Chapter 37
I’ve never been this nervous, and I don’t fully understand what’s got me so tense. I want this. I’ve wanted this for a long time, and now I’m choking, buckling under the pressure.
“Wait.” I push on Zahn’s chest. “Fuck. Wait.”
He backs off immediately, looking at my eyes to figure out if I’m okay. “Talk to me.”
He looks insanely sexy. Half naked, wearing only boxers and a hard dick, wanting this as much as I do. His chest rises and falls, and there’s a sheen to his lips from my kisses. Why am I being a coward? Fucking look at him! Why am I not all over him?
“I’m…”
“Chickening out?” he fills in, smirking at me.
The depth of what this means hits me. The meaning! The deeper parts. The monumental shift in dynamic that will never let us come back from this. I’m not scared of it. I’m scared we won’t feel the same about it. We’ve always been on the same page, but there’s been a bit of miscommunication lately, mostly revolving around how we’re changing, so I want to make sure we’re one hundred percent on the same brainwave with this.
“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe.” I sit back, running my hands through my hair. I feel like an idiot and I don’t know where to start to tell him all this.
“Change your mind, Rem? You don’t want to?”
“I want to,” I bark at him. “I really fucking want to.”
Zahn tries to readjust his dick to give this conversation a modicum of decency, but it’s no use. “What’s the problem then? Explain it.”
I flop down on the far end of the couch and try to get my thoughts in order. “I don’t know. I just… I want it so bad that I’m afraid…”
“You’ve built it up so much that it’ll be shit?” he asks.
“No. The opposite of that. I’m afraid I want it more than you, and once we do it, you’ll… it’ll hurt if…”
Zahn barks out a laugh and then apologizes for it. He doesn’t stop laughing, though. “Seriously?”
I kick him. “Think about it, asshole! This is the last step. The literal last line we can cross. Once we actually fuck, it’ll mean something different to me. And you’re Mr. Variety, right? So, I know you’re gonna get—”
“Get what? Sick of you?” he scoffs. “I’m the one who got possessive. I’m the one who asked you not to be with anyone else. I’m the one that told you not to make me a Sarah. If you think this is anything less than a monogamous fucking relationship, Remy, you’re dumb as fuck. We’ve already crossed all the emotional lines. We’ve only got verbal ones and physical ones left.”
He’s right, but I’m not convinced. “You’re telling me that I’m gonna be enough for you?”
His eyes roam my body without shame. “Mhm.”
I want to growl at him. He’s sitting there all sexy and erect, and I’m over here thinking about the chances of getting a broken heart versus the forever life with him I’m starting to want. Before, when we were just best friends, a life together was a guarantee. Now there”s a risk to it. Hearts can shatter, feelings can get hurt, and dreams can misalign. He’s never wanted a forever relationship, and I have, so what path forward are we moving on? Where’s the fork in the road?
“What if the sex is so good you never want variety anymore?” I mean, he’s mentioned closing our doors and only cracking them open occasionally, but now I’m self-conscious that maybe I’m not gonna tick all his boxes. But I’m also worried we’re gonna love it, and that permanently closing that door is going to freak us out. Like the option to keep it open is the only thing making this less daunting.
“Then we fuck and fuck and fuck and be goddamn happy about it. I knew you were cocky, Rem, but this is next-level.” He grins at me.
I want to tell him to fuck off, but instead, I say, “We’re best friends! We have no idea how to be in a relationship that isn’t friendship. We’re gonna fuck this all up, and then our whole lives are doomed because we are literally tied together in every way possible.”
Zahn sits up, not at all phased by my freakout. Aiming those green eyes at me, he says, “We’re sitting around discussing sex and relationships like mature people, Rem. While mostly naked and extremely hard. This surpassed friendship a long time ago. I don’t typically do the whole feelings thing, but here I am, comfortable enough with you to lay it all out there. And you know what else I’m comfortable telling you?” he asks.
“What?”
“That I think about life with you. That I get excited to see you. That I worry about you when you fly. That I look forward to the next time we shower together, have coffee over the counter, watch lame shows that you love and I hate, and that I sleep better with you next to me. That already makes this a relationship, Remy. I never thought about those things before. Sure, I thought about going out together or getting up to shit together, but never those little things.” He gets up, pushing on my chest to lean me back. Standing between my legs, he adds, “I wanna be the one who keeps your wood stove burning, Rem.”
Goddamn him!
“We’re just a couple of loyal assholes who somehow got into a relationship without fully realizing it.” He smirks. “Be monogamous with my pathetic ass.”
I pull his pathetic ass onto my lap. His knees frame my thighs and my hands knead his ass, bringing him down until he sits on my legs and his boner presses against my abs. Unafraid, I meet his eyes and see vulnerable truth in them. He means what he said, but he’s still the guy who hates labels, so naturally, I’m going to fuck with him.
“So, we’re boyfriends?”
He scoffs.
“Fuck buddies?”
He rolls his eyes.
“Partners?”
“In crime,” he says like a smooth bastard. “We’re us, Remy. Whatever the fuck that means, however you want it to sound, in whatever way you need to slap labels on us, we’re just me and you. Now let’s fuck.”
I want to. Fuck, do I ever want to. But again, maybe it’s more than a quick fuck to me. It means something. Something pretty fucking big.
“Do you feel this?” he asks, sliding his hands up my abs and chest, wrapping them around my neck. I shiver all over. “It’s chemistry. We have it.”
“You have it with everyone. Remember the whole vibes and atmosphere thing you kept going on about?”
He grins. “Yeah. The vibe is always sexy when there are multiple people fucking, loud music, booze involved, and a build-up that gets my blood pumping. You see any of that here? Where’s the music, Rem? You drunk? Are there people fucking on the floor over there?” He tilts my chin up, eyes on mine. “We built this vibe. You and me. Nothing else. When are you going to start trusting it?” He grinds on my lap, making my breath hitch. “Fuck, Remy. You’re the whole fucking atmosphere.”
My heart thumps in my chest, making my blood rush and my fingers dig into his hips. “You don’t need the rest? I’m enough?”
Zahn leans forward, lips brushing mine to prove a point. He isn’t even kissing me, but the temperature of our burning bodies heats the living room. Tingles spread over my skin, my toes curl into the rug beneath my feet, and every muscle in my body strains and relaxes in tandem. When he runs his tongue over my bottom lip, everything amplifies. My dick throbs against his, my eager hands pull him closer, and his blunt nails dig into the back of my neck.
“This is the rest,” he rasps against my mouth. “We just fucking created it all on our own. Don’t you feel it?”
Oh, I fucking feel it. Up until this very moment, I still doubted that I’d be able to give him the energy and atmosphere he always chased. But holy hell, we don’t need to chase it when we fucking make it.
“And if it’s the monogamy thing you’re worried about, we can still keep that door wedged open,” he says, rocking on my lap. His lips move to my ear, and he whispers, “Imagine how fucking hot those hookups will be if we have the option to fuck each other.”
“Fuck,” I groan, giving in to the point he’s trying to make.
Because the point is already solidified. I went from being straight to diving into the deep end of Zahn-sexuality. I went from being too awkward to hook up at random houses to following this prick anywhere and everywhere because he’s always been my stasis. From being unclear about my fantasies to having so much clarity, I can’t stop thinking about them. We have chemistry, like he said, and it’s the most potent thing I’ve ever experienced.
He asked when I was going to start trusting it. Well, right fucking now.
I pull his body in tight, crushing our mouths together to turn this tease into an actual kiss. He moans against my lips before getting needy enough to take charge. Mouths connected, Zahn pushes me to the side, forcing me to lie down with him on top of me. I don’t fucking care because the way his body feels against mine, all over me, hard and hot and sexy as all fuck, is proof of the vibe we create together. He’s right. Whatever label I want to slap on us, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re just Zahn and Remy, like we’ve always been with a bunch more added on top to make it even better.
“Fuck, Rem,” he rasps against my lips. “This is all the vibe I could ever want. Holy shit.”
That’s how things get heated. I might have fucked up the prospect of sex for the night, but I’m learning all the different ways there are to be connected to Zahn, and my god, they’re all turning out to be better than the last.
With Zahn above me, I lose my composure. I grab his ass and grind him on my body, lifting my head to do something I’ve never done before—lick his taut pecs. I suck a mark into the one without a tattoo, losing my composure even more. When Zahn moans, I suck his nipple into my mouth and start to pant.
“Jesus.” He groans, fisting my hair to keep me there. His dick ruts against mine, bringing back memories from his bedroom floor after my crash. But I don’t want to be submissive this time. He got to be on top before, and now that I’m more comfortable with what I want, what we are, and where this is going, it’s my turn to take charge.
I flip us over. It isn’t coordinated, and a throw pillow gets all wedged in between us, but when Zahn blinks up at me, the hint of a smirk on his lips that don’t know if they want to grin or part in shock, I realize we really do have the power to create our own energy.
I rock against him. With boxers between us and nothing else clouding my mind, I let myself go through the motions. I thrust my dick, roll my hips, clench my ass. I feel what it’s going to feel like to fuck him, and the sensation of it has me equal parts rowdy to just do it and regretful that I fucked it up tonight.
“This.” Zahn grabs my ass, using his hands to control my pace, my movements, and the friction between us. “This is why we work, Remy. This. Right fucking here.”
I lean forward to kiss him, swept up in exactly what he means. We’re fucking without fucking. We’re more intimate than we’ve ever been. We’re burning for each other like we’ve never burned for anyone else. A lifetime of knowing each other has brought us to this moment.
As our bodies work together and our mouths wander, never disconnected from each other’s skin, I start to wonder if you can make love to someone without knowing if you even love them like that. Or without actually fucking.