“I am not fucking you to this,” I announce firmly, “I have my limits,” I mumble against her active lips as she does her best to seduce me. “I’ve already watched one too many teen angst movies against my better fucking judgment.”
“Two,” she draws out as I turn her over and sink between her thighs, discarding the blunt she ordered me to light on my nightstand.
“Yeah, and that’s two too many.”
It was another of those rare days spent out of my head. Where we did exactly shit—aside from watching movies on my laptop and fucking—but a day I didn’t feel like my world was coming to an end. She stares up at me, grinning like the romance-drunk fool she is. That look is unmistakable—a look she gives to me in front of everyone, unabashedly, fearlessly, whether we’re at the garage or alone. A look my head and chest can no longer ignore. A look that’s starting to feel like it’s beyond chemistry.
My blissful ignorance stares back at me, her smile fading, that look ever-present.
Ignoring it is fucking torture—so I don’t bother doing it or denying it anymore. I can’t, to the point that I palm her face and lower to kiss her. When I close the kiss, she pulls back, dazed. “What was that for?”
For believing for the both of us that whatever the fuck is happening between us is real, because I can’t.
The throb only increases as I take her mouth again, and she matches me, lick for lick. I’m hard in seconds, and I refuse to ignore it, this thing, this feeling, this state. Lionel serenading us or not, our attraction gets the best of me, and I let it guide me along with her moans. Just as I’m about to take her panties down, a pounding sounds on my bedroom door a second before Tyler’s voice booms from the other side of it.
“Please, for the love of fucking God, no more love ballads tonight. That’s all I’m asking.”
Sean sounds out not even a second later with an “A-fucking-men, brother.”
“First chance I get, I’m moving out of this fucking frat house,” Tyler snaps before slamming his bedroom door.
Cecelia and I break apart, laughing hysterically. She buckles sideways, and when I realize her destination—floor—and manage to get a good grip on her, she takes me down with her.
We stay there, crumpled between her side of the bed and my bookshelf, her cradled in my arm. As the sun sets, the room grows darker, and neither of us moves. Whispers of streetlight stream between my blinds, hitting the wall behind my computer as we smoke a joint while listening to the Commodores. When the record plays out, Cecelia fills the long bouts of silence she knows I won’t by telling me about her life before she was summoned to Triple Falls.
Since this thing between us became regular, I’ve done what I can to avoid this part—knowing the consequences of feeding into it and deciding it’s inevitable.
Because I want to know. Everything.
So, I listen, feigning ignorance about the particulars I do. At the same time, she fills me in on memories—and the people that matter to her. She changes some of the fiction I’ve read about—the girl living in a parallel universe to factual—the beauty of what makes her tick while whispering a new reality between us.
“I’m sorry . . . I haven’t shut up,” she says sometime later. I don’t even recognize how much time has passed, having sunk deeper into her melodic voice, her history, her antics, smiling or chuckling—even when she’s not funny.
Especially then.
“Must be the weed,” she offers as if her rambling hasn’t been present the whole time we’ve been together. “Am I boring you?” Before I can answer, she’s talking again. “I don’t remember what I was talking about anyway.”
“When you and Christy stole your mom’s car in seventh grade,” I prompt.
“You were listening,” she muses.
“Not like I had much of a choice,” I quip in jest, pulling her tighter to me so she knows it. I feel her smile against my skin as she tilts back, her eyes on what she can make of my profile before she presses a slow, sensual kiss to my neck. She wants me to know she cares and to feel it—and I do.
Stopping this is pointless, but encouraging it is the worst crime I could commit.
Tonight, I do neither.
When her soft murmurs start to fade in strength, I gather her up and lay her atop me on the bed. Burrowing in, she rests her cheek on my chest, securing her thigh around my torso—the act familiar. It’s how we sleep. The feeling of it settling in my chest, the kind of intimacy I’ve never allowed myself with anyone.
Ever.
Because of the exact fucking conflict going on inside me now.
“Happy Birthday, Dom,” she whispers softly, running her fingers over my chest before drifting off. Somewhere between the drift of sleep and consciousness, I claim the only gift I want, palming her thigh and drawing it up to bring her snugger to me. Pressing and keeping my lips to her forehead, I inhale her scent and let myself fall into the idea of us and linger there—knowing that eventually, I’ll be jerked away by the hard, unforgivable reality waiting for me when I hit the ground.
Rousing due to the feel of her hand on my cock, I open my eyes in time to see Cecelia flick the head of it with her tongue, the most devilish smile lifting her lush lips as she glances up to see my eyes pop open.
“Hi,” she rasps out, a greeting that rings out more like a warning. Freshly showered, dressed in a tank top and panties, hair damp, she grips me hard as a confession starts to roll off her tongue between licks.
“In case you’ve ever wondered,” she murmurs before flattening her tongue up one side of my cock and down the other, “If I was braver the night I saw you naked. If I knew then how good this felt,” she draws out, her tone pure heat, “I would’ve walked into your room,” she swirls her tongue over the tip of me “and done this.” Clamping her swollen lips around my length, she takes me to the back of her throat.
Jesus Christ.
A low groan escapes me as she works me over, lips still swollen from the hours we’ve spent in this bed. Her skin marked, shoulder and neck rashes still raw due to my bottomless imagination.
“Fuck,” I grunt, fighting my hips to keep them idle as her addictive scent invades me. Intent on not missing a second, I gather her damp hair into my fist, absorbed as she takes hard pulls of my cock, keeping my base in a firm grip. Inhibitions forgotten, she keeps her confident gaze on me—on my reaction.
When I move to lift her up to me, she swats my hands away, making it clear she wants me at her mercy while she takes my pleasure for herself. She’s coming into her own, realizing how potent her power is over those that desire her. With that knowledge, I let go, allowing her to take what she needs from me. The second I do, she sucks me so thoroughly that I see stars, tightening the fingers I have tangled in her hair.
“The perineum, or the taint,” she ticks off as if doing a mental count. She brushes the skin just beneath my balls, fisting my sheets as she suctions before letting my tip pop out of her mouth. “Oh, did I say that out loud?”
I narrow my eyes as she rakes her nails gently over my balls—leaving me speechless.
“You do know that’s one of a male’s most potent erogenous zones, right?” She demonstrates it’s fast becoming one of my own as she licks the skin beneath my balls with an explorative tongue before deep-throating me and pressing on it gently with the pad of her thumb.