scales will be balanced.
That’s why you want it to happen.
Heath parrots my words beneath his breath, an odd tone to them, like he can’t believe he’s saying them, or that I did.
I don’t actually know what I’m expecting to happen. If I just . . . offered something, or if he’s going to take matters into his own hands.
I would laugh at my word choice, if I wasn’t so busy trying to remember how to breathe as he does exactly that.
My view is distorted by the water, but I’m sure the image of his hand slipping into his boxers will be clearly imprinted in my brain for the rest of my life.
I can’t see the most intimate of details, but the muscles working in his biceps, the veins bulging beneath his skin as he .
. . and his face . . . and his hand on my thigh, digging desperately into my skin . . .
Fuck.
I squirm, and his grip tightens. He pulls my legs apart. Stares at the space between them that only aches worse under his fevered gaze.
‘Please let me touch you.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
He lets out a frustrated groan. His cheek falls to my thigh. Pants wash over my skin, heavy-lidded eyes flutter, and, Jesus, I don’t think I need him to touch me. I think I might get there all on my own.
I reason that it’s fine for me to touch him.
It’s safe. But my fingers ghost the back of his head and his groan doesn’t feel very safe at all.
I swear it reverberates right down to my bones as he buries his whole face against my thigh, lasting all of five seconds like that before he’s tilting his chin to gaze up at me again.
My hand slips to his nape, curves around his shoulder, cups his neck. I feel his pulse, his rapid breath, him leaning into my touch, shifting toward my palm so my hand brackets his throat, so I’m—
My first instinct is that he’s making fun of me. But, no, his eyes are so bright, he’s groaning so loudly, he’s writhing beneath the water, making the surface ripple with how hard he fucks his hand.
My grip tightens.
After that, it doesn’t last very long. He doesn’t last very long, and he blames me.
He chants my name as he accuses me of making him lose his mind, he sinks his teeth into my thigh and punishes me for the inconvenience, he thanks me as he licks a path all the way up to the crease of my pelvis where he collapses, groaning, shivering, spent.
For a long while, he doesn’t move. He pants, collecting himself, nuzzling me gently and mumbling things I don’t hear – or rather that I don’t comprehend because a family of bees have suddenly set up camp between my ears and they won’t stop buzzing.
His head flops to the side. He looks up at me, he just looks, that’s all he does, yet my whole body seizes because, while I’m one wrong move away from disintegrating, he’s the picture of serenity.
He’s not freaking out. This is a regular occurrence for him.
For him, casual intimacy is not an issue; I’ve heard the locker-room stories.
‘Fuck,’ he breathes an exhausted laugh. ‘That was—’
‘An experiment,’ I butt in. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. He said it himself – college is for experimenting. It’s a great excuse. It’s the only thing I can get past the pure panic clawing up my throat. That, and ‘Testing the theory.’
‘Right.’ His teeth grind together as his jaw locks. ‘Results?’
‘Inconclusive.’
‘Right,’ he says again. ‘Dani—’
‘Can we not?’ I beg, my voice a rough rasp as genuine dread claws up my throat again. ‘Can we just . . . can we pretend that never happened?’
He tries so hard to hide it, to keep a blank face, but, nevertheless, the flicker of hurt that echoes across his features is glaringly loud. ‘What?’
‘I just . . .’ I struggle for the right words. ‘I feel like we just did something that we can’t take back and it’s gonna change things, and I really like how things are right now.’
The water ripples as he pushes away from me. Goosebumps race to cover my skin as he lets go. For a horrifying second, I’m sure he’s pissed; I grip the edge of the pool hard enough to hurt, bracing for him to hurl the frigid, heartless accusations I’ve heard more than once before.
When he doesn’t, I’m disappointed – not in him, but in myself for forgetting, for a split second, that Heath is good.
Heath is kind. Heath smiles – a little wan, a little reserved, but warm nonetheless – and so easily nods.
‘Nothing is different,’ he rasps, and relief has my entire body going slack. ‘Nothing happened.’