Chapter 7 #2
Maybe he’s the version Easton always gets. The version of North everyone seems to love that has never been for me. Well, until now, apparently.
I stare down at him, and he looks up at me. It lasts only a moment, and then I adjust my robe again just in case before saying, “This is the second time you’ve seen me naked.”
Even with my blurry eyes and the dim lighting of the room, I can see him blushing. “Um. Sorry?”
“Are you?”
He shrugs. “I mean, you’re hot, so—” His jaw snaps shut, and I know there’s regret on his face. “Not to, uh, objectify you or whatever.”
He’s lying. He has to be lying. He can’t look the way he does and think I look hot like this.
He swallows thickly, then says, “Want me to get naked and even the score?”
“It—I—No! We’re not keeping score!” Now I’m blushing so hard, I feel a little dizzy from all my blood trying to figure out if it should go north or south.
It chooses both, and it makes me feel very weird. Luckily, I can hide my half chub with my crossed legs.
North continues to stare at me, then he suddenly rises to his knees, which pop loudly, and he laughs. “Old bones.”
“Oh my god, please. What are you? Twenty-five?”
His eyes widen as he curls his fingers into the hem of his shirt. “Twenty-nine. I don’t know if I should say fuck you or thank you.”
“I still get carded when I buy scotch, so,” I begin, but then my words die when he suddenly reaches behind him, grabs the back of his shirt, then whips it over his head.
My gaze immediately fixates on his pecs. His nipples are pierced with the smallest black barbells, and I can tell they’re made out of some kind of silicone, not metal or plastic.
His nipples are also pert, very small, a dusky pink and surrounded by a smattering of dark hair. He has freckles and moles decorating his chest, and as my gaze trails to his abs, I see the scars again. Some are slashes, some are thicker and more round. They’re the same on his arms too.
Part of me wants to ask, but when he sees where I’m looking, he folds his arms over his chest like he’s trying to hide. I know how it feels. And now I’m wondering if I was wrong about the first time he saw me.
“Is this enough?” he asks very softly.
It takes me a minute to answer him, eyes still locked on his torso, drifting only as high as his throat. “North…” It’s the only word I can form in this moment. Everything feels suddenly too intimate—too exposed. I swallow heavily. “You don’t need to do this.”
“Fair’s fair, right?” He takes a single step closer, and then another. I can’t seem to look at his face, but I watch as his toes flex and curl against the floor. He’s close enough for me to reach out and touch him now, but I don’t.
North drops to his knees again, hands resting loose on his thighs, and I watch his fingers scratch lazy lines over the fabric of his jeans. My eyelids flutter closed for a second, and then I finally force myself to look him in the face. The raw vulnerability there steals my breath.
He looks…ashamed, almost.
Afraid. The thought of him fearing me sends something uncomfortable up my spine. Did I do something to make that happen? Have I been a monster?
Unable to stop myself, I reach forward and cup my palm against his cheek, and his breath trembles as he exhales. “Why?”
“Why what?” he answers back, voice still barely there.
“Why are you scared of me?”
He laughs and pulls back a little, the tips of my fingers grazing his rough stubble. “I’m not scared of you. What the fuck?”
He’s lying. I don’t know how I know, but I do. My eyes catch on the way he’s still covering himself, and he squeezes his body tighter.
“I just don’t like it when people see.” I don’t ask him to clarify because I know what he’s talking about. I have my own scars, and when people notice, they get weird, and that’s worse than treating me like I’m fragile.
But everything about him seems like an oxymoron, and I can’t help but ask, “Is that why you wear skintight shirts that show off your abs and jeans that have to be painted on? Because you don’t want people noticing how good-looking you are?”
He coughs, then stands up and takes a step back. “Is that what you think?” he demands. “I’m just some attention whore?”
His voice has a harder edge to it than I expected, and fuck, it’s doing things to me. My dick twitches under my robe, and the feeling of the fabric against it is almost unbearable.
“I don’t think. You make it obvious. You love turning me into this.” My words are still coming out unchecked, though this time, it doesn’t feel like my brain is losing control of my filter. It’s more like my soul is desperate to unburden itself.
His eyes darken, and without warning, he drops his hands to his sides and closes the distance between us again. Even on his knees, he looms over me, staring into my eyes, lips parted. I think he knows I’m hard.
Fuck.
“Into what?” His words are quiet like a whisper, but rough with a growl. Then he reaches out and grazes a single touch over my jaw. “What do I turn you into?”
I moan. I can’t help it. No one’s touched me like that since Liam, and that was over a year before the Incident. My entire body lights up, even as I feel a surge of resentment crawling up my spine, because why now?
Why him?
“Do I make you want something you shouldn’t?” His touch grows bolder, more firm, down the side of my neck, across my collarbone. Again, without warning, he moves. But this time, he drops to his knees and lays his hands on my bare thighs. “Do you think about me when you touch yourself?”
“Fuck you,” I gasp, but he doesn’t even put pressure on my legs and I’m spreading them.
A slow smile crawls across his lips—dangerous and so fucking tempting. His fingers creep higher, and then he stops. “I know you don’t like me.”
“I—”
“We don’t need to pretend here. You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.” He looks up into my eyes. “If you want me to let go, I will. I can stop right now, and we can pretend like this never happened.”
Oh, what an offer. It’s the dream. I can just close my eyes and wave him off and never have to think of this ever again.
For that, he should be sanctified.
I should send him the fuck away because he’s right. I don’t like him. He’s gorgeous and knows it. He’s arrogant and doesn’t care. He’s reckless with his mouth and with other people’s feelings…
And he’s the last man I should want.
And the only man who’s woken up this part of me since my life was turned upside down.
“North,” I whisper.
He seems to know what I’m trying to say in that single word—that single syllable.
He surges up higher on his knees, one arm lashing around my waist as he tugs me forward.
My robe splits, and my naked cock rubs up against his gorgeous abs, and he flexes as his other hand takes me roughly by the chin.
My lips part on a gasp, and he waits one single, solitary second before slamming his mouth over mine and taking me in the most devastating kiss of my life.