His mouth curved, thumb brushing the base of my cock like an afterthought. “Where’s the fire?”
“Jesse.” I tugged his hair, reprimand or plea or both, and he chuckled, barely more than a breath, need tangling like shadows in the green of his eyes. He wanted me. Tonight, he did—had crossed a crowded floor for me and sent away some other guy as if he had every right to cut in. And fuck, I’d wanted him to. From the moment I’d looked up and saw him at the bar, maybe as early as when I’d left my apartment, he was all I wanted.
“If you insist,” he said.
Focus. Here, now.
I smiled up at him. “Oh, I do.”
Something like surprise ghosted across his features, surprise or maybe wonder. He reached for the condom and then paused, looked at me and arched a brow. Oh.Yes. I tilted my head, and his smile sparked like embers. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I raised my hips.
He set the condom aside, placed a pillow, and moved between my legs. Forehead against mine. “Finn?”
“Jesse,” I said, as if it was a response. On some level, it was. He lined himself up, blunt heat nudging instead of his fingers. I exhaled through it and dug my nails into his shoulder blades, blood singing in my veins, a distant amber glow hanging around the corners of my mind that fractured into a million colors.
I kissed him to stop my head from spinning.
When he started moving, it was like the crashing of waves, the slow melt of ice—not sure why he made me think in elements and images. I didn’t lose myself like this, not usually. “Alwaysone foot on the ground,”Travis had told me once as if it was a bad thing, holding on to myself more than I ever had to someone else. Now I was clinging to Jesse like he was the only thing that made sense anymore, each thrust a thunderbolt behind my lids.
“Finn.” He shaped the name against my lips, and I took a moment to realize he meant me. Right. God.
I blinked up at him, my hand gripping his forearm hard enough to bruise, one leg propped up and the other slung around his waist to open myself even more. “Yeah?”
“Nothing.” His smile was devastating. “Just wanted you to look at me.”
It hurt, a little. Knowing that I couldn’t really have him. I dragged in air, everything too close to the surface even as I told myself it was just aftershocks of adrenaline and exhaustion, the leftover rhythm of breathing for a tiny body. I’d be fine tomorrow.Wewould be.
Another snap of his hips, and this time, I let him see, hear—the flutter of my lashes, my mouth falling open around a moan.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. It sounded like a confession.
I lost minutes to each roll of his body, each hard thrust and slow retreat, to the drag of his hand across my cock, to the freckles in his eyes. My fingers grabbed at his waist and ass to pull him deeper, my thighs open, until he caught my wrists and pressed them into the mattress, biting at the curve of my jaw. So fucking close, God, heat coiling tight. I tipped my head back. Golden light swam in my vision, not even sure what I was saying anymore—curses and his name, words like the rush of water, Jesse echoing, mirroring,Finnandfeel so goodandwhat do you want, tell me.
“Yes,” I said as if it was an answer.
He released one wrist to reach between us again, circled my cock with lube-slick fingers and timed his thrusts to match. Ihung on like this could last, fireworks raining down inside my mind.
Then he snapped his hips,hard, and stilled, buried deep inside me, his face scrunched up like it took a painful amount of focus to hold off for even just a second longer. Maybe that did it. I angled up and clenched around him, falling like embers, spinning like a kaleidoscope. Infinite colors.
He shoved forward once more, drag and push, almost too much. When he came, it was with his mouth on my throat, my name like a confession.
Yes.
Yes.
Reality filtered through in stuttering increments. The wrinkled sheets under me and how his hair stuck up in messy tufts. Traffic noise that flowed like water. I held him as if it could buy us time—an arm too tight around his back, legs like a bracket, fingers still squeezing his.
“Jesus, Finn.” It was so low that I might not have been meant to hear. He raised his head, eyes the color of spring hills in the early light of day. Fuck, it didn’t make sense. Hundreds of thousands of men in New York, and I only wanted him—the one I couldn’t have come morning.
Could I? If we kept it secret, if we only ever touched behind closed doors where no one could see?
But if we got found out…
I dragged in a breath. It would look bad for me, yeah. For him, though? Abuse of power, even if I were to deny it—breaking rules that could get him fired. If we disclosed it ourselves… Better, yeah. It would still carry a stale taste, though, the kind of sketchy optics that could cost him an attending spot he’d worked so fucking hard for, years and years, long days and short nights and the sheer mental grind, parents that relied on him.
He might want me enough to risk it—he had, tonight. But I couldn’t be the reason he threw it all away.
