CHAPTER THREE
Chrissy
Ibarely catch my scream.
My hands fly up to stifle it behind my palms only to lose my grip on the towel I was still knotting into place between my breasts.
The fabric unravels.
It comes apart with zero shame to puddle at my feet. All thoughts of taking a cold shower evaporate as I stand frozen, staring into the eyes of the man losing his scowl to let his gaze fall down my naked frame.
I don’t cover up.
I should. The scorching heat rushing beneath my skin to fill my cheeks tells me I should, but Shawn isn’t breathing.
His entire expression has gone rigid. His eyes, hot as he takes in my breasts.
The unwavering focus tightens the nipples.
Hardening the peaks and sending a ripple down my spine.
It collects at my center with a heat I’m all too aware of when his attention continues downward.
“You—”
I don’t hear the rest of his comment when the click of Dad’s door opening cracks through the silence.
“Fucking useless bladder,” he’s grumbling.
With a grace a man his size shouldn’t possess, Shawn is in my room. He’s in my space. His arms are around my waist and I’m lifted — probably to keep from running me over — but my legs automatically hug his hips. My arms circle his neck.
In the same motion, he kicks the door shut with the heel of his boot.
“Chrissy?” Dad’s voice hits the barricade with the resounding slam.
“Yeah?” I croak, face inches from the man cupping my ass cheeks with both hands.
“Did Shawn go home?”
Eyes the hot gray of melted silver never blink when his lips brush over mine with his quiet, “Say yes, baby.”
Head a woozy mess of desire and disbelief, I repeat the instructions ... including the baby part.
I wince at my slip up.
Shawn gives an amused grin.
Dad, thankfully, didn’t hear it when he asks me to repeat myself.
“Yes,” I say louder.
“All right. Night, hunny.”
My nose bumps over Shawn’s. Our lips graze.
“Night, Dad,” I barely manage.
We hear him shuffle past my room in the direction of the bathroom. But we’re barely paying attention when Shawn moves in the direction of the bed. His strides are muffled by carpet and the pounding between my ears.
Cold sheets kiss my bare back, but the impact is lost in the ocean of fire that immediately follows when he stays on top of me. When his mouth closes over mine in my first kiss ever.
If he notices my lack of experience, he makes no comment. He keeps his weight in place over every place I need him, including the rigid bulge between my thighs. The pressure alone has me wiggling against the rough grain of his jeans, against the hard bump.
My efforts make the bed groan. The frame squeaks. Shawn lifts his head, face brushed with the soft lamplight radiating from the bedside. It reflects in his eyes as he locks with mine.
His hips rock forward. Grinds against that sweet spot that has my head tipping back and his palm coming down over my mouth when I sob his name.
“Shhh,” he growls against the side of my face. “Open.”
I do. Obediently. I unlock my ankles from the small of his back and let my knees drop wide against the mattress.
And something in his eyes shifts. It’s not even subtle. There’s a hot, rabid fire that ignites. A predatory gleam that floods my core and has a trail of arousal running down my ass crack.
Shawn doesn’t say a word. Not a peep when he sends his free hand between our fused bodies. I think he’s going to undo his pants, but I choke on my gasp when he cups me. When he spreads my lips. Delves between them. Drags through all the wet.
And bares his teeth in a silent snarl.
His fingers are soaked. I feel their slippery glide over and around my swollen clit. The unhurried strokes have my toes curling and hips thrashing. My back lifts off the mattress as he brings me closer.
The entire time, his hand stays on my mouth. Fingers tight, digging into my cheeks. His eyes burn into mine, refusing to let me break the contact as he toys with me.
We hear the toilet flush.
The water runs.
The bathroom door clicks open.
Dad’s weight on the creaky floorboards heads past my room.
Shawn stretches me on two fingers and contains my muffled wail. My helpless sob, as he invades a place even I’ve been too scared to touch. The discomfort, the pinch of pain has my eyes squeezing shut as I fight to adapt to the pressure.
Not that it lasts.
The moment he begins to move, to rub my upper walls with unhurried strokes, my unused channel hugs him. It rushes with a greedy desperation that makes the rest of me forget everything, except how good he’s making me feel.
I prove it by lifting my hips. By meeting his every pump. My efforts are met with the dip of his head and the closure of his lips around my nipple.
The sweet nip of his teeth lights my soul on fire. It sparks something molten in me that has my brain melting. My fingers hook through his hair and I urge him to do it again at the exact moment he bumps something deep inside me.
And I jump.
My thighs tense.
My lungs hitch.
He does it again, matching it to his suck.
“Shawn!”
His name is a muffled whine that hits the barrier of his palm.
Inside me, he continues to move deeper, faster. His heel grinds into my clit with every plunge.
And I am writhing.
I’m bucking and rolling into every sweet assault. My heels dig into the mattress, knees painfully wide and yet not wide enough.
I cum with a violent force that I momentarily can’t breathe around. I’m catapulted off a cliff so high, I swear there is no bottom.
When I finally hit, his mouth steals what little air I managed to catch. He swallows every whine, every whimper. He takes everything without ever stopping. Without taking his fingers out. He keeps me shuddering and flexing around him until I have nothing to give.
Only when I’m a weak, limp mess does he gingerly withdraw. The loss sends a shiver through me that has his hold tightening around me.
I open my eyes and find him watching me, expression soft.
Impulsively, I lean up and brush his lips with mine.
I’m relieved when he kisses me back. When he deepens that kiss with a sweep of his tongue over mine.
I try to mimic the gesture, chasing his and earning a playful nip of his teeth that makes me giggle.
His features are so loving, so incredibly open and wanting.
I’ve seen it a million times before, but it’s always fleeting.
A look he covers by turning away when I catch him.
But not this time. He’s looking right at me.
Into my very soul. And it’s so perfect I’m too scared to move in case he comes to his senses.
“Okay?” he asks softly, eyes searching.
He lifts a hand when I nod. It extends towards my cheek and I wait to feel the brush, the warmth of his touch.
Instead, he goes rigid above me. His heart thumps against mine.
Too hard. The crack explodes through me as I watch the change.
The shift in his features as he stares at something next to my head.
I start to turn, to follow his wide-eyed stare, but he’s scrambling off me as if I’ve caught on fire. His entire body jerks to his feet and he falls back from the bed.
“Shawn?”
The sheets rustle as I gather them around me and sit up.
He’s gone white and there is the wild panic of a spooked rabbit in his eyes as he fixates on me. But only for a second before he’s turning on his heels and bolting from the room. He’s not even trying to be subtle when the clip of his hurried escape pounds down the stairs.
Then silence.
He’s not there when I open my eyes in the morning.
He doesn’t come back for pancakes.
That evening, he doesn’t come by for our traditional cake cutting. Dad and I wait. He texts Shawn and gets a short, “Can’t. Sorry. Something’s come up.”
He could have slapped me and it would have hurt less. His clear dismissal gouges into my chest cavity with the intensity of a rusty spoon. Hollowing me out. Robbing me of hunger. The cookies and cream ice cream cake Dad drove to Pinecrest to pick up sits, melting on the island.
For his part, Dad does his best to cheer me up, and I go along with it for him. The candles shimmer across the softened surface, tipping slightly where the density no longer holds. But I blow them out and smile at Dad when he claps.
“You know he’s on a deadline for that cradle,” he tells me like he can read my mind. “He’ll probably come by tomorrow. We’ll save him a slice.”
Shawn doesn’t come tomorrow, or the day after. The subtle ache between my thighs has all but vanished, taking the lingering memories of that night. By Thursday, it’s clear he’s avoiding me, and that alone guts me because even Dad is beginning to question the disappearance.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he assures me or himself, but his thumb sweeps over his messages like he’s trying to find something he missed.
His sadness only fans the guilt tight in my chest. It’s because of me he lost his best friend and he has no idea.
Friday, I make the decision that we all need space.
I had a vision in my head that this would be the first birthday Shawn would finally be mine.
Instead, I lost him and ruined my dad’s friendship.
I need to regroup and process how to fix this for him, but also live with Shawn on a platonic level.
Even if that means I find my own place and put some distance between us.