Chapter 22 #2
I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything more articulate. My heart was beating so hard, I could feel it in my fingertips. Bash leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of my head, and pressed into me in a slow, steady glide.
For an awful, wonderful second, I thought I might split apart.
It was too much—too thick, too deep, too everything—and my brain short-circuited, unable to process the hot, sweet ache as he filled me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, holding my breath, forcing myself to open up and let him in.
The burn faded to a dull throb, then to something that hovered on the edge of pleasure, and when I looked up, his eyes were locked on mine, pupils blown wide.
“Fuck, Eddie,” he whispered, every muscle in his body trembling. His arms shook with the effort of holding back, and I realized he was waiting for permission to move, to let go.
“I’m okay.”
He started to move, so gently, it nearly undid me.
He rolled his hips in a rhythm that was all patience and control, just enough to keep me right on the line between pleasure and pain.
Every thrust drove the breath from my lungs, but Bash kept his eyes trained on my face, as if reading every micro-expression, tuning himself to every twitch and gasp.
There was so much focus there—he watched me like I was a battlefield, charting safe passage across dangerous terrain. I hated and loved how it made me want to show him everything, even the ugly parts: the fear, the need, the raw hunger I’d spent years hiding from myself.
I tried, at first, to hold onto my composure the way I did in the rest of my life—modulate my breathing, keep my face from giving too much away.
It was impossible. All my defenses melted, and what spilled out in their place was raw, ungovernable want.
Every movement, every deep press was so much more than I’d ever imagined, and the need for him—to have him, to be had—felt like a hollow space inside me that he could finally fill.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, but it was so much, too much, all at once. “Harder,” I managed, not even recognizing my own voice, gone rough and wild.
He grunted, sweat beading on his brow and upper lip, and obliged, picking up the pace.
The sounds were obscene—the slap of skin, the hush of breath, the creak of the bed.
I thought for a moment about our neighbors, the other students down the hall, and then promptly forgot about them as Bash bottomed out, cock hitting the spot inside me that turned my brain to static. My legs locked around his hips.
He was so deep in me, I didn’t know where I ended and he began, and I didn’t want there to be any distinction. I wanted to be obliterated by him, atomized and rebuilt, every piece reengineered for the sole purpose of holding more of this, more of him. I wanted him to leave fingerprints on my bones.
My hips met his, hard and frantic, the slap of skin and my breathy moans echoing off the empty walls of our borrowed flat.
I was acutely aware that we only had a handful of nights left here, a handful of nights where it was just us, before we’d have to play act the men we were supposed to be.
I wanted to bottle the feeling so I would never forget what it felt like to be with him.
He felt so bloody good, it was almost alien—a species of pleasure I didn’t recognize, and didn’t need to name.
I let him drive into me, lost in the heat and his ferocity, let him take me and use me and own me.
My back arched and I must’ve been shouting because my throat turned raw, but Bash never let up, never left me to face the intensity alone.
He kissed me through it all, rough and clumsy, biting at my lip, at my jaw.
My cock was trapped between us, crushed by his body, and every slam of his hips ground me into the mattress in a way that made my legs start to twitch.
There was no sense of time, only sensation, only the marrow-deep need to keep him inside me as long as I could bear.
When he reached around to jerk me off, his fist was as sure and unrelenting as the rest of him. I nearly sobbed, incapable of hiding what I was feeling. Bash’s movements grew erratic, his face twisting up like someone was hurting him, and I realized he was close.
“Let go,” he breathed, and that was all it took.
My whole body snapped tight, pleasure ripping through me in a way that felt less like release and more like surrender.
I shattered in his hands, colors bursting behind my eyelids, a cascade of fire unspooling from my center and echoing into every limb.
I felt the world contract into a single, blinding instant—heat, pressure, Bash’s body keeping me pinned to earth even as I dissolved—and then time snapped back into place, sharp and lucid, every nerve in my body thrumming with the aftershock.
He kept moving through my orgasm, pace losing all rhythm, until he slammed into me one last time and let out a sound that was half a word, half a howl.
He collapsed forward, bracing his weight above me, panting hard enough that it gusted my sweaty hair back from my face.
I could feel him inside, warmth still spreading, and a twisted pride blossomed low in my gut that I’d done that to him.
We stayed tangled for a long time, everything gone slow and syrupy. Bash’s breath hitched against my neck, his nose buried in my hair. I lay boneless, every nerve still firing at full voltage, willing my heartbeat to settle down.
I let myself drift, feeling the weight of him, the raw tenderness at my entrance, the sticky mess between us, the pounding heat of his pulse in every inch of our bodies. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want him to leave. If I could’ve pressed myself into the shape of his body, I would have.
Eventually, Bash propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at me, his hair plastered to his forehead, eyes still blown wide and dark.
“Jesus,” he said, his voice as rough and raw as I felt. “I’m never letting you go.”
How I wanted that to be true.