Addy
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
This is a mistake.
A catastrophic, life-altering, what the hell are you doing kind of mistake.
I know that.
I know that while my hands are still tangled in his T-shirt, while his mouth is still on mine, while every rational thought I have is currently being shoved into a corner and ignored like it’s optional.
I know it.
I just don’t stop.
Because the second he kissed me back, really kissed me, not careful or restrained, not pretending this was anything other than exactly what it is, everything snapped.
Every bit of control I had left is gone.
And now I’m here, pressed against him on his couch, heart racing, breath uneven, and fully aware that I'm actively ruining my own life.
“Addy,” he says, low, like it’s both a warning and something else entirely. “What are we doing?”
I don’t answer with words. I can’t. I need to feel, not think, so I slide my hand down into his sweatpants.
“Ethan,” I groan as I pull him out, swallowing his groan with my mouth, marveling at the velveted heat of him in my palm. “I want you.”
He’s huge. Heavy.
It’s like handling liquid danger, but my hand is firm as I pump him, thumb circling his head to gather the bit of slick, working him the way I’ve been daydreaming about ever since we crashed back into one another’s lives.
His palm slides up my thigh, finds the hem of my dress, and yanks it up with zero hesitation. I arch, I help, I'm complicit. I'm so goddamn ready for this mistake.
The cold breeze on my skin is nothing compared to his fingers, three of them at once, knuckle deep and unapologetic.
My body jerks and trembles, but he doesn’t slow down.
Not until he grinds his palm against my clit, not until my hips are bucking into his hand uncontrollably. He stares at me while he does it, a dare in his eyes, as if he can will me closer from the inside out.
“Fuck, Addy,” he groans, and there’s nothing careful about him now.
Not his hands, or his words, not the way he’s looking at me like I'm the only person who’s ever mattered. He pushes his fingers deeper, curls them up, and I nearly scream.
If the neighbors care, fuck them.
He leans in and covers my mouth with his, swallowing the sounds I can’t contain. I bite his lower lip, hard enough to make him gasp, and he grins right back at me, fast and feral.
“You’re a menace,” he says, and I want to laugh, but then he adds another one.
Four?
I don’t have time for arithmetic. I'm too busy coming apart at every seam, shaking, vision whited out, my body a vessel for whatever unsayable thing he’s doing to me.
This isn't a craving. This is a detonation.
Everything dissolves. There's only his hand, his mouth, the heat of his cock, the impossible fullness of his fingers.
His thumb on my clit is ruthless, the precise kind of torture that makes you beg for mercy but hope you never get it.
I'm keening, a broken thing in his arms, and he's grinning wildly, like he owns me.
Maybe he does. Maybe I want him to.
I don’t want gentle. I don’t want slow. I want to be razed to the ground, scraped raw, rebuilt in the force of this animal heat.
His hand is a weapon, and I lose track of the number of times he makes me shake, clawing at his arm, his neck, his T-shirt now wrinkled and spotted with my own sweat.
“Addy,” he gasps into my mouth. “Can I taste you?”
I yank him down, kiss him harder, a wild, wet drag of teeth and tongue. He laughs into my mouth, the sound vibrating through both of us.
“Get on your knees,” I growl.
He does and crowds between my legs. The dress is hiked to my waist, my panties shoved carelessly aside. He palms my knees, pushes them wider, and sinks lower until his breath is hot and loud against the inside of my thigh.
I’m shaking already, and he isn’t even tasting me yet.
His eyes never leave mine, that blue-gray storm smoldering as though he's daring me to look away. Like he needs to see exactly how much I want this, need this, am coming apart for this.
He licks a stripe up my thigh, slow, then presses his whole mouth to me, tongue soft then hard, then gentle again until I’m quivering, both hands in his hair.
He keeps doing this thing with his lips, with the flat of his tongue, the edge of his teeth. It isn’t just climbing; I’m unraveling, cells gone nova, entire lifetimes of sensation telescoping into the hot dark center he’s coaxing open with every flick, every greedy groan vibrating through me.
My thighs clamp on his head, and I don’t care if I bruise him. I want to mark him, claim him, make him taste this on his mouth all day tomorrow and the one after that.
I come, so intense I nearly black out, my voice hoarse and lost somewhere in the room, and he doesn’t slow until I’m clawing his scalp, begging him to let up.
He draws back, and when I meet his gaze, he’s smiling like he’s just won the lottery, like every fucked up thing we’ve ever done was just training for how to make me feel this much.
He pulls his hand away and, for one obscene, perfect second, sucks my taste from his own fingers. He doesn’t look away. Neither do I.
“You,” he says, and it sounds almost like an accusation. “What am I going to do with you?”
I slip off the couch, my knees hitting his carpet, my hands on his thighs, and my mouth at the tip of his cock, shameless.
I want him to say my name again, to say it right as I swallow him whole. I want to know how he tastes, the rough catch of his breath in my hair, I want his hands twisted in my skull so I know for sure what he craves from me.
My own heartbeat's so loud it nearly drowns the wet, obscene sound of him filling my mouth, but not quite.
Every inch of him is the answer to a question I never dared ask.
Ethan’s hands are so big, fingers threading into my hair, tugging in just enough to sting as I take him deeper.
My jaw aches with the stretch, but that hurt's as addictive as the taste of him, the salt and fire slick of his skin, the way his thighs tremble under my palms.
He starts to thrust, shallow at first, testing, then deeper as he gives up control.
His hips jack, nearly choking me, and it’s almost funny how fast his bravado dissolves into desperate need.
Above me, I hear him cursing, voice raw.
I dig my nails into his legs, letting him know he can use me, that I want to be taken.
He bucks into my face, louder now, some animal restraint barely holding at the leash. I lick him from base to tip, tasting what feels like years of loneliness, all of it poured into the thick pulse in my mouth.
I gag when he hits the back of my throat but keep going, keep going, keep going, because I'm addicted to the way he shudders, the way he goes slack and tender at the end, the way the muscles of his thighs tremble under my palms, the way his hands clutch my hair in white-knuckled desperation.
I make a mental note: this was always the real me, the version that’s hungry and fearless and impossible to shame.
He comes with my name in his mouth.
Guttural and broken, pleasure curling it into something almost unrecognizable except by us, in this moment. And I swallow him, every drop, and if the world burns away around us, it’s fine because I'm so fucking incandescent I can’t imagine ever living inside a normal light again.
After, we collapse. I'm sprawled across his chest, hair everywhere, sweat cooling between us, and everything goes quiet.
The city hums faintly beyond the windows, lights reflecting off the glass. The apartment feels smaller somehow, like the space has shifted around what just happened and hasn’t quite settled yet.
I lie against him, my head resting near his shoulder, my fingers still loosely curled against his chest like I forgot to move them. My brain is currently offline, completely. I stare at the ceiling.
“Okay,” I say eventually.
His hand stills slightly where it had been tracing absent patterns along my arm.
“Okay,” he echoes.
“That was…” I trail off.
“Yes.”
“Right.”
A pause. “We should probably not do that again, right?”
There it is.
The responsible adult has entered the chat.
“Correct,” he says.
I nod, even though he probably can’t see it. “Because of the job.”
“Yes.”
“And Oliver.”
“Yes.”
“And the fact that this could ruin everything.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
I shift slightly, turning my head so I can look at him. His expression is calm, like he’s already compartmentalizing this, putting it somewhere controlled and contained.
I should probably do that too.
I don’t.
“This is going to be a disaster,” I say.
“Most likely.”
“And we’re still going to do it again.”
His gaze flicks to mine. “Yes.”
I let out a quiet, helpless laugh. “We’re the worst.”
“Objectively.”
“And yet…”
He cuts me off by kissing me again, because talking about not doing something immediately leads to doing it again.
I kiss him back without hesitation, because at this point, what’s one more bad decision on top of the existing pile?
It’s not like I’m pretending this is under control anymore.
We both know the truth; we just said it out loud, and we just can’t keep away from each other. And that… that might be the biggest problem of all.
I pull back just enough to look at him again, my heart doing that stupid, traitorous thing where it feels too full and too fast all at once.
“This is really bad,” I whisper.
His hand comes up, brushing lightly along my jaw, steadying me in a way that feels entirely too natural. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
And then, because apparently I’ve learned nothing, I kiss him again.