Where am I going to go, Jeff? Across the street for some pizza? Around the corner for a flat white?
He smiles like he’s got a direct line to my sarcastic thoughts then turns and disappears into the bathroom, assumedly to grab protection. When he reappears in the square of light that surrounds him from the open door, I breathe deeply and sit-up a little so I can fully experience the sight of his slow walk back, the way he steps out of his boxer-briefs, pauses to let me take him all in for the first time—it is the sweetest, most painful anticipation I’ve ever felt.
He watches me the entire time he rolls on the condom and I feel an irrational surge of jealousy towards that layer of latex. I want to be around him. I reach for him, close each of my fingers around what I want and his eyes close, and I stroke him slowly, until he lets out a low growl and grabs my busy hand. He snakes his fingers between mine and pushes me back into the mattress, pinning the hand he claimed over my head. I push my ass up off the bed, needing to be closer, and he fills me in one slow thrust. I squeeze my knees tighter, never wanting to let go of this—of him inside of me. All I know for certain in this world is that the heavy, tingling need is rising up again, more insistent this time.
I hook my ankles behind his back and move to feed that need, slowly at first, then faster, harder as Jeff’s voice sends spirals of heat down over my body. His wants and desires are emptying into my ear and every one makes the feeling intensify and grow. What he’s going to do to me—how long he’s wanted this—every word is like spraying hairspray on an open flame and the images that are playing through my head make me greedy and wild. I clutch his shoulder with my free hand and rock until I’m teetering on the edge again.
“Let go, Devon. I want to feel you let go around me?—”
His rhythm picks up, his free hand pulling my hips down toward him so he’s so deep that I cry out as the pleasure spikes and sends me tumbling into the delicious release. Jeff lets go as I fall, my name on his lips against my neck, his fingers still threaded through mine and clutching my hip. When the final pulse of relief pours out of us, he looks down at me, his eyes dark and serious, a dangerous smile teasing his mouth and says,
“You only called me Damon once. Not too bad.”
I laugh until his mouth makes me forget what’s so funny.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jeff
Lesson 36: See lesson 23 and raise it to hide all care packages from Donna.
I watch her tiptoe across my bedroom, the morning sun streaming through the blinds, sending streaks of light reaching toward her. I can’t blame the light. I want to reach for her, too. Pull her back in bed and tuck her up against me so that time can freeze around last night. Her effort to not wake me is both endearing and comical as she steps in the middle of a wire hanger and gets it stuck on her foot.
“I’m awake,” I tell her before she kills herself. I lift myself up onto my elbow.
She jumps, then rushes into the open bathroom and scoots behind the door so I can only see her face and rumpled hair.
“Devon, are you seriously trying to hide your body from me? I just spent the better part of ten hours doing things to you that?—”
“That was under the haze of first sex.”
“And second sex. Third sex. Fourth?—”
“I can count, Jeff. Math teacher. You just don’t need to see the details of my ass at the butt crack of dawn. No pun intended.”
“You have two freckles on the left cheek and a beauty mark directly beneath the right.”
She rolls her eyes and shuts the bathroom door. I lay my head back onto the pillow. Thirty-four years lived and the last twenty-four hours are by far the most fun I’ve had in all of that time. My abs actually hurt from laughing. And obviously the rest of me is pleasantly sore from everything else. There are no words to describe the ‘everything else.’
“Jefffffff,” I hear her voice over the running water. She pulls open the door, a toothbrush hanging out the side of her mouth. She’s wrapped in one of my black and white towels. Before I have a chance to ask her where the hell she got a toothbrush from, she lifts the giant box of condoms my mom sent me my first week here.
“Should I be concerned by the sheer quantity of condoms you have here?” she asks before turning and spitting into the sink.
“Why would you be?” I ask, sitting up against the headboard.
She rinses her mouth, taps the toothbrush, then puts it down.
“Ummmm. Well, typically you don’t buy the oversized value pack unless you’re planning on having lots of random sex,” she explains, lifting a chain of the packaged condoms up and letting it fall like an accordion back into the box.
“And?” I lift my brows and watch her put the condoms back on the counter where I’d left them last night.
She takes a few steps back into the room, sidestepping the hanger from before.
“Anddd, I guess I’m asking if you’re having lots of random sex.” She wrinkles her nose, as if she’s sorry she even asked. “I’m sorry. This is none of my business. You can say it is none of your business, Devon. This is just sex, so?—”
I cut her off before she twists the knife further into my gut. “Thanks for the permission, but it is your business.”
She sits on the end of the bed so her back is to me. Still just sex to her? I’m tempted to draw this out. Torture and tease her to make up for the fact that she’s using my heart like a speed bag. But the truth is I can’t even bear the thought of her feeling like she’s second fiddle. Not after the pain I witnessed the other night.
