Chapter Fourteen #3
“He beat you because you don’t want a girlfriend? That’s so stupid,” he sneers.
“I know.”
His fingers drag over my chin, my jaw, the shell of my ear. My eyes threaten to close under the warmth of it, the intimacy, and what giving him this truth might mean.
Though my body is heating up, my skin reacting to him the way it has failed to for anyone else since the moment we touched in that bathroom, my mind is somewhere else, far away.
I’m scared. Will he think less of me now?
“Is he… Is he why you said being with a guy is wrong?” Skylar asks, each word slow and concise.
I think he’s scared of the answer.
Allowing my eyes to close once more, I ready myself for this conversation. I don’t know how he will react; I don’t know if he’ll accept my cowardice.
But I have to try. I have to.
“Yes. He’s… He’s made his expectations of me very clear. And I cannot fail; I can’t lose my family.”
“Oh, Evie.” His voice is dripping with pity, so fucking doused in devastation that as he lays himself over me and wraps me in his arms, I can feel his sympathy as if it’s a third person here in the bed with us. “That’s wrong. You know that, right? That that is wrong.”
I nod my head. “But knowing it and feeling it are two different things.”
It’s Skylar’s turn to nod as he holds me, his breath caressing my neck in a way that makes me shiver against him.
I want his hands all over me; I want my lips on his skin, even now. Even in the midst of all this anguish I carry, I want to touch.
But there is a fragile spell cast over the bedroom, and I’m so afraid of breaking it and him running from me that I don’t move; I let him control our situation and anything that might come from it.
“I understand. I hear you,” he assures me, leaning back enough to look into my eyes, his lips far too close to mine. “Everett, you need to get away from him. If it has always been like this, then that’s never been your family—not really.”
The tears come before I can stop them. They well up and pour over, unstoppable, an overwhelming force that shakes my body as they make their way down my neck and into the back of my shirt.
“So then what, I’ve never had a family? That’s so… so lonely.” My voice is a choked sob, my body tensing and untensing in an attempt to keep from sobbing completely
Skylar pulls me up to sit, cupping my face with his palms. “Hey, so what am I then? Am I not your family? Or what about Kelly and Henry?”
I tug at my bottom lip with my teeth, watching his worried eyes search mine, then drop to follow the motion. He has a hard time dragging his eyes away from my mouth, but once he does, I respond.
“I… I don’t want you to be my family.”
A flash of hurt flickers through his eyes, a moment of hesitation where he stares at me in what could be read as pain or betrayal. “W-what?”
“Sky… What I want from you is so much more. Much more… intimate.”
Like light breaking through the darkest of storm clouds, all of those conflicting feelings are replaced with a desperate heat. One I have been craving to see for so long—that I’ve reimagined alone in my room, night after night with my hands on my body, imagining them as someone else’s. As his.
He breathes out heavy and hot, straight onto me, into me, inside of me. “But I can still be your family.”
It’s a whispery, shy thing as it leaves him, his eyes darting around the room and a beautiful red flushing his cheeks.
And after a moment, one in which I take in how precious he’s being, Skylar adds, “And what about Ashley?”
At this question, I realize he’s uncertain, if not a bit confused and maybe slightly insecure. His eyes refocus on me, nervous but curious as he inches closer to me.
“She’s actually the one who told me to confess,” I admit.
This shocks him more than my previous statement, and he gasps out, “I’m sorry, what?!”
“She told me that I can either live in this misery or step out onto the ledge. And to be honest, this ledge is horrible.”
Skylar chokes on a laugh, a small grin playing with those pink lips. “Smart girl.”
His thumb drags over my bottom lip, and I stop breathing. Full stop, no air, could die at any moment if that’s what he asks of me.
“You’re so beautiful, Evie,” he murmurs.
I scoff, eyes darting to literally anywhere but him. “I look like a horse just kicked me in the face a handful of times. You haven’t even seen my stomach yet.”
Skylar cringes. “Yeah, sure. But you’re still beautiful. You’ve always been very handsome.”
He moves his face until he’s back in my field of view, and I can feel the hot tears welling up again.
“Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” I ask.
Skylar hums before he says, “Are you telling me that you freaked out because your dad is a homophobic piece of shit who hits you, and not because you think I’m gross?”
I can’t help the roll of my eyes or the small smile that accompanies it. “Yes.”
“And… And you want me? Like, you really want me? Not just for sex?”
All smiles are gone again. The air around us is somehow both sweltering and frigid all at once. Something life-altering is happening between us, and we can feel it.
“Yeah,” I admit softly. “I want you. I… I think I like you. Like, really, really like you.”
“Then yeah, I’m not mad anymore. You’ve been forgiven.”
Skylar tucks his face into the crook of my neck, and I try to breathe around the feeling of his warm breath, his skin, his lips brushing me. I can feel myself hardening in my jeans.
“Good.” My voice cracks, like a goddamn teenager.
Skylar giggles. “Let’s figure all of this out tomorrow.”
“Oh. Okay.” I feel the lack of his warmth in a devastating way once he pulls away, his eyes searching mine as his hands fall away.
“For tonight,” he adds, clearing his throat. “Do you want me to touch you?”
Warning bells go off in my mind. They tell me to stop, to think, to remember what this will do to me and the life I’ve spent so many years securing if I say yes.
But I do. I do want him to touch me.
And fuck the Carmichaels and their backward views and their abusive household. I don’t need them; I can build my own family.
If I say it enough times, maybe I’ll believe this. And if not, then just for tonight. Tonight, I will just be Everett, and that’ll have to be enough.
“Yes,” I say, determined, desperate even.
Skylar smiles. He wants to; he wants to touch me.
I feel his palm as he lays me flat, his hands returning to himself to rip off his shirt before he climbs onto my lap. I take in his smooth skin, his lean muscles, and the hardening pink nipples on his pecs. Fuck.
“How do you want me to do it, Evie?” Skylar sounds so innocent in the dirtiest way.
He sounds delicious, like he wants me to eat him. I’m not sure how long I can go without touching him.
“Uh…” My brain is fried.
“Like this?” His fingers slip under my shirt, and I hiss as they run over the stray bruises there.
He doesn’t let up, swirling around my nipples as I pant, groping lightly at my pecs. I can feel him hardening against my hip where he sits, those blue eyes lust-blown and hooded as he stares down at me, wild curls dipping onto his forehead.
He’s eating me alive with those eyes—assessing the damage he can do. And fuck, can he. He could destroy me if he wanted; he can coil around me as tightly as he pleases and squeeze.
I’d welcome it.
“Or, like this?” Skylar rolls his hips, his ass rubbing over my clothed cock in a deliciously evil manner that pulls a groan from my throat.
My hands shoot out to clasp onto his thighs—my grip tight. I won’t be the only one with bruises come morning. His breath hitches.