And this, this is different than before. That layer of distance that used to live in these moments has been stripped away, and my name is slipping out of his mouth like a fucking prayer, and he only breaks eye contact at the very end, when his head tips back and the sexiest, most desperate sounds drag their way out of his throat.
I think it’s the hardest I’ve ever come, watching him like that. It seems to go on and on and on, till I feel almost wrecked with it. Even the aftershocks kill me, little stabs of pleasure that have me clutching his hips like a lifeline. I think he’s feeling it, too. He’s holding my shoulders painfully tightly, and his head has tipped forward, tiny sounds almost like whimpers escaping his lips.
“Fuck,” he manages finally.
“Fuck,” I agree.
It makes him laugh again, a breathy, strangled sound.
“I can’t believe I went ten months without you,” he says.
And hell, if that doesn’t cut straight to my heart. For a second I feel like I’m back in the ICU, pressing my lips to his skin and asking him not to die. I never want to lose him again.
I lean forward carefully and kiss him, my fingers digging into his thighs. There’s a new scar on the right, stretching down from his hip. “I love you so much.”
Color rises to his cheeks, but he smiles and says, “Love you, too.”
We drag ourselves to the bathroom and shower together without having sex, a strange new intimacy. I trace the new scars on his skin with wet fingertips.
“Do they hurt at all?” I ask.
He watches my fingers move. “Not really. They’re kind of ugly, though. There’s some fancy laser therapy that could fade them.”
“I don’t think they’re ugly.” I run my fingers up and down the long scar on his thigh. “Think you’ll get it done?”
He grins. “Not if you keep touching them like that.”
Afterward, we get back in bed and laze around awhile longer, until my phone alarm goes off, reminding me of a stupid commercial thing I’ve got to do for one of Harper’s sponsors.
“You can stay here as long as you want,” I tell Jacob as I pull on my jeans. “I mean, you don’t have to—”
“No, I will,” he says. He leans forward in bed, crossing his arms over his knees. “Kelsie’s working on this huge paper for school, so I’ve been trying to make myself scarce.” He hesitates a moment, then adds, “Might use the sim a bit, if that’s okay.”
Warmth spreads through my chest. “Go for it,” I answer. “It’s yours.”
He grins at me, a little crooked and a little shy, and I force myself to say goodbye and leave, because otherwise, I’m going to wind up climbing back into bed with him.
The Harper thing ends up running late—I’m no actor, and apparently my performance as “guy who genuinely likes Panther Soda” is highly unconvincing—and I arrive home past seven, after a quick detour to pick Morocco up from Heather’s place. I grin a bit foolishly when she leaps onto Jacob’s lap the moment she sees him, as if he’s an old friend. I kiss Jacob on the lips and Morocco on the top of her head, then head for a shower. I emerge from my bedroom fifteen minutes later, pulling on a long-sleeve shirt, to find Jacob standing in front of my cabinets, both him and Morocco staring wistfully at the food inside.
“Hungry?” I say.
“Starving. I got caught up on the sim and forgot to eat anything.”
I laugh. “So, eat something now.”
He sighs and closes the cabinets. “Yeah, but then if I don’t eat whatever your friends have, they’ll think I’m a dick. Even more of a dick, I mean.”
“They don’t think you’re a dick.”
He makes a doubtful noise. “They should.”
“Jacob.” I curl my hands around his biceps. “You’re not a dick.”
He turns to face me, his mouth twisted a bit unhappily. “I was, though. I was the one who broke up with you. And I was a piss-poor boyfriend for a year before that.”
I frown. “Do you really believe that?”
“I generally believe things that are true, yeah.”
