Page 19

His eyes skate down my body, bottom lip caught between his teeth, as I pull my jeans and boxers down.

My cock springs free, and the air in the room is so damn cold I shiver. I can’t look at him in the face. I stare at his knees, at the bright red superhero sheets on his bed, at the bottle of lube rolling toward his elbow.

“You don’t have to,” he says. His foot comes up, the sock rough against my leg. “Like I said, if you don’t then—”

“I—I’m concentrating, Ira,” I stammer.

I’m just happy my voice still works.

I grab the lube and fumble with the cap. My thumb slips twice before I get it open, and the slick sound when I squeeze it onto my palm makes my stomach flip. It’s fucking freezing. I stroke myself once, twice, trying to make sure it’s…

I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know how long I can keep pretending I do.

Glancing up at his face, he looks about as flattened as I feel. Except he somehow manages to make it look sexual instead of mortifying. His eyes are half-lidded, his lips are parted.

He pushes his legs together, and I watch one hand slip inside his underwear. His knuckles shift beneath the lace, and I can see the outline of what he’s doing—his hand wrapped around his dick, stroking slow. Deliberate.

I stop breathing.

“Don’t be so nervous, Beckett,” he says, in a breathy voice so low my cock answers before my brain does.

I shuffle closer on my knees, jeans still tangled around my thighs—I feel ridiculous. I know I look ridiculous. But the second I guide myself between his thighs… They’re soft. Smooth and giving. He squeezes his knees closer together, and I brace a hand on the wall so I don’t topple over on him.

Fuck.

That felt so damn good.

I bite my lip so hard it hurts, trying to remind my lungs to function while the rest of me turns to static.

I haven’t moved.

I can’t.

If I move, this becomes real. If I move, I’m fucking my roommate’s thighs while he jacks off, and I’m not straight, and I still haven’t found a response to the goddamn Polaroid.

But his hand keeps moving beneath the lace, and his soft moan makes my hips rock forward.

Once.

Just once, to see how it feels.

I pull back and slide forward again, and the sound that drags out of me is foreign as hell. I’m quiet during sex. I always have been.

Ira’s thighs tighten around me, his hand working faster, and I can’t stop watching—the red head of his dick against the black lace, the way he’s dripping onto his hoodie.

“Fuck, Beckett,” he whispers, his voice strained. “Do you feel good too?”

I think I like how my name sounds in his mouth.

I hate that I want to hear it again.

“Don’t—” I gasp, hips stuttering. “Don’t talk.”

He laughs, and squeezes his thighs until I see stars.

I’m not thinking about the Polaroid. I’m not thinking about Raymond’s botched body or the bulletin board or the fact that I still need to finish my paper for class tomorrow morning. I’m not thinking about anything except the heat of him, and the hot, wet slide between his thighs.

My hips find a rhythm without my brain agreeing—forward and back, forward and back—and the friction builds in my spine so fast it’s embarrassing.