Page 147 of These Secret Years

Kissing his neck, I find a rhythm with him. My hand, his long, thick dick, and his breath.

His breath, hot against my cheek, gusting through my hair. Warm burst after warm burst and a grunt as his dick throbs because he’s close. His breathing speeds up, and suddenly the heat of it is all I can feel. Not his hard length in my hand or the wetness of his arousal. Not my own pulsing cock in my sweatpants. No. Gusting breath—too close to my face, my ear, my neck—has my heart racing, my chest tightening like a belt is pulling closed around it, squeezing tighter and tighter.

Knight chokes out his release with a low moan and another too-hot, too-close breath, and even as his cock spasms in my hand, I already feel like I’m off the bed. And then I am off the bed, in the bathroom, no memory of crossing the room to get here, only knowing the shower is on, and I need to get my head under the water because his breath is still on my fucking face⁠—

No.

Fuck.

My chin trembles as the water hits my head and my hand scrubs at the memory, and this whole time I’m telling myself that was Knight. That was Knight. That was good. It was amazing. It was exactly what we needed, so what the fuck is this?

“Sullivan?”

“I’m okay,” I call out.

“Is the door unlocked?”

“I don’t know. Try it. I didn’t mean to lock it.”

“It’s locked.”

“I’m sorry. Give me two minutes.”

“I’m gonna be right here. Unless you need me to go.”

“No, stay there,” I tell him. If he stays there, he’ll be there when I get over this stupid shit, and I won’t have to quit college and…and die.

Die?

Surely, I am fucking past that by now. There’s no need to die.

I turn off the water and realize only then that I still have my clothes on.

“Jesus,” I whisper, peeling them off in the shower and stepping out to get a towel. I’m shivering, the ice cold water doing exactly what I intended. It got the memory of Quinn’s hot breath off my fucking face.

“Can you get me some clothes?” I ask.

“Yeah. Requests?”

Fuck, how is he so nice?

“Something warm. I’m freezing. I don’t care.”

A minute later he’s knocking on the door. I unlock it and open it all the way. “That was weird. I’m sorry.”

Though I’m standing there naked in front of him for the first time in like a year, he keeps his eyes on my face while he hands over the clothes. “We’re talking about this, but I want to shower first.”

I nod. “Fair. Coffee?”

“Sure. Coffee sounds great.”

Twenty minutes later, we’re on opposite sides of my two person bistro table with coffee mugs in front of us and wet hair. In all these twenty minutes, I’ve relived everything that just happened with Knight, trying and failing not to let it co-mingle with what was done to me that awful night on winter break. This shouldn’t be so fucking hard.

“I didn’t know it was gonna be like this,” I say.

“Like what?”

“Like so unpredictable.”