Page 132 of Twisted Needs

Something primal takes over, my body chasing every soft sound that falls from his lips. The rush of it is overwhelming, the dizzying thrill of surrendering a part of myself I’ve always kept hidden.

With strangers, it was meaningless and safe. With Anders, though, it’s terrifying. He’s younger. Less experienced.

And I love him. The realization hits so hard it nearly steals the air from my lungs.

God, I love him.

Not in the way I convinced myself I could keep contained. Not in the way I could walk away from…I’m impossibly in love with Anderson Manuelo de Sousa.

“Parker.”

His voice immediately pulls me from my thoughts. “I wanna see you,” he breathes.

I soften immediately. “You okay?” I ask gently, pulling out. “Come here, angel.”

Anders flips beneath me and reaches up, yanking my head down to his like distance isn’t an option. He lets out the softest moan as he kisses me, everything else fading away. I feel the shift when he pulls me closer, closing whatever space was left. “Keep going, Pet’ka.” His fingers curl around the back of my neck as I slip my cock back inside him. “Fuck,” he gasps.

I don’t think it’ll ever get old—the purely soft face he makes the moment I enter him. There’s a noticeable drop in the room, everything just seems to slow down. It’s not about chasing the thrill anymore. It’s about the connection. I know we can both feel it. The sex feels different. The smaller things are more noticeable than the obvious. The brush of his fingers up and down my arm. The slight clenching of his jaw. The way he bumps his forehead against mine and exhales shakily against my lips.

Two souls intertwined. Two hearts beating for each other. It’s the kind of connection that outlives intimacy. The kind that survives the quiet moments after, long after our breathing settles, and when the sheets cool and the room falls silent. Because no matter how many years pass, I know I’ll remember this.

I’ll remember the way he looks at me and the sounds he makes when he comes with my name on his lips. And for the first time in my life, I think I’ve found something that won’t fade when the moment ends.

Because it’s love that makes all the difference.

CHAPTER 35

FOLLOW ME

ANDERS

When I was little, I saw something on the internet about lucid dreaming. Apparently you can fly and do whatever you want.

Ten year old Anders was on a mission to ski off the summit of Everest. I remember building a diorama of it for my science fair, and something about the fact that Everest has all these dead frozen bodies just really shook me. Maybe it was the humanity aspect of it—paying thousands of dollars to climb up someone’s final resting place. Or maybe I couldn’t fathom loving something enough to risk my life for it. Even back then I was this moody, cynical little kid who had too many problems to count.

My weirdest dream is one that visits me at the most random times. It always starts out the same.

I strap on my skis and take a puff of oxygen before slowly inching towards the edge. It’s a steep drop, but all I can see is the thick, white expansion that circles around us. The white swallows everything, and suddenly I feel sick. I can’t do it.

I stake my pole into the snow to ground myself, but it’s too late.

I plummet, free falling from the highest point of Earth. Right as I’m about to hit the ground⁠—

“Anders—”

“What the fuck?” I gasp, sitting straight up in the bed.

The room is dark. No more white. No more snow. Warmth surrounds me, the sheets sticking to every inch of my skin. The silence presses against my ears.

“Hey,” Parker whispers. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Mount Everest,” is all I have to mutter for him to understand.

“That’s the third night in a row,” he says sadly. I feel him pull me to his chest, brushing his lips across the back of my neck. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” I murmur, shifting to my other side. I reach out and feel for him in the dark, letting my hands settle flat on his chest.

“Do you wanna talk about it now?”