SULLIVAN
Chapter Thirty-Two
Letting Knight hold me from behind is much, much easier with all the lights on. Or in the daylight. It’s a sunny apartment, and the weather this March has been mild, so the place is very well-lit during the day.
I make it less than five minutes the first time we try it on the couch before turning over and putting some space between us.
I reacquaint myself with his eyes, his face in general.
I put my hand on his chest to feel the steady thump of his heartbeat.
I weather the humiliation of his follow-up question, “How was that?”
And I answer honestly, “Maybe I do suck at this.”
“Maybe we should put on a movie.”
I shake my head. “Music.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“You pick. Something that gives big spoon little spoon.”
It takes him a minute and some messing around on his phone before the Beatles start blaring from the bluetooth speaker, and he turns the volume down. I groan at the song. “This is like—beginner Beatles.”
“You’re a beginner at spooning, too, and you said I could pick.”
I complain, but “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” is about the most Knight song he could have picked, so I flip back over immediately, putting my back to him.
I offer him a hand, and he puts his arm around me to take it.
He presses a kiss to the back of my head as a reminder that he’s here with the best intentions.
From the guy demanding specific sexual positions to this mess of a person I’ve become is quite the fucking fall, and I don’t know how the hell he’s managing to put up with it.
With me. Knight’s patience with me is saint-like.
Maybe a result of all his celibacy training.
My foot taps to the spunky beat of the song as I try to relax against Knight’s hard, warm body.
I love him. I love him. I love him so much.
I close my eyes and focus on the music and not the heat. I run my thumb along the side of his hand, back and forth, again and again. I make it through that song, and another one starts, this one stirring a memory buried deep, deep inside, but it’s not a bad one.
“Do you know what I just remembered?” I ask.
“What?”
“My mom used to sing this to me.”
“‘Hard Day’s Night?’ Ouch. Mine sang ‘Hey Jude’.”
“Wait. Seriously?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because did all our moms sing Beatles songs even though they grew up in the eighties?”
“Apparently. Maybe because it’s what their parents sang to them?”
“I don’t know. Does the math math?”
“More or less. Maybe not—unless their parents were really groovy.”
I laugh. “Don’t ever say that again.”
He presses a quick, non-threatening kiss to my neck. “Don’t be such a square.”
I snuggle back against him, still only at the four minute mark but getting overconfident anyway. “Do you know the words to this one?”
“Sure.”
“Sing it to me.”
“Oh, God. You’re testing me now. But since you asked.” And he does.
Knight sings “Hard Day’s Night” softly like a lullaby near my ear. And when “Hey Jude” comes on right after it—a much longer song, mind you—he doesn’t skip a beat.
I turn my head and kiss his bicep. The twitch of his dick against my ass makes me gulp, and he shifts. I need this to be okay. I need so badly not to freak the fuck out right now. But I let him shift his hips slightly away while I squeeze his hand hard and press another kiss to his knuckles.
When that song ends, I know I’ve beaten my previous time, but that isn’t the main reason I turn around. “I need to kiss you,” I tell him. “Just don’t move okay?”
He’s staring into my eyes with so much—something—lust, adoration, love?
I press my hand to his chest and then my mouth to his.
He keeps his mouth mostly closed until I move my hand to his face and use my thumb to lower his chin and his lip.
“Easy,” I whisper the way I would tell a dog straining at a leash to calm down, though he’s not doing anything alarming at all.
He does go easy, easing his tongue against mine and then into my mouth as my tongue enters his.
Our lips melt together, moving and kissing the way they once did when things between us seemed so complicated but were actually very simple.
Warmth spills through my chest, activating nerves far lower in my pelvis, but I ignore those, wanting to get through this without some abrupt, scary ending.
Even this has been so impossible for months, no matter how much I wanted it, no matter how much I wished the anxiety away or told myself I’m safe.
I’m so, so safe for the first time I can remember.
Safer than I’ve literally ever been. And I trust Knight more than I trust anyone.
With my entire heart. He’s never done a single thing to hurt me in any way, and I don’t think he ever would—not if he could help it.
Because he’s the best person. The most valuable everything.
The most wonderful secret I’ve ever kept.
I end the kiss slowly, on a high note, while I’m still merely turned on and not fighting off flashbacks. I focus on his eyes again, my favorite eyes. “How’d I do that time?”
“You know you did great.” His hand remains firmly planted on my waist as mine drifts down to rest on his neck.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and it’s not the first time I’ve said this, nor the first time he’s shaken his head at the words.
“How’re you doing?” he asks.
“I’m okay.”
“And my singing? How was that?”
“Also, just okay.”
He smiles, and it’s so bright and beautiful I can barely stand to see it, but I stare at it anyway.
“You loved it,” he says.
“I did love it.”
A long silence here as we both register what neither of us has actually said but feels like this whole other person between us. This love.
And finally, him, “I think I’m just gonna say it.”
My heart thumps a thousand times in a second. “Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Okay, good. So that’s done.”
I cup his face and give him another long, closed-mouth kiss. “By the end of the week, maybe we’ll be engaged.”
The hand on my waist squeezes. “I’d say yes if you asked.”
Settling my head on his bicep, I say, “Then let’s just pretend I did.”
“You okay if I touch your cheek?”
I nod, my gaze never leaving his.
For the next I don’t know how long I lie there with him on the couch, listening to the Beatles, while he traces every line, shape, and shadow of my face.
I get good at little spoon faster than I thought I would after that disastrous first time.
On Tuesday, I woke up in Knight’s arms and had a minor anxiety attack, needing to turn over to face him, but by Wednesday morning I’m waking up in his embrace with his full morning wood trying to fight its way between my thighs, and I don’t panic.
Today my goal is a little different, but progress is progress, and if I’m going to keep making it, then one foot needs to keep stepping in front of the other.
I turn in his arms, and he startles. “You okay?” he blurts like a reflex.
Not my favorite reflex of his. He deserves better. Someone he doesn’t have to ask that question to over and over again.
I press my lips to his cheek and slide my hand down his bare chest, beneath the sheet, and over the hard bulge in his shorts.
His hips rut up, seeking the pressure. He groans. “Wait.”
I kiss his ear and whisper, “You don’t want it?”
“I do—I—no, I mean—I’m okay.”
“Me too.” I grip his outline and plant kisses along his jawline as he clenches it and slightly arches his neck.
“Fuck, that feels so good.” There’s an ache in his voice that somehow matches exactly how much I’ve been wanting to touch him like this.
I don’t know why I waited so long. This is the simplest thing I could have been doing.
It’s just my hand. He doesn’t even need to touch me.
I’m in complete control, and I’m safe with him.
I put my palm up to my mouth, spitting into it before reaching into his shorts and finding his dick.
He’s pouring precum the way only Knight can, I swear, and my slightly slippery fist closes over his shaft and works its way up, down, and around it in a practiced movement I’ve used on way too many guys to count, but I don’t want to think about that either.
He lets out a harsh breath, and his hips move, mindlessly fucking into my fist.
Kissing his neck, I find a rhythm with him. My hand, his long, thick dick, and his breath.
His breath, hot against my cheek, gusting through my hair.
Warm burst after warm burst and a grunt as his dick throbs because he’s close.
His breathing speeds up, and suddenly the heat of it is all I can feel.
Not his hard length in my hand or the wetness of his arousal.
Not my own pulsing cock in my sweatpants.
No. Gusting breath—too close to my face, my ear, my neck—has my heart racing, my chest tightening like a belt is pulling closed around it, squeezing tighter and tighter.
Knight chokes out his release with a low moan and another too-hot, too-close breath, and even as his cock spasms in my hand, I already feel like I’m off the bed.
And then I am off the bed, in the bathroom, no memory of crossing the room to get here, only knowing the shower is on, and I need to get my head under the water because his breath is still on my fucking face—
No.
Fuck.
My chin trembles as the water hits my head and my hand scrubs at the memory, and this whole time I’m telling myself that was Knight. That was Knight. That was good. It was amazing. It was exactly what we needed, so what the fuck is this?
“Sullivan?”
“I’m okay,” I call out.
“Is the door unlocked?”
“I don’t know. Try it. I didn’t mean to lock it.”
“It’s locked.”
“I’m sorry. Give me two minutes.”
“I’m gonna be right here. Unless you need me to go.”
“No, stay there,” I tell him. If he stays there, he’ll be there when I get over this stupid shit, and I won’t have to quit college and…and die.
Die?
Surely, I am fucking past that by now. There’s no need to die.
I turn off the water and realize only then that I still have my clothes on.