Page 105 of Freefall

He grabs a bottle of shampoo from the edge of the tub, pours a little into his palm, and works it through my hair. His long fingers massage my scalp until every ounce of tension melts away.

“You did so well,” he murmurs.

My eyes drift closed, the praise settling somewhere deep inside me.

When he’s finished, he helps me tip my head back to rinse the shampoo away. As I straighten again, I reach behind me, letting my hand wander to his abs, tracing the hard planes of muscle with my fingertips.

Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand slips into the soapy water, and I find his length, gliding up and down the silky skin.

“Harper, you don’t have t⁠—”

I look up at him. “Let me take care of you.”

He doesn’t protest again, so I keep stroking him.

“Fuck,” he whispers when I get to the top, rubbing circles over the head of his cock.

I shift my body so I'm in front, which sends water splashing out of the tub. I check his face to see if he’s bothered by the mess, but he just lifts his hips so I can take him into my mouth. His eyes are pinned to me as I swirl my tongue along his shaft, but he lets me take the lead. He doesn’t even hold my head or jut his hips forward as I take him to the back of my throat. He just keeps repeating the same words.

Fuck, Harper.

Your mouth feels so fucking good.

I’m not gonna last much longer.

He doesn’t. Before I know it, his cock swells in my mouth, and he shudders as hot cum slides down my throat.

I fall against him, and we stay like that. When the bathwater grows cold, he wraps us both in towels and leads me back into the bedroom. After drying my hair as best he can, he lays me on the bed, pushing the covers up to my chin.

I glance over at his phone on the nightstand.

Shit, it’s already past eleven.

“I should go,” I say, pushing myself up on one elbow.

“You need to rest,” Nate says gently. “Just for a little while. Then I’ll drive you home, and River can follow me in the morning to bring your car back.”

River.

I completely forgot about him. All at once, the night comes rushing back. Nate fingered me in front of his cousin. I wait for the shame or regret to hit, but I come up empty. Still, part of me is glad he stopped when he did. I have nothing against exhibitionism. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on, but something tells me River would not survive the rest of his visit if he actually got off on watching me have an orgasm.

“Okay,” I finally say. “But we should probably go clean up downstairs. We left everything out.”

I’m shocked that Nate was okay leaving the mess in the first place, but I guess he was distracted at the time.

“I’ll make River do it,” he says. The mattress dips as strong arms wrap around me from behind. I sink into him, my eyelids already heavy with sleep.

A few seconds tick by, and I can’t tell if it’s real or the beginning of a dream when Nate sighs, his breath warm against my ear. “I’m so sorry I scared you that night.”

26

NATE

“Where the fuck have you been?”

She’s not even fully through the door of her dorm room when I rush toward her. She doesn’t answer. She just shrugs out of her jacket, drapes it over the back of her desk chair, and acts like I’m not standing here losing my goddamn mind.

After five hours of pacing my apartment and searching every corner of campus, I finally sweet-talked her RA into letting me into her room. She wasn't there, so I texted her again for the tenth time. Or maybe it was the eleventh. For the first time in my life, numbers meant nothing to me because I couldn’t fucking find her.