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“Okay,” he says, I think more to himself than to me. Brown eyes look up at me, and his little sharp nails dig into the skin above both of my knees like he’s trying to ground himself to the moment. “I ate copious amounts of sugar today. I was already like a bitch in heat thinking about last night, and then all the sugar, and I just kept thinking about the fact that I never made you come. And I swear I’m a brat a lot of the time, but I’m not that kind of brat, and…”

His cheeks are warm against my palms when I tilt his face up to mine. The moan he lets out when I kiss him is almost as sweet as the sugar I can taste on his tongue.

“I have a rule,” I say, kissing each corner of his parted mouth.

“Uh-huh… What?”

Emery tries to open his eyes, but they close again when I tug his bottom lip into my mouth and suck. His lips are glossy when I pull back enough to speak.

“You don’t get to just run out. You have to say bye.”

“Kay,” he agrees easily, nodding and sliding his hands down my thighs, moving closer to try to catch my lips with his again.

I stay just out of reach, scanning his face, cataloging away how desire softens his features and melts his brown eyes. Then I stand, hook my thumbs into the sides of my boxers, and push them down my legs.

Emery doesn’t scoot back to give me room. He stays exactly where he was, on his knees looking up at me. I think maybe he’s memorizing the moment, too. Looking to size me up with whatever he envisioned I’d be. I want the moment his want overtakes any nerves or fear to be scorched on the backs of my fucking eyeballs.

The way he reaches for me. The way his lips feel when he leans in, ghosting them over me.

I want to remember the moment that Emerson Lee Bennet wraps his pouty mouth around my cock for the first time because I don’t think any touch will ever be the same again.

My stomach muscles ripple and tense, and I ball my hands into fists at my sides to stop myself from grabbing his head.

Some part of my conscious is pissed as hell, marking off this day as the day I well and truly have fucked up.

Emery hums, and with every swipe of his tongue and stroke of his wet, warm mouth he softens more. Touches more. His hands run over my thighs, around to my ass. He digs his nails into my glutes, swallowing around the head of my cock.

“Fuck, Em,” I groan, losing the battle and sliding my fingers into his soft hair. He hums his approval and then moans when I use the hold to guide him faster.

Brown watery eyes look up at me, ensnaring me completely.

My favorite part of the entire thing is the small kisses he peppers down my length after I come down his throat. All the way down and back up again, like he isn't ready for the moment to end yet.

I tug him up, ready to return the favor, but Emery backs up, holding his hands in front of his tented shorts. He shakes his head, licking his lips.

“Let me—”

“No. No, that would be breaking the rules. Now we’re even. That was the only exception today.”

I take a step towards him, but he skitters over to the window. I don’t think he will remember, but he stops, one leg out before looking back at me and whispers, “Bye, Dill.”

Dillon

“We should talk,” Sabrina says softly from behind me. I heard her gentle footsteps come down the hallway a moment ago. I’ve fluffed and flipped the pillow a dozen times, hoping that I would hear those footsteps retreat back down the hall. Back to the bedroom I’m supposed to share with her. So she could climb in the bed we’re both supposed to sleep in together.

She didn’t.

There’s a difference to her knowing I’m sleeping out here on the couch, and her witnessing me arranging the blankets and pillows on the couch so I could sleep away from her. I told her it was so she could sleep. I’d just sleep out here with the monitor so it didn’t wake her up every time Penny was up crying from her ear infection. That was the honest fucking truth.

That was also two weeks ago.

Penny has been sleeping peacefully since the infection cleared up.

I knew it was only a matter of time before Sabrina questioned why I was still out here. I just thought maybe I had a few more days. That maybe I could figure my fucking shit out. That I could figure out how to have this conversation without hurting her.

Without her hating me by the end of it.

God, I’m such a fuckup.