"Lena is nobody."
"Yeah," Jamie says.
"The other women—the ones from the pictures—they were nobody."
He doesn't say something as quickly this time, wary about the accusations I could throw at him as if I've ever called him a whore. Itry to make it better when I catch the hem of his tank top and tether myself to him, but my fist around the fabric isn't kind. His response is to scrape his fingernail against the band letters on the front of my t-shirt, the touch as casual as it is arousing, and it's not going to be enough for much longer.
Jamie's gaze doesn't meet mine. Not then. "Everyone has been nobody. Everyone except—"
"No," I interrupt, my voice loud and low. "Don't say it."
"You don't believe me?"
Our breathing has synced, but nothing about it is peaceful. I'm angrier than I have any right to be when I'm the uninvited guest, and I harness it instead of letting it go. The longer I take to speak, the more Jamie gets desperate for it, and I don't think I'm playing a game with him, even when I'm rewarded with a shaky plea for something. Anything.
He could be playing a game with me. I'm shaking just as much as he is.
"I believe you just fine, but it's not—" I don't mean to demand eye contact by trailing off like that, but when I take several seconds to keep talking, black ice stares me down and leaves me with goosebumps that make me a liar. I let go of his shirt and knock his finger away from where it's touching mine, only to palm his dick roughly over his sweatpants. He's half hard and still vibrating with unfinished conversations that won't end tonight, and I exhale against his ear. "Is this for her or for me?"
It's for both of us, I think, but as much as I need that to be true, my impatience won't hold for an answer. I claw at his clothes, from his tank top to his sweatpants and back again. Jamie's pissed off and confused and so goddamn eager to touch me as much as he can, so he doesn't hesitate to fight back, my chest completely bare before I can figure out how it happened. He's working at my jeans now,unconcerned about a house full of people who will wonder why Lena was sent downstairs, and I'm frantic when he reminds me I'd asked him a question.
"She's nobody," Jamie hisses. "I fucking told you, you're the only—"
I cut him off with a brutal kiss, so unlike anything we've shared before, and I pull back just to fight again. "Please. Forget who I am. Just for tonight—just with you—I want—"
"To be nobody, too."
He understands. I don't need to explain because he understands. I don't need to explain because, once upon a time, in his best friend's bar, he wanted to be nobody, and the same anonymity that shielded us through sunrise is what's damned us ever since. I don't need to explain because he's ready to wield anonymity as a weapon now, just as surely as I am.
We'll be devastated by morning, but at least we'll have this first.
I kiss him again, or he kisses me, and I reach past his waistband to stroke him for the first time, his cock thick and wet andmine. The sound Jamie makes is dripping with sin, and the saint in me swallows it whole. He fumbles for a grip on me too, but even unzipped, my jeans and boxer briefs are still in the way, and I'm not interested in making this part easy for him. I walk him backward until he falls onto the bed, his sweatpants bunched around his ankles while he waits for me.
It's the story of us, made ugly by need, but neither of us is going to look away. I issue a command to this beautiful man and note how quickly he moves in response, even when he's shaking his head, awkward and perfect when he scoots up the bed to leave room for all the mistakes we're about to make.
I'm desperate to get his dick down my throat, but I crawl further than that first, grinding against his bare thigh while our tongues takemore than they give. Jamie's hands are in my hair, far from gentle when he tries to arch into any contact he can find.
"She didn't taste like you," he pants. "None of them ever taste like you."
"I'm not me tonight. You don't know me. You haven't already memorized the way I taste and the way I sound and the way I feel. We'll fuck, and then we'll forget."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't," I say, stealing one more filthy kiss before I slide down his body. On any other night, I'd spend forever devouring him from head to toe, but we don't have the luxury of things like time or tenderness. "This would be so much easier if you did."
A second later, my mouth is around his cock, and a pillow is over his mouth. It's a sharp reminder that there are people everywhere, and I can't be nearly as enthusiastic as I'd like to be. That knife twists a little when I realize he wouldn't bother with a pillow if Lena were still here, and I go back on my word because I don't want to forget a second of a night I'm not allowed to have. Jamie's heavy on my tongue and I'm unsurprised by it, and the perfect fit of his balls in my hand is something I've imagined, too. He leaks more than anyone I've been with in a while, and in a different daydream, I'll tease it out of him until he cries.
There's no teasing tonight. I tell myself to remember how I suck and hum and choke, and how he can't stay still beneath me, his fingers curled into my hair again while he thrusts into my mouth. Then my mind races ahead, thinking about what happens next. We once told each other we wanted to be slow and loud, but the clock is ticking and we'll have to be silent. I let him go and disappoint us both, painfully hard when I scramble off the end of the bed and pull his sweatpants from where he's been cuffed by them.
He's naked and needy and stunningly scarred and still simmeringwith the fury left behind when I interrupted something that would've been so easy for him. What we're doing now will fracture Jamie, me, andus, and those cracks will never fully heal, no matter how much we promise to love each other forever or wait for even longer than that.
We only get one first time, and the tears pooling in his eyes all but promise me it will be our last.
"Nightstand," Jamie says. It's closer to where he lies, but he hasn't stopped staring up at me. Maybe there's no reason to put effort in when I'm so willing to be the one to ruin us. "Taylor keeps the bedrooms well-stocked for weeks like this. Help yourself."
I don't move from the foot of the bed right away. I furiously rake my fingers through my hair and shiver when I drop my hands to my hips, pushing at my jeans and everything I can drag away with them. Downstairs, the music is thumping, and the smack of pool balls punctuates laughter I almost envy. Nothing is funny up here, and my heart pounds relentlessly when I meet the challenge in Jamie's eyes.
It'll haunt me someday, how close I am to changing my mind. I flew all the way here, but I don't think it was for the chance to bare myself to him so literally. Maybe if I put my clothes back on and kiss Jamie like it's just us and the ocean, it won't matter that I sucked his dick for a few minutes first. He once heard me come, but we held on to something like friendship long after I cleaned up my mess, and I want to believe getting dressed and walking away could save us now.