“Because you still have an adorable-as-fuck pout.”
“Hey, I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Thank fuck for that.” He thrusts his pelvis and his bulge nestles against my knickers.
He groans in his throat as my thighs shake. God, I think I’m broken. One touch from him and I’m already soaked. Shouldn’t I have gotten more self-control by now?
He grabs my hip with a large hand and claims my mouth with his. My body melts into his hard one as he thrusts his tongue inside and kisses me deep and slow.
From the outside looking in, I must appear so tiny against his body, almost nothing.
“Wait.” I pull away, my head slightly dizzy. “We’re at school.”
“So?” He rubs his cock against my underwear, and I whimper as he gets harder with the contact. “Remember the time I cornered you here at the first day of school this year? You were wearing that short as fuck skirt and Silver spilt coffee on you.”
“How could I forget? You told me to not dress like that.” And it was the first time he got so close in years.
“That’s because I wanted to take you right then and there.” He rotates against me. “You were killing me, Green.”
My throat dries, but I managed to say, “Xan…we’ll be suspended.”
“Not if we’re not caught.”
“But…” I trail off when he dry-humps me.
Oh, God.
“Besides, it’d be worth it.”
“Xan –” My words die out as he claims my lips again.
He rubs his cock against me over and over and I moan in his mouth, being found be damned.
A part of me wants someone to see us, to witness this moment in time, because I want to commemorate it.
I want to paint it on one of those blank canvases and keep it for life.
Xander releases my hip and snakes a hand under my skirt. I tighten, then tremble when he pushes my knickers aside and thrusts a finger inside me.
“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he groans against my lips.
“For you,” I whisper back.
“You’re killing me, Green.”
“And you’re owning me, Xan.”
“Only me?”
“Only you,” I breathe out.
His finger picks up speed and he adds another, filling me and triggering that hazy phase. It’s a phase where everything disappears – no noises, no smells, no sights – at least, not from the outside world.
All I feel is his touch, all I see is his deep ocean eyes, all I hear are his breaths.
Just him. Xan. Once my best friend, then my tormentor, and now, my everything.
“Can you hear the sound of your arousal, Green?” He bites on my lower lip.
My cheeks heat as that sloppy sound heightens the more his fingers come in and go out of me.
“It’s a symphony made only for me,” he murmurs. “You are made only for me.”
I clench around his digits and tremble as the orgasm sweeps over me, then submerges me in its clutches.
How could his words set me on fire without any matches or gasoline?
“You’re so exotic when you come. I want to eat you up.” He kisses my cheek, my forehead, and my nose and finishes with a brush of his lips to mine.
“I can’t believe we did that at school.” I wince, even though I’m still delirious from the orgasm.
He pulls out of me and it feels heartbreakingly empty. I don’t focus on it, though, because Xan brings his fingers up and licks them one by one, without breaking eye contact.
The same fingers that were inside me.
Holy shit.
He’s licking me off him. Why the hell am I so turned on by that?
He places his other thumb in front of my lips, and I don’t hesitate as I lick it, matching his rhythm with mine. The taste of his skin explodes in my mouth, and it’s the best food I’ve had in a long time.
Xander’s lips pull in a smirk around his fingers, his dimples creasing his cheeks. “Mmm. I think I found an alternative to alcohol.”
“Please share.” The masculine voice coming from our right startles us both.
Cole appears out of freaking nowhere, carrying a book. On the Genealogy of Morality by Friedrich Nietzsche.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Captain?” Xander sounds impatient.
“I’m supposed to ask you that. I was reading in peace until you two decided to interrupt it.”
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Please tell me Cole didn’t hear all that. I hide my face in Xander’s shoulder. I won’t be able to look at Cole in the eyes for a lifetime.
“Control your voyeurism tendencies, Nash.” Xan seems completely unaffected, unlike my self-melting state.
“Technically, I saw nothing, so no voyeurism there.” A pause. “I’m thinking you’re developing some exhibitionism tendencies, though.”
“Which is none of your business.”
“You’re right. I lost interest after the truth set you free.”
I squeeze Xander’s shoulder so he’ll urge him to leave. I can’t show my face if he’s over there.
Xan chuckles, then says with utter sarcasm, “But that’ll never be the case for you, Captain.”
There’s a long silence, and I wish I could see the expression on Cole’s face, but I’d rather die than do that right now.
“Come to practice,” he says in a cool tone before his voice disappears altogether.
“Is he gone?” I whisper without looking up.
Xander keeps a hand around my head. “You should stay like this a bit more, just to make sure.”
I smile, my fingers digging into his jacket. When we were kids, he’d always invent games to make me hug him or him hug me. He said it tuned out the outside world chaos.
Seven years later, he still has that habit of manipulating his way into my arms.
“You still love hugs, Xan?”
“Only from you, Green.”
Kimberly
Another week passes in a blur.
Time is strange. One moment, it’s long and excruciating and the next, it’s so fast you can’t savour it.
When my therapist asks why I think I feel like it’s moving fast now, I don’t even hesitate to answer.
It’s because I have the most important people with me, and it frightens me that I’m not savouring my time with them enough.
While Mum and I still don’t address each other whenever we meet by accident in the house, everything else is different.
Dad never went back to Brussels and has taken a long leave; he’s putting in his papers to ask for a transfer to London. When I told him I was fine, he said he wasn’t, and I might have hugged him to death.
There’s also Elsa, who’s been listening to my jumbled thoughts and things I didn’t like to admit out loud, like how I hid because I thought she’d leave me the same way all those I considered friends did.
She said I’m stuck with her for life.
I also have my little happy pill, Kirian. He’s been writing poems for me. One of them says:
I don’t say this a lot.
Because I’m a big man.
Love you.
Now.
Tomorrow.
Forever.
He also took my hand and made me eat with him – small bites instead of large ones so I don’t end up in the toilet.
Lewis visited, too, and I crossed paths with him in the Knights’ household. He didn’t address our biological relationship, but he told me he’s there for me if I need him.
But above anyone else, there’s this person who’s now hugging me from behind as I snuggle between his legs. The one who kisses my body from top to bottom and tells me I’m the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen.
I’m beginning to believe him, too, because even if words can lie, the look in his eyes can’t. The way his body reacts to me, the way he hugs me definitely can’t either.
He’s just that person, the one you know you can close your eyes with and when you wake up, he’ll be there.
We’ve been going to the places where we played as kids. We’ve visited every park and every shop and goofed around with scarfs and pistachio gelato and M&M’s. I might have eaten my weight in them by now.
Being with Xander is like finally finding a missing piece of myself and slowly sewing it back in place.
I’m still trying to have him quit drinking and fighting, though. The fights have become sparse since I keep him ‘busy’ – his words, not mine. But he still sneaks alcohol into his juice and coffee. He still wakes up in the middle of the night to drink on the balcony.