20. Scott
TWENTY
SCOTT
“I’m not ready to talk yet.”
Naz nods, wringing his hands in his lap. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
He looks up at me, his dark eyes almost black. I can see the emotion there. The stress of the day, the uncertainty of it all, the way my own fear and uncertainty have clearly exacerbated how much he was already struggling.
It’s not very often that I’m in a bad mood.
I’m usually doing what Naz has been attempting all evening, first with those teenagers, then with the guys here—trying to compensate for the negativity or lack of conversation.
Somehow tonight we’ve switched roles. Which is a little funny considering what I’d been planning to do to show him my own sincere apology.
I’m very aware that he’s not the only one that fucked up today.
My fuck up, in all actuality, was way bigger.
Truthfully, I’m only this upset because I was terrified, and that’s on me.
Maybe I should have trusted him more, the way he trusted me when he saw me skulking around the office with a stolen laptop.
I need to get a hold of myself, but I’m not ready to let it go yet. It’s going to take more than reasoning skills and rationalizing to get control again.
“I’m sorry too.”
Naz blinks up at me, and I don’t know if I’m imagining things or if it’s the lighting, but there’s a wet shine to his onyx gaze that I can’t look away from.
We stay like that for a long time. Me standing at the end of the couch, looking down at him. Him staring up at me. We hold eye contact, an entire conversation drifting between us without saying a word.
The tension in the room shifts, becoming something palpable shared between us. There’s an energy in the air, a vibration that settles in my bones and makes my limbs feel restless.
The wind and rain hitting the floor to ceiling windows becomes a backdrop to the volatile force pushing blood and oxygen through my organs. Lightning flashes outside, illuminating the sky behind the clouds. A loud, booming clap of thunder follows, and just like that, the tension snaps.
One moment, I’m standing at the end of the couch, and the next I’m crawling, pushing Naz down into the sofa and hovering over him.
I pause above him, staring down into liquid pools of turmoil, always wanting him to have the last say over what happens next.
No matter who takes control when we’re together, he holds all the power.
Not just because he holds a position of power over me, but because I need more than consent.
I need reassurance that he wants and needs me the way I want and need him.
I don’t ever expect him to get on my level, but as long as this beautiful man wants to be with me in any capacity, I’m all in.
Naz only pauses long enough for my heart to flip and get tangled up in the butterflies that have taken residence in my ribcage before he pushes up on his elbows and kisses me.
Unlike the night he jumped me on the couch in his trailer, there’s no mindless frenzy. It’s not dark. There’s no hurry. There’s no excuse of being half asleep or driven mad by teasing. There’s no control or demand.
It’s just us.
Our kiss is slow and languid, our tongues moving together in a sensual caress that I feel in my lungs, my bones, and in every one of the hairs on my body that stands at attention.
His arms wrap around my body and pull me closer.
I lower myself and press into him, sinking into the couch like we could become one person.
With an elbow braced under his shoulder, I cup his head and deepen the kiss, licking into his mouth and drinking up the closeness, wanting more but not wanting to stop.
My free hand pushes under his shirt, kneading and caressing up and down his side, gripping his hip and lower to squeeze his firm ass.
Naz’s leg shifts beneath me, fitting between mine before he bends his knee enough for his thigh to press into my groin.
My hips roll instinctively, grinding my growing erection against him.
I moan into his mouth as his hands roam down my back, lifting my shirt so I can feel his nails gently scratching down my back.
His fingers push beneath the waistband of my jeans, encouraging me to rock against him.
His bulge presses into my hip with each roll, and he moves with me, but it’s not enough. There are too many layers between us. Our jeans are too thick, too constricting.
“Too many clothes,” Naz groans into my mouth, dropping his hands from my ass to bring them around front.
He deftly undoes the button and zipper, then starts pushing the fabric down my hips.
Not wanting to break the kiss, I open his jeans with one hand before plunging my hand inside to wrap around his hot, hard length.
Naz groans with relief but continues his struggle to get my pants down, managing to get them just below my ass before giving up. He follows my example and reaches for my cock instead. We shift to the side for a better angle, Naz crushed between my body and the back of the couch.
Panting harshly into each other’s mouths, we clumsily jerk each other, only breaking the kiss to spit into our hands. I can tell he’s getting close when his head falls back, exposing the bulging vein in his neck and the way he grips me tighter, almost painfully demanding that I get there with him.
In the end, I get there first, pressing my teeth into that vein as I erupt into Naz’s hand.
My release drips onto his cock where I’m still working him, adding some slide to the mix of spit and precum so I’m better able to move my fist up and down his length, closing around the head on the upstroke the way he likes.
He shudders and groans, shooting between us.
Even after we’ve come, we stay there like that, tangled around each other with our pants barely pushed down. Kissing. Touching. Whispering.
Somehow, even though our cocks are still out and we’re covered in our own cum, we find ourselves approaching a serious conversation. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it feels natural to be spilling my guts out after I’ve spilled my load all over him.
“Tell me about your sister,” he starts.
“It’s a long story, but we lost contact. She was only eleven the last time I saw her. She’d be your age now, I guess. That’s a weird thought,” I say with a chuckle.
He doesn’t take the bait. “What happened?”
When I take too long to answer, he’s quick to add, “You don’t have to tell me anything, but I’d like to know. Everything between us is always about me, and that’s not fair for either of us. I want to know you, Scott.”
With a swallow, I nod, laying my head down on his shoulder.
“My dad was… Not great. He drank too much, among other things, and when he was fucked up, he was angry. He blamed us for our mom leaving, blamed her too. He’d punch holes in the walls, kick over furniture, smash doors down…”
“Did he hit you?”
I’m pretty sure the question is rhetorical, but I nod anyway.
“Your sister?”
“Only once.”
That was the first and only time I fought back.
He’d gotten her good right across the face, sent her practically flying across the room.
And I lost it. He was bigger than me back then.
At fourteen, I wasn’t much more than gangly limbs and knock knees.
Still, I managed to tackle him to the ground.
I had so much fear and rage built up in me, and I let it all loose.
“There was an investigation. My sister was placed with our aunt, and I spent some time in juvie. It was supposed to be temporary. But something had cracked inside me. I was angry all the time, and so fucking scared. I was like a junkyard dog, lashing out, getting into fights all the time. I took a swing at one of the officers my first month there and bought myself another year and a half.”
“I have a really hard time imagining you like that.”
I shrug. “Eventually I got the kick in the pants I needed to realize that not everyone was out to get me. I started listening during the counseling sessions. Some of it was bullshit, but there was this one woman who really got through to me. She made me realize that anger wasn’t my default.
It was his. I'd just spent so many years living with it, that I thought it was mine.
She helped me see that just because he'd given it to me didn't mean I had to carry it forever.”
Naz snorts softly. “Generational trauma as a form of inheritance. Nice. I never thought of it that way.”
“Me either. It got through to me, though. I did the whole anger management thing, started lifting and boxing. It was all shitty circumstances, but I think… I think it helped me become a better man.”
“So what happened with your sister?”
“My aunt wasn’t a bad person, but it was a tough situation.
She wasn’t happy about getting saddled with her brother’s kid, but Ally was a sweet girl.
She was quiet and shy. Out of protectiveness, or possibly blame for the whole situation, she wouldn’t let my sister call much or visit.
By the time I got out, she made it clear I wasn’t welcome in her home, so I transitioned to a group home. I tried to visit, but…”
“Would she not let you see your sister?” Naz sounds almost outraged at the idea.
Old pain prickles behind my eyes, making them sting. I blink it away and shake my head.
“I went over there the first chance I got. But my sister… she was afraid of me.”
The sting in my eyes makes its way down my sinus cavity behind my nose and in my throat. It makes my voice tight and gravelly. Naz wraps his arm around my waist and wiggles closer.