Your move, Jessie, I tell him with my eyes.
He either ignores the message or he can’t read me the way I read him, because he doesn’t show any sign that he feels my feet touching him. I don’t move for a long time. The leg that’s on him starts to feel too heavy and my knee starts taking strain from the awkward angle it’s in. The rage from before bubbles to the surface again. It emboldens me to the point of recklessness. Foolishness. I bend my knee slightly, curling my foot closer to his body, so close I can feel his dick against the sole of my foot.
What you gonna do about it?I ask with my eyes.
He doesn’t answer.
My nerve starts to fail me. I start to panic.What the hell am I doing?I can’t touch someone like this without their consent. It’s gross and wrong.What’s wrong with me?I feel shaky and scared and for once it’s not just from being close to Jessie. I feel scared of who I am right now.
I move my foot quickly, planning to curl myself into a ball, leaving a large, safe margin of space between us. He moves quickly too. He catches my ankle in his hand and circles it tightly. I manage to stifle the surprised squeak that tried to come out, but I have no such luck when it comes to the sharp intake of breath that fills my lungs so fast, if I was upright, I’d have a head rush.
He holds my ankle for a while. A full minute or more. My heart pounds like I have a knife at my throat. Anticipation and longing flow through my veins. He looks at me, dappled light from the TV outlines his face; raven hair, impossibly high cheekbones, ancient pain in his eyes. He smiles at me. It is a smile this time, but not one that’s pretty. It’s dangerous and dark.
He got my message.
He moves my foot back where it was before, nestled in his lap up against him. He keeps holding my ankle. He holds it hard. Almost too hard. Long, elegant fingers dig into my skin.
He sends me a message of his own. A hard one.
Neither of us move. I feel denim and a zipper and the sinewy hardness of him pressing into the ball of my foot. Thank God I’m lying down because there’s no way I could bear my own weight right now. My face is hot and even though I’m trying to control it, my breathing is coming in great, uneven gasps. His hand moves, so lightly that at first I think it’s my imagination. He does it again, softly tracing the curve of my ankle bone with the pad of his thumb, sending a shock wave up my leg straight to my groin. Anticipation and longing burn through my cells. I try desperately to think what I can do to make sure he doesn’t stop. To make him give me more. I can’t think, though. My brain is clouded, and my thoughts come slowly like a word I know well but suddenly can’t remember, a word that’s on the tip of my tongue but remains frustratingly elusive. His hand moves again. His skin is warm against mine. He draws a line from my ankle across the arch of my foot and then back again. Electricity tingles up the back of my legs and all the way up my spine. The next time he moves he uses his whole hand, wrapping his fingers around my foot so his fingertips are digging into the fleshy sole of my foot.
I groan the only word I can remember.
“Jessie.”
He flinches and gives my leg a curt little pat and then moves my foot off him firmly.
“I’m going to turn in,” he says, getting up off the sofa. He sucks a small piece of his bottom lip into his mouth and looks down at me with a faraway look in his eyes. It’s a new look. One I find totally unreadable.
Regret?
Malice?
Mirth?
I can’t tell and I don’t want to care, but I do. I care more than I’ve ever cared about anything. I’m simmering with frustration and paralyzed by arousal.
Eventually, I get up and clean my teeth and take a cold shower. It does less than nothing to help. I haven’t jerked off for two days because I’ve been trying to force his hand and make him choose between Izzy and me. I’m starting to feel like if I don’t get a release soon there’s a real possibility of something bad happening. Really bad. Something rare, a medical marvel, like an aneurysm that’s accompanied by an eruption of semen out of both ears.
Fuck this shit.
I’m going to bed and I’m going to jack off. It’s my fucking house too.
10
Jessie
Ilieinbedand wait for him. I try not to, but right now all the arguments I’ve been using to convince myself that touching him would be a huge mistake seem ill thought out and poorly formed.
Exhibit A – he’s my stepbrother
So what if his mother is married to my father? I’m not married to anyone and it’s not like they asked for my blessing before they got married. In fact, I think you’ll find I was against the marriage from the start. This whole thing is their fault, really. If they’d bothered to ask me, I’d have said, “hell no,” and this whole fucked up step bro situation could have been avoided entirely. And what the hell were they thinking, putting us out here alone in the guest house? I mean, have they seen Luke? He looks like he was built for the sole purpose of getting guys to start questioning their sexuality. For me that question was asked and answered years ago, so I’m the last guy on Earth they should have put in this position. It’s almost like they wanted something to happen.
Far be it from me to disappoint them.
Exhibit B – he’s so sweet and nice, and I’ll hurt him badly if I go anywhere near him.
Is he, though? Is he really? Because he sure as hell didn’t seem all that nice when he flipped his lid about me talking to Izzy. His brows were furrowed and his chin was drawn down to his chest. He was breathing roughly, inhaling and exhaling through his mouth like an animal. He looked like a totally different person. It annoyed me and shocked me at the time, but I can’t deny I respect the hell out of him for it.
