My face had already felt warm under the onslaught of his kisses and the too-quickly tightening coils of heat he’d been building in me. Now it flares hot with embarrassment and panic. Because how that sounded was exactly how I’d meant it.
“You’re gonna buy a couch?”
Goddammit. I can’t read a thing in his expression as his eyes scan my face.
“Just so you can fuck me on it?” His lip twitches, just the tiniest bit, and the panicked tension in me shatters, bursting out in a laugh that makes his face split into the grin I can see now he’d only just been holding back.
And Christ, even if it weren’t for the thousand other reasons, I could kiss him for this alone. For the way he smooths over every last weird, awkward thing I throw at him, making it all alright.
“Maybe,” I tell him, quite pleased by how I’ve pulled off the dark promise I tried to pour into that word. “Why? Would you like that?”
The way his eyes darken, his already blown pupils dilating wider as his lower lip slips between his teeth, is a victory I can feel blaze through every inch of my body.
“Sunshine,” he whispers, and god, the way his voice quivers, “you can buy us as many couches as you want if you’re planning to fuck me on them.”
Us.
Jesus, maybe he was only echoing back what I’d said. But maybe he wasn’t.
I didn’t, as Tris said, fuck him. Not tonight. Not even though so much of me wanted to—more than my dick, more than the desperate, insatiable need he’s awakened in me. God, not even though I think I’m probably ready to.
Certainly I still have some lingering guilt and anxiety related to the idea. Especially as I force myself to face the fact that tonight, the already strong feelings I had for him have intensified to a dizzying degree.
What I feel for him is so much more than physical attraction, and yet pushing past that barrier I’d placed between us has done nothing but magnify it all, the emotional as well as the physical.
Christ, I’d already known I was falling too fast and too hard for him, but now…
My heart pounds out a heavy, dizzy beat and the world swims around me for a moment, so much that I have to close my eyes.
Now, if I give in to what I so badly want and let myself cross the line I’m only just clinging to, I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep pretending I don’t already know exactly what I feel for him, no matter how much it terrifies me to admit it to myself.
And not all of my anxiety stems from the shrinking but still not quite shakable feeling that to actually have sex with Tristan, opening myself to emotional ramifications that I can’t deny will follow, feels too dangerous. As my runaway feelings for him grow, my fear of losing him grows too.
I know it’s wrong and stupid, and Alex would never rest until he’d (metaphorically) beaten some sense into me if he knew I was doing it, yet I can’t help willfully holding back.Trying my hardest to keep myself even just the littlest bit safe from the heartbreak I can’t keep from believing will inevitably follow if I fully give myself over to Tristan.
Tris and I did, however, end up back in my bed, kissing and grinding together until, yet again, it had been impossible not to strip naked and rut and thrust against each other, this time, using the lube I’d had the forethought to grab out of my dresser as we’d staggered and kissed our way from my chair to my bed.
“Next time,” I breathe against his neck as I settle back down into the bed after tossing the damp towel I’d used to wipe the two of us (mostly) clean toward the general vicinity of my laundry hamper, “I’m going to take my time with you.”
For a second, he looks like he’s about to climb out of bed after that towel to tuck it properly into the hamper that it missed by a good foot, but as my lips skim over his slightly sweat-dampened skin, he shivers against me, melting into my words with a quiet sound that has my very well satisfied dick valiantly trying to stiffen all over again.
“I want to make you feel so good, Tris,” I whisper, moving up to kiss my words against his ear before nipping at the skin just below it.
“Uhhhfuck, sunshine,” he gasps with a highly satisfying squirm. “Youdo.”
Without lifting my lips from his neck, I shake my head. “I want to show you how you deserve to be made to feel. I want to— God, Tris, I want to worship you.”
“Why?”
The confusion in that one-word question and the blatant sincerity in the way his eyes go wide with surprise as he jolts up to meet my gaze is almost enough to break my heart. I can tell the moment the question is out of his mouth that heregrets it by the way his lips tighten and his eyebrows pull together. Still, I can’t just let this pass.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
For a moment, he looks like he’s considering not answering, chewing lightly at his lip, closed-off distance shuttering his eyes as his body goes rigid and tense in my suddenly slack arms.
And then he softens.
“I’m not—” He presses his face against my chest, breathing out a long, shaky breath. “Fuck. It’s not just what you said, Jesse. It’s—it’severything.” Another shaky breath and I can feel the sudden uptick of his heart pounding against me.
