“Emmett,” he rasps against me, and my eyes fly open.
I don’t know when I closed them.
The sound that every kiss on the TV makes pops off our lips when I jerk back.
“I’m s-sorry.”
My face feels like I palmed it with lava, my pulse hammering in my ears.
I go to roll away, to escape, when I bump into his hovering hand.
“Can I touch you?”
He sounds as breathless as I feel, and when I turn to him, he’sright there. Sharing the pillow. The puffs of his exhale flittering over my cheek.
“I-I …” I swallow hard and meet his watchful brown gaze.
I can’t explain why now, why he is so much different than before. I can’t understand why the desire swirling around inside me feels foreign, yet welcome as I stare into that gaze of his. How I …wantwhatever it is that he’s offering.
I shouldn’t want that.
It feels like I’m stepping into a trap that I can see.
Willingly.
“Okay.”
His eyes darken and his hand finds my hip.
I jolt even though I know it’s coming, but that doesn’t seem to deter him from slipping his warm grip just beneath the hem of my hoodie—his hoodie—to my lower back.
I break out in goosebumps when it flattens against me, and he pulls me close. So close that I feel the heat of his chest on mine. The pressure of his thighs against mine. The bulge—
“Tristen,” I whimper, an edge to my voice that I don’t recognize.
“It’s okay.” His arm bands around my waist and pulls me flush to him, pressing my erection into him. “I’m hard, too.”
“I-I-I’ve never …”
This isn’t normal. My body doesn’t react to things like other men do.
I’m broken.
Even last night … I don’t think I was ever hard like Tristen was. Like Hatley was. There was no urge to stroke myself. To reach into my pants and touch anything. There was only a little wetness that had dried overnight in the boxers when I changed them this morning.
But right now … under his watchful gaze … his warmth surrounding me, holding me close …
The backs of my eyes burn.
And my stomach turns.
Gay. Gay. Gay. Gay.
His touch leaves my waist.
He’s repulsed by me.
I jump when his fingers brush my cheek. Twitch still when that same hand cups my jaw, his thumb swiping over my cheek.
