21. Geo
— ? —
Geo
Three months in, and tonight is the first time I’m the one who asks him up.
We’ve been careful about this. He walks me to my door and never once assumes he gets to come through it.
He kisses me goodnight and then he leaves, every single time, and it has been quietly driving me out of my mind.
Tonight, after we put Val to bed, I don’t step back when he lingers. “Come up,” I say. “Just to talk.”
We both know it’s a lie. The lie sits between us like a third person when he shows up at the door in a dark sweater, hair still damp, eyes already dark.
We don’t talk.
The first kiss is soft. The second is harder. By the third I’m pressed against the wall of my living room and he’s saying my name like a prayer and a curse at the same time.
Don’t. You’ll regret this. You’ll wake up raw. You’ll remember the video and the drowning and the gold dress and you’ll hate yourself for opening your legs for the man who-
“Wait,” I say. “Wait.”
He stops immediately. Steps back. Breathing hard. Hands in fists at his sides like he’s physically restraining himself. I can see how hard he is, the wet spot darkening the front of his jeans where he’s already leaking for me.
“Are you sure?” he asks, and his voice isn’t steady. “Because I can still walk out that door and let us pretend this never got started.”
I take a fistful of his sweater instead of answering, and he waits anyway, because he has learned to wait.
“I stopped being sure of anything a year ago,” I say. “This is the first thing that has felt like a decision instead of a wound. I want you. I hate how much. If you leave I’ll still want you, and if you stay I might come apart, so come apart with me.”
His face cracks open.
***
Harrison
It’s messy and desperate and a little bit angry from the second we hit the bedroom.
I get her out of her clothes fast, hands not quite steady, furious at every month I wasted not doing this. Mouth on her throat, her collarbone, the soft place between her breasts. I get her bra off and just stare for a second, breathing hard.
“You going to do something,” she says, breathless and not at all nice, “or just stand there taking inventory?”
“Inventory first,” I say. “Then everything.”
Every man who ever got to see her like this got to keep her, and I had her for five years and looked at my phone instead.
“I forgot,” I rasp. “How fucking perfect you are. I let myself forget.”
She yanks my shirt off hard enough that a seam pops. “Then remember.”
I do.
I worship her with my mouth and hands like I’m trying to apologize with every touch. When I finally get her completely naked I drop to my knees on the bedroom floor, hook her thighs over my shoulders, and taste her like she’s the only thing I’ve ever gotten right.
She is soaked and sweet and unbearably familiar, mine and not mine. I groan into her like I’ve been punched.
She comes twice on my tongue, shaking, one hand fisted in my hair, the other covering her mouth so she doesn’t wake Val. I don’t stop until she’s tugging at my hair hard enough to hurt, whispering too much too much please I need you inside…
When I finally stand and shove my jeans down, she’s already pulling me on top of her.
I notch against her and stop.
The head of my cock drags through how wet she is. She is scalding. I could push in and be home in one stroke. I could ruin this by taking.
“Look at me,” I say.
She does.
I push inside in one long, slow thrust that makes both of us choke on the same broken sound. She’s so tight it punches the air clean out of me, so wet I feel her slick down to my thighs, so familiar my vision whites out for a second.
Don’t come. Don’t you dare come yet. Feel her. Feel what you almost threw away.
“Fuck, Geo, baby.”
“Now,” she growls, nails already digging into my back. “Stop being noble and fuck me.”
I move, hard and deep. The kind of desperate rhythm that has the headboard knocking the wall. She meets every thrust. Her nails dig into my back hard enough to leave marks. At one point she starts crying, silent tears sliding into her hair, and I almost stop.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she gasps. “I need, I need to feel you. I need…”
“I’m sorry,” I chant against her mouth, her cheek, her temple, every thrust an apology. “I’m so fucking sorry. I ruined us. I ruined everything. I love you. I never stopped. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
She comes again with a broken sob, clenching around me so tightly I follow her over the edge with a groan that sounds like it was punched out of me. I keep moving through it, shallow and shaky, burying my face in her neck while I spill inside her in pulses that feel endless.
Afterward she’s quiet, her head on my chest, her body still trembling slightly. Tears still wet on her cheeks. I’m still inside her. Neither of us pulls away.
We shouldn’t have. She’ll panic. You’ll lose her again for touching her too soon…
“Stay,” she whispers.
“For as long as you want.”
I fall asleep with my arms around her and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest and my cock softening inside the only home I’ve ever wanted.
I wake to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, knees pulled to her chest, naked under the sheet.
“Geo?”
“I can’t. I need you to go.”
The cold gets into my chest. I knew. I still wasn’t ready.
“Okay.”
“It’s not you.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not ready. I thought I was. I wanted to be. But I’m not. Last night was… a lot. I need space to feel it.”
I get dressed without asking for an explanation. Every piece of clothing feels like armor I don’t deserve. I kiss her forehead before I leave, lingering, tasting salt.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I say. “I’ll be here. No pressure. No expectations. Just… here.”
In the hallway I stand with my forehead on her door and breathe through the urge to beg. Begging is old Harrison. Old Harrison took. New Harrison leaves hard and aching and grateful she let him in at all.
***
Geo
I spend the rest of the night alone, curled in my bed that still smells like him and sex and the cologne I used to buy him.
I’m terrified. Terrified of wanting him. More terrified of forgiving him and finding out I was right to. My body is sore in the best way. I can still feel him. I press my thighs together and hate how much I want him again already.
At 8 a.m. I pick up my phone.
Come over tonight.
His response comes in three seconds: I’ll be there. Whatever you need.