“No,” I whispered, managing to force the word out despite all the wildly careening emotions trying to lock my throat closed. On one side was a combination of a lifetime of super-top-secret fantasies and a brain-fogging dose of horniness, and on the other, all my dark, desperate, soul-destroying doubts that made it seem utterly impossible that any of this could actually be real.
My eyes welled up. It was too much. I just wanted to sink back down into that floaty place Gage had put me in when I’d been gagging on his cock. I wanted to stay pinned underneath him, just like this, forever, please and thank you. I wanted to believe that every one of the amazing things he was saying meant what I wanted it to.
Of course I was his.
Of course he’d always take care of me.
I should have been content—no,ecstatic—that he’d just told me that the gay-sex stuff wouldn’t ruin us, but instead, I… I wanted more. I wanted to know that when he’d said “you and me,” he’d meant “onlyyou and me.”
The truth was that my heart was selfish and greedy and utterly dependent on him. Instead of being the kind of friend who only wanted my bestie to be happy, the horrible, shameful, deep-down secret truth was that what Ireallywanted was for Gage to be happy… withme.
And to have him be mine, too.
Onlymine.
All the waymine.
Every time Gage got lucky with some girl, I tried to pretend that I was that first kind of friend, the happy-for-him kind, but… but it wasn’t true. And now that I knew what it was like for us to be naked together? Now that he’d let me call him Master,and I knew the taste of his cum, and would always remember what it felt like to have his hand around my dick?
I didn’t know which would be worse, having to give all that up when the collar finally came off and go back to never touching his cock again… ornevergiving it up, but still having to share him with girls and hear him talk about touching their boobs and know that he got off on hearing them beg for the snake, too.
A vision of that pretty blonde he’d had his sights set on at poker night suddenly flashed in my head, and I felt sick. Thankfully, I’d been too drunk to remember all their flirting in detail, but I had no doubt that she hated me for cockblocking her that night by winning the collar… just like I had no doubt that she’d try again, because this wasGage. Who wouldn’t move heaven and earth to be with him?
I swallowed hard, hating the question even before I asked it but still unable to stop myself from blurting out, “What about… What about… that girl, though? From poker night.”
I knew her name—Cassie Johnson. I just didn’t want to say it, because with Gage on top of me like this, his erection digging into me and mine trying to drill right through his mattress, I could already tell there was no way I could have kept the raging jealousy out of my voice if I’d said her name out loud. My tongue probably would have split in two and shriveled up into nasty, burnt husks of useless, blackened flesh if I’d tried, and then how would I have given him blowjobs in the future?
If, I mean… if that was even an option.
Which he’d made it sound like itwas.
Something fluttered in my belly, like just the tip of one tiny wing of the world’s smallest butterfly of hope.
Maybe Icouldhandle it? Sharing him, I mean? If I at least still got to have that?
But then—
“You mean Cassie?” Gage asked, his big body going unnaturally still on top of mine.
I tried to nod but couldn’t. Spoiler: I definitely couldn’t handle sharing him. Just hearing her name on his lips had killed that little butterfly dead.
“Or do you mean Cassie’s hot friend?” Gage went on, the words stabbing me in the heart all over again.
I squeezed my eyes closed and pressed my cheek against the cinnamon-and-Gage-scented sheets as a lump the size of the entire world lodged in my throat.
Her “hot” friend, he’d said. I was going to die of heartbreak, just like that hopeless little butterfly had.
Gage liked girls, full stop, and it had been beyond dumb to let any part of myself hope that fact would ever change, especially not from putting on a stupid dog collar for him.
“Mel,” Gage said as his hand skimmed down my side, then back up, leaving a trail of tingling heat in its wake. “Pretty sure that was the chick’s name.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, even though it didn’t actually matter. Cassie. Mel. Any of them. All the girls who were… were not me.
I inhaled an entire lungful of Gage’s cinnamony-deliciousness, holding it inside for a moment as if it could soothe away the hurt of knowing I would never be what he truly wanted no matter how much he’d made me feel like I was earlier.
Then I exhaled, facing the truth.
Of course he’d made me feel like he wanted me. It didn’t mean he actuallydid. It was just how Gage was. He was just… just soniceto me all the time. And he’d somehow known that chocolate and his cock were exactly what I’d needed to calm me down after that horrible breakfast with my parents, because, like he’d said, healwaystook care of me.
