Or are all of those words meaningless, and I’m wasting my time trying to decide?
I try to ignore the cascade of questions in my head and focus on the feel and smell of him while he gradually settles into my arms.
“Do you wanna sleep?” I ask, once we’ve been awkwardly huddled here for a while.
Micah takes another deep breath before leaning back. He keeps a tight hold of me but creates enough space so he can look me in the eye. There’s a spark of something there, and I’m trying to place his expression when he leans in and kisses me.
Not like family.
Like someone desperate. It goes on and on until there are exactly zero thoughts left in my head other than how warm he is and how everything tastes like the two of us mingled together. When he breaks away, I chase his lips for more without thinking, my cock half-hard again and pressed against his thigh.
“What was that for?” I try not to sound too breathy when I ask, but I don’t think that I’m successful.
Micah hesitates for a few seconds, which is also unlike him and makes me tilt my head to get a better look at him while I wait for an answer.
“Tadhg, can I fuck you?”
That is not what I was expecting.
Is this… Does this make me something? Something different than what I already am?
Fuck it. It’s not like I didn’t hate myself before. Maybe whatever this turns me into will be better.
I nod, because I can’t find my words right now.
“Are you sure?” His hands are steady now as he reaches for my face in that way I’ve already come to love. “We can wait, if you’re not ready. Or if you never want to. It’s all okay.”
“Do it. I want to.” I choke the words out, filled with an overwhelming need that I can’t possibly give voice to. Father showing up has made me more aware than ever that whatever is happening between us, it won’t last. I’m not that lucky. I don’t have time to nurse my fears and inhibitions. If I want to experience Micah before I die, I’ll never know when my last chance might be, so it might as well be tonight. “Please, Bambi. Do it.”
“Do you wanna talk about it first?”
I shake my head, which makes Micah frown, but apparently, he’s also too tired and emotional to do more talking right now.
A tentative but irrepressible smile begins to spread across my face, because I know that no matter what, I’ll get to have this at least once. As soon as he sees it, it spreads to his as well. And even though we don’t move from our position, it feels like somethingshifts. Like all that tension from before is retreating, following Father on his way out of the apartment and sealing us back up in the same bubble we were building before he showed up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Micah
Ineed this. But it’s more than that, I think he needs this, too. It’s irresponsible, and maybe I’m fooling myself. How well can I really know him when we’ve spent so much time apart?
But every inch of me is rooted in the belief that whenever Tadhg seems like he’s about to float away, out of my reach, the best way to bring him back to Earth is by overwhelming him with the intensity of how much I want him. He scared me when he offered to leave. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Even though he kept a calm, detached demeanor while he said the words, I could see his anxiety crawling just beneath the surface. He doesn’t want to run from me, but he’ll do it if he thinks I’m in danger. And I wouldn’t put it past that reactionary brain of his to get too worked up over something small and then steal away in the middle of the night.
I do not want to have to track him down. I’m not built for those specific kinds of shenanigans. And I would absolutely stick out in a biker bar.
This is a much better alternative. Maybe it’s too soon to crank the sex lever all the way up to eleven, but it feels right. I want to use any tool I have to burn away the threats of reality that are creeping in to haunt us. I want to devour him. To tear him apart, limb by limb, and then rebuild him so he’s marked with me, inside and out.
I’ll show him that he absolutely, incontrovertibly belongs to me, and anyone who wants to take him away will have to pry him out of my cold, dead hands.
Including his own self-sabotaging brain.
Savage
The floor is cold and unforgiving under my knees. My shoulders strain with my hands tied behind my back with some fancy silk rope that Bambi produced from somewhere, and it’s taking constant micro-adjustments of all my muscles to keep myself from falling over. It’s just uncomfortable enough to keep me in a state of constant red alert, and I can already feel the adrenaline flushing through me in a way that feels almost cleansing.
The edges of the world feel softer and at the center of everything is Micah in sharp, high-def focus. He’s towering over me, looking ten feet tall from this angle and making me feel impossibly small and weak.
