I want to believe it, but it doesn't matter whether I do. I can't leave him now. I don't think I ever could.
"Roll over."
My voice shakes when I tell him what to do, but we both need to hurry, no time to waste when I've heard at least a couple of voices in the hall. I'm overwhelmed with lust and preemptive regret, but I'mthinking just clearly enough to grab his sweatpants from the floor and shove them into the space between the headboard and the wall. Whether Taylor McKeon's luxurious guest bed will make enough noise to give us away won't be answered until we're on our way to a precariously private moment, but my restraint has frayed and I simply won't care by then.
Raiding the nightstand drawer, I ignore that Jamie's head isn't even turned to look at me, his back arched as if he's made a blind offer like this a thousand times before. It leaves him on display, some version of that true his entire life, and there's so little I can do to keep from taking advantage of it now.
But I can silently remind him how much this nobody loves him.
My tongue touches him first, my hands holding him open for me, then holding him still as he bucks in my grip. When I sit back, slick fingertips circle him for a few seconds before I make everything wetter and more obscene. He should be tense, I think—guarded against something inherently intrusive—but I suppose that's another thing the years have stolen from him, and he sounds almost relieved when I push forward with two fingers at once. I don't know what else he needs from me, and I'll barely find out, but I shift until my weight can press him into the mattress and he squirms for more of a touch I'd give him forever if I could.
Someone in the next room speaks, and Jamie moans into the same pillow that smothered his sounds a while ago. I give up wishing we could be anywhere else, and I slide my fingers free just in time to hear him smother something new. Clumsy and very much not, I nudge his legs apart with my knee and pour enough lube into my hand to make stroking my dick as loud as anything else I've done, and I think it only makes me angrier about secrets I don't want to keep. A smeared handprint mars an overpriced duvet, and then I'm crossing every line I ever drew.
Jamie either heard me open the condom wrapper before I fingered him open or he doesn't care whether I'm wearing one. The idea of being bare inside him has me biting his shoulder until I imagine I can taste blood, but then I imagine nothing and feel everything as I rock into him with one long thrust after another, hardly gentle and hopelessly in love. This position limits the tattletale slap of skin on skin, and we find our rhythm sooner than anyone should. His body is tight and begs for mine while I answer with something likeyours yours yourson every exhale.
Then I realize I need to fight with him, if for no other reason than to prove I have an ounce of willpower left in me.
"C'mere," I grunt, my arm forced under his abdomen to lift him a few inches off the bed and away from the contact that must feel so good against his weeping cock.
He's the professional athlete, but I'm plenty strong, and Jamie lets me have the win for a minute before he fights back, swearing at me when he grabs his pillow and shoves it past my arm. His quick thinking changes two things for us, and I'll remember both for as long as I live.
One, it means he can unabashedly hump his way to an orgasm while I admire something so wildly vulgar that I almost come inside him right then.
Two, it means there's nothing to keep Jamie from crying out until I cover his mouth and fuck every noise he makes into the palm of my greedy hand.
We're chaos now, that perfect rhythm faltering as we wear each other down. This warm room has grown hot, and I let myself love the sweat between us before he makes me realize I'm not covering his mouth as well anymore.
"Don't stop, 'Teo," he breathes. "Please don't stop."
I couldn't if I tried, but I have to make him stoptalking, and I slip my fingers past his lips, unsurprised when he sucks them hungrily. With him closer to silent again, I get rough, intent on making him forget every nobody he's had since prom night with Melanie Bishop. My thrusts speed up and the angle is so fucking good and his body won't still beneath mine. He's needed me since I gave him a ride to a taco truck within walking distance of his front door. He's needed to know I miss him when he tells me I'm not allowed to. He's needed to know he can find me in the quiet spaces between strangers' cheers. It's possible he's needed to know I'd show up—wholly uninvited—at a hockey legend's vacation home for the chance to put an end to us once and for all.
But I don't think I've ever needed him to need me like I do now.
I'm wrapped around him while I bury myself deep and plead for him to keep me there. Jamie's still fucking the pillow, and as he's madly sucking on my fingers, he finds where my other hand is pressed to his heart and covers it tightly. He's going to come within seconds, and I don't know why I know that without knowing this part of him at all.
When it happens, Jamie shudders beneath me and bites my fingers hard enough to hurt.
When I come a minute later, the hand over his heart curls violently and cuts him open.
I leave him because I have to, almost responsible when I hide the condom in a couple of balled-up tissues. He rolls over slowly, staring at me when I attempt to assess the damage we've done. I think we might've kept quiet enough that nobody in the house heard us break promises to ourselves, but I'm not sure what can be done about the state of anything else. The bedding is stained with lube and sweat and blood and cum. At least a couple of those will leave the room smelling of sex for hours unless we open a window soon. My fingers will heal fine, but they hurt now.
And Jamie's been left with a wound that could've been avoided if I'd just stayed home.
Chapter Seventeen: Jamie
(I Knew Someone Named Logan)
He stays.
Mateostays.
I'm not stupid enough to believe some part of it isn't because he has nowhere else to go. Then again, this is Mateo, and he makes lists of his lists and plans for his plans. If I ignore how absolutely unlike himself he's been tonight, I can assume he made a reservation somewhere. Or maybe he'd be happy sleeping in a rental car. He does like camping, after all.
Still, he stays, and we don't say a single fucking word to each other while we do what we can to hide the evidence of love we've kept secret for years. I retrieve my sweatpants from their position behind the headboard and look for my tank top. Mateo is already wearing his boxer briefs again. He gets a washcloth from the adjoining bathroom and goes to work on the worst of anything we did to the duvet. I open a window and don't worry that everyone who'd been outside has made it in. The pillow is probably beyond saving, and I'll wait to trash it when nobody else is looking. Mateo takes a deep breath, peeks into the hallway, and grabs his duffel bag from where it wasleft next to the door.
The dim lamp in the corner of the room has allowed us to see plenty tonight, but I think both of us were done with that a while ago. We spend those last several minutes navigating the dark instead, and crawl into bed with matching sighs.
We lace our fingers together, but never say goodnight.