Chapter 20 #2
“Leo.” His voice is soft, like he’s soothing a wild woodland creature, and I kind of feel like one right now. “Leo, please breathe. You’re turning red.”
I force myself to suck in air. The last thing I need is to work myself into a fucking seizure over this. My head feels a little swimmy, and it might be past the point of no return, but I do my best to calm my heart.
North cups my cheek and draws my gaze back to him. “Hey.” I blink up into his gaze, and his lips stretch into a smile. “You with me?”
I swallow heavily and can’t seem to make words, but I can nod. So I do.
“It’s true. I was a virgin when we met. I never really had the chance to explore relationships when I was younger.
Not with my mom the way she was, and taking care of my little sisters was a twenty-four-seven job.
Once they got older and my mom was better…
I don’t know.” He lets out a small, embarrassed laugh and flops onto his side, putting a little space between us.
“I felt like I wanted to wait until it felt right.”
I almost laugh again. “And that felt right to you? Hate sex? God.” I slap my hand over my face. “I didn’t even touch you then. I just let you get me off like some kind of selfish asshole—”
North does what he does best and kisses me quiet. I protest for a moment, but it’s too easy to give in to his lips and tongue. My breath comes a little easier after that, and when he pulls back, he knocks his forehead against mine.
“I’m sure you can tell by now that I’m a complete disaster, so what we did just made sense to me. And you are not a selfish asshole. You didn’t know.”
“But if I did…” I start, then trail off. If I did know, I probably wouldn’t have done anything with him at all. Even when I hated him, I never wanted to hurt him. I would have avoided him like the plague, and then I wouldn’t be here. “I don’t want you to regret me,” I finish in a whisper.
He smiles at me and shakes his head, smudging a kiss along my jaw. “Leo, you are the one thing in my life right now I don’t regret.”
I hum, my words getting lost again, and instead, I bask in his touch. It’s safe. It’s careful. It feels like home in a way I’m struggling to describe. I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to wake up one morning and find out that he does, in fact, resent me for the way we began.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I confess. I hold him a little tighter. “I guess I don’t understand why, of all people, you picked me. After you waited all this time, why did you give in to someone you couldn’t stand?” I open my eyes and force myself to look into his face, waiting for his answer.
He takes a moment, but he doesn’t look annoyed with me.
He looks thoughtful. Like he cares enough to give me an honest answer.
“The truth was, I was obsessed with you. You turned me into a babbling jackass with your pretty face and your refusal to be polite for the sake of being polite. You seemed to like people who were genuine, and I wanted to be genuine enough to deserve your attention.”
I want the same thing. God, I want to be worthy of him.
“If I’d known—if I’d realized what you meant when you said you were new to all of this,” I say quietly, “I would have made it so much better.”
North sighs and rests fully against me. “No.”
“No?”
He shakes his head. “No. It was perfect.”
I blink several times. “But…the first two times, you didn’t even come—”
“Oh. I did,” he says, and my eyes widen when I understand what he means.
“Well, ah…” Why is that so fucking hot? I swallow hard and shove that thought away for later. “I still didn’t touch you, and when I finally did, it wasn’t with the care you deserve.”
A smile spreads across his face. “You don’t understand, Leo. It was amazing because you didn’t treat me like I didn’t know what I was doing. You let it be what it was, and that’s what I’d been craving all along.”
My head is a little hazy, so my processing is slow, but when I finally understand what he’s saying, I ignore the pain in my legs and roll us onto our sides and pull him against me. He protests for a second, but he doesn’t stop me when I take him in another possessive, hard, desperate kiss.
“I really fucking like you,” I whisper.
He laughs against my lips. “I like you too.”
Closing my eyes, I rock my hips against him. “Touch me.”
“You don’t want this right now,” he says. I think he might be right, but I don’t want to acknowledge that right now. I want to give him something better than I have before. Not to be too gentle with him. Not to remind him that he’s new at this.
No, I want to spend time making sure he understands he deserves to be treated like the gift he is.
But I don’t think he’s going to give in.
His hand drifts between us, and he cups me where I’m not hard. I want to be, but the pain is persistent, and I’m exhausted. “Okay, you win.” I roll back over and let him situate my legs so they’re elevated again.
“Good boy,” he says like he means it, and he gives my limp dick a pat.
“Fuck off!”
He laughs into the next kiss he steals, then pulls the blankets up over himself and nestles in close. “We have time, okay? As much as we want. Being next to you is all I need.”
I feel the same, but I also know how quickly moments can be stolen by an impatient universe. But I’m not going to burden North with that right now. It’s my own pain, and he’s been through enough.
This is something I don’t mind carrying alone.