Chapter Twenty-One
Darren
Tell me you’ll let me fuck you.
It comes out like a demand, which is both the opposite of what I intended and exactly what most people would expect. I’m spoiled and selfish, but my charm means I get laid easily and often, even when I’m bossy about it. I’ve given a hundred men the lines I want them to say, and they repeat them back like eager little understudies in a show I’ve directed for years. And then I flash my dimples and bend beneath their hands, and by the time I leave them behind, they’d swear it was all their idea.
It comes out like a demand because I’m used to getting my way. It won’t be taken as one because Jake is nobody’s understudy, and he sees through me better than anyone but Beau.
I only wish he loved me half as much.
“I will.”
His voice startles me, and I rise from where my face has beenburied in his neck, my fingers slipping free so I can hold on to his hip. “What?”
“I want you to.”
In every other scenario, I’d tease the fuck out of him—literally—pouting or begging or flirting through an entire charade of “You want me towhat?” until he’d utter the word in that perfectly low growl of his. Tonight, I don’t even try. Jake’s said plenty already, and I think fucking is so far from what’s about to happen between us that it’s probably safer to keep from describing it at all.
I kiss him again, fully aware of how close we are already. I’ll only need to nudge his legs further apart. Get my cock wet. Press a hand to the back of his thigh. Ease my dick past his body’s predictably quick objection to it. Continue to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until we both sigh with relief.
We don’t need a condom tonight, but I brought one from the bathroom just in case. Maybe he’ll want me to wear it. Maybe he won’t understand what I’m really saying when I tell him why I can fuck him bare.
Fuck, it’s been so long since I’ve done this.
We’re still grinding against each other. Sort of. Barely. Jake’s hard again, and I haven’t stopped dripping everywhere, but the wine has made us so unhurried. I think I only start talking again because the wine has made me softly honest, too.
“We’ve been careful all this time because I—you know about the keg room and bathrooms and backseats and—”
“I know I’m not the only one, sweetheart,” Jakeinterrupts. “It’s never stopped me from wanting you. I still want you now.”
“You are, though. The only one. You have been.”
My courage falters, and I push my tongue into his open mouth, stealing whatever uncensored response might’ve made at least one of us bleed. I don’t know whether I want him to understand right away, or whether his incredulity would be better, but for another several seconds, I don’t have to worry about it. Jake’s tongue becomes the aggressor, and I submit without question, his hand curled into my hair. It’s the roughest he’s been tonight, but I know it won’t last, and I’m ready to let it go.
When his touch turns gentle, he murmurs against my lips. “For how long?”
“Tapas.”
“Darren.”
“I know.”
“That wasOctober. That was before we—”
“Can I fuck you without the condom?”
I’m already pulling away from him when I ask, and he’s staring at me as I kneel between his legs. The click of the cap is too quiet to make either of us look at the bottle in my hand, and Jake’s busy nodding anyway, his blue-gray eyes darkened by want and fear.
I know both feelings well. My heart has kept their beats for a while.
His legs have mostly fallen open for me, and his hand’s on his cock when I stroke mine with more lube than we’d need the other way around. I use my dry hand to bend his leg and drag the head of my dick over his slick hole a few times, turned on that muchmore when I see how it flutters in response. He gasps when I first rock forward, so I make eye contact again and tell him I’ve got him and wipe my hand on the first shirt I grab and slide deeper and deeper. Jake’s instincts have him seeking and escaping in equal measure, and just as I wonder whether I should give him more time, he shakes his head and covers the hand on his thigh with his own.
“Don’t you dare.”
It’s my turn to nod, and as long as Jake is still so focused on me, I take the opportunity he’s offered. I’m overwhelmed as soon as I think about what I’m doing, and I must be shaking, but I don’t stop moving until I’m as connected to him as I’ve been to anyone.
Well, one other person. Ever.