Page 40 of XOXO, Yours

"No."

For some reason, I don't like that answer. Which is ridiculous. Because he doesn't have a girlfriend. Obviously. That's literally the point.

I stare at the doorway.

Six weeks. Everything has been working perfectly for six weeks.

So naturally, my twenty-two-year-old cowboy booty call has just moved into the classroom next door.

Fantastic.

chapter

fifteen

Jules

I have a rule about Payton in my house.

He comes in, he gives me multiple orgasms, and then he leaves. That's the arrangement. Clean, containable, no ambiguity about what this is or what it isn't. I was very clear about that when we started this, and he agreed, and it has been working perfectly fine for several weeks now, which is why tonight is not a problem.

Tonight is not a problem.

I pour myself a glass of wine and try to remember the last time I had to talk myself into believing something this hard.

He shows up at seven with Thai food, which was not requested and is not part of the arrangement. Still, I let him in because I'm hungry and because it's been a day.

"You didn't have to do that," I say.

"I know." He holds up the bag. "You have plates?"

"Contrary to what my kitchen suggests, yes."

We eat at my coffee table because my actual table is covered in my most recent art obsession, collaging. Payton doesn't comment on it. He also doesn't comment on the fact that I've been quieter than usual since he arrived. He just lets the silence sit without rushing to fill it, which is either deeply considerate or deeply annoying, and I genuinely cannot decide which.

"Bad day?" he finally asks.

"Mediocre day with bad edges."

"You want to talk about it or you want to pretend I didn't ask?"

"Option two," I say. "For now."

He nods, passes me the spring rolls, and doesn't push.

Later, after the Pad Thai and the single episode of a sitcom we both enjoy, we move to the official reason he’s here.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve had a lot of sex. Some nights, just once; sometimes we go for a second round. But something about tonight is different. When he slides inside me, his eyes locked on mine, I’m very aware of our connection. The physical connection. The physical intimacy.

I don’t know why it’s front and center in my mind, but it is.

Then when he slows the pace, using long, thorough glides in and out of me, I feel caught in a web. I can’t look away from his pretty blue eyes. And the way the pleasure shifts through his features. I watch his mouth as he tells me how good I feel, how nothing has ever been this good.

He’s not wrong. Sex with Payton is hot and always satisfying.

I think it’s probably me, feeling melancholy or whatever, but I already know that I’m going to have to do some work rebuilding my walls when tonight is done.

His fingers thread through mine, my arms above my head as he slowly fucks me. Doesn’t really feel like fucking, though. Feels like something else entirely. But I refuse to use or even think those words. The climax that rocks through me pulls his name from my throat in a raw cry. The pleasure pulses through every molecule in my body and almost feels like my very cells are rearranging themselves.