Twenty-Two #2
He tries different speeds, coaxing directions from her until he finds the right pressure with his tongue.
“Yes. Yes, just like that,” she gasps. “Slower and then faster.”
He hums, sliding one finger inside her. “Do you like this?” He moves his tongue and his finger together, and the sensation is almost too much, but the coil of heat and fierce pleasure tightens.
“Please, please, right there—”
She begs him not to stop because if he does, she’ll surely die. She is burning up. She is an inferno. She is going to combust and take down the entire building with her.
When she arches her back, he grips her hips tighter, increasing his pace, and she’s so close, so close, so—
Her orgasm pummels her like a tidal wave, pleasure snapping, sizzling every cell in her body. He maintains the same rhythm until she’s panting and gasping, until she goes limp on the couch, gently pushing him away from her overly sensitive clit.
As he gazes up at her from between her thighs, a smug smirk on his gorgeous face, she drags her fingers through his disheveled hair. His forehead is sweaty from the exertion. His eyes flutter closed, and he rests his cheek against her thigh, releasing a contented sigh.
“That feels lovely,” he murmurs. He shifts to his knees, hovering over her, and kisses his way up her body. She gasps, her greedy hands tracing the muscles of his back, mapping the taut lines and ridges of his stomach. He jumps, releasing a shaky laugh.
“Let me touch you,” she whispers. When he stares at her, eyes glazed with desire, she shifts to her knees.
“Take these off.” Charlie tugs down the waistband of his sweats. He complies, hurrying to free his cock.
She wraps her fingers around him. “Will you teach me what you like?”
“God.” He shudders when she moves her hand. “Yes. Come here.” He kisses her again before he dips his head and sucks on her neck, finding the spot she loves. “I want your mouth on—”
The sound of an aggressive wind chime erupts somewhere in the room.
Charlie startles, drawing back. “What is that?”
But Wes is already moving her aside. He stands, crosses the room, and begins digging through his coat, which still hangs over the kitchen chair. He hardly glances at the screen before silencing it, tossing it on the coffee table.
“It’s nothing.” He hovers once more over her body, smiling lazily down at her. “Can I kiss you again?”
She doesn’t hesitate this time, grabbing the nape of his neck and pulling his mouth to hers. He sinks down on top of her, his tongue delving inside her mouth. She tastes something salty and realizes it’s her, but she doesn’t pull away, finding she doesn’t mind in the slightest.
A harsh vibrating noise shocks her out of the kiss. Wes groans, burying his face in her neck.
“Wes,” she whispers as his phone rattles on the coffee table. Her fingers dance over his back, tracing circles across his skin. When he draws away this time, she’s left feeling cold.
He sits up on the couch, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, and jabs the screen.
“What?” he snaps. Charlie balks at the sudden ire in his voice. He sighs, tugging on his hair. “No, I’m not—You’re kidding, right? What difference would it have made?”
Faintly, she hears indiscernible shouting, growling anger from whomever is on the other side of the call.
“It doesn’t matter where I am right now, I don’t care about—”
Charlie flinches, his words dousing the heat that remained from what unfolded between them mere moments ago. Her skin pebbles, and she pulls the crocheted blanket over her body, covering everything from the neck down.
“Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? I’ll be home when I’m home.”
He hangs up and throws the phone on the table with a clatter. His muscles bunch up, the tension in his body overt. Running his hands through his already wild hair, he tugs so hard that Charlie almost believes he’ll rip it from his scalp.
“Who was that?” she asks.
He clasps his hands under his chin. “My dad.”
A heavy silence fills the room. Charlie clings tighter to the blanket, her fingers digging into the handwoven fabric. Usually it seems soft, but it feels abrasive against her naked body.
“Is everything okay?”
He sighs heavily, shifting back on the couch.
“My parents have a New Year’s Eve party every year.
” He rubs a finger over his eyebrow. “Similar to the holiday one you attended, but…more. All this glitz and glamour, people sucking up to my mother and then asking for favors, and my dad pulling the strings in the background. They expected me to be there, like always, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it this time.
I had Emilia say I was sick, but my dad figured out that was a lie this morning when I never made it to breakfast and my bedroom was empty. ”
Charlie stares at him, her brain buzzing from his confession.
“And you came here instead?” His head snaps up at her sharp tone. “Why?”
A puzzled look crosses his face. “Because I wanted to. I missed this.”
“This?”
He sits up straight, squaring off to her. “Yes, this. Hanging out with you. Being friends with you, Rogers. Everything feels better with you. It always has. I can forget my responsibilities and family obligations—”
“I can’t be that for you,” she snaps. “I can’t be a distraction for you every time you can’t deal with your life. I’m not a cheap toy to be played with until something better comes along.”
Shock and hurt flash across his face, and she wonders if she went too far.
“Are you serious right now?” His mouth—that gifted, beautiful mouth—curls into a scowl. “Do you think I care so little that I would use you and toss you aside?”
He stands, and she watches him pull on his clothes, her anger slowly ebbing, only to be replaced by dull numbness.
I can’t do this. It’s too much. I can’t let him break me again.
“I don’t want to do the experiment anymore.”
He freezes in the middle of pulling on his shirt, then tugs it over his stomach.
When he faces her, he doesn’t say anything, but she knows him well enough by now, has studied his features enough, to glimpse the nearly imperceptible change—the slight downturn of his lips, the faint crease between his brows, the slow blink.
She continues, “I have everything I need, and I don’t think it’s beneficial for either of us to continue any kind of physical relationship.”
“That’s all this has ever been for you,” he says.
“Isn’t that what it is for you?”
He doesn’t answer, his head tilted as he studies her. Her cheeks grow warm under his examination, his expression maddeningly inscrutable.
“I’ll still tutor you, of course,” she adds quickly. “But setting better boundaries will be crucial so you can focus on the test and avoid any unwanted distractions.”
“Right,” he says. “Because we both know I can’t control myself around distractions.” He shoves his sweats into his bag, the muscles in his back bunched tight. “If that’s what you want.”
It isn’t.
Of course it fucking isn’t what she wants.
What she wants is to invent a time machine and go back to that day freshman year and never meet Wesley Quinn.
What she wants is to not have the person who hurt her also be the one who comforts her.
What she wants is to not feel like a fool for falling for him again.
What she wants is to not need him like the air she breathes.
But now that she’s kissed him, she knows with absolute certainty that the longer she lets this continue, the harder it will be for her in the end.
“It is,” she says with a finality she does not feel.
He faces her. “All right.”
Bitter disappointment at his lack of argument floods her body, turning her stomach sour. Which is selfish and ridiculous, because she’s the one who ended their farce of an experiment.
What does she want him to do? Insist she tell him the truth?
That the real reason she can’t allow him to touch her like she craves is because she foolishly, irresponsibly fell for him?
That he makes her feel understood and like what she says matters?
That as improbable as it was, she hoped the reason he wanted to spend so much time with her was because he fell, too?
She’s just a distraction. A cheap, used distraction.
“Charlie.”
The way he says her first name burns like the heat from a flame. She wants him to say it over and over again and also wishes he never said it at all.
He stands there, gripping his coat in one hand, his green eyes shining in the dull morning light. “You’ve never been a distraction.”
“Then why did you come here?” she whispers.
He tugs his coat on, not bothering to button it. “Because.” He pulls open the door, his smile hollow. “When I considered what I wanted to do with my New Years Eve, spending time with you was my first and only choice.”
Turning, he walks out of her apartment, the door snapping shut behind him.