on my shoulder, working himself against me. He lifted up, thrusting into my fist, then lowered back down to rub my fingers against his prostate, over and over again. It felt strangely like fucking and being fucked at the same time, and I had never been so turned on in my life, even in this whole crazy week.
It felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t get a hand, or a mouth, or sweet Jesus, an ass, on my cock immediately, but at the same time I never wanted this feeling to end. Toby used sex as a weapon, as a tool, as a distraction… but ironically, he was never more honest than he was when he was having sex… at least, when he was having it with me. It was really tempting to believe that I was the difference, that this was as special to him as it was for me.
“Come for me, baby,” I whispered in his ear. “I wanna see it. I wanna feel it.” Then I bit down on the side of his neck.
His hole clenched around me like a vise, his dick went off like a rocket, he screamed my name into the hot sunshine, and deep inside me, some lock that had been shut tight for a really long time finally opened.
Toby collapsed down onto his hands again. “I do believe… I’ve been convinced… of my buoyancy…’cause I feel like I’m floating.” He sounded drunk. “And my chakras… are as open… as any man’s have ever been. Really, ten out of ten for swimming pools. I’ve seen the light.”
And though my dick was hard enough to hammer nails, I couldn’t help but laugh.
11
Toby
Help Me Hagatha
(Unsent)
Dear Aunt Hagatha:
Help! I’m pretty sure I’ve gone and fallen for a guy who’s way too good for me. What do I do?
“That Guy” in Whispering Key
Dear Guy,
You hope like hell he doesn’t figure it out, you poor sad sack.
Do better,
Haggie
“You wait right there, precious, and do… whatever thoughts of me inspire you to do. I’ve got everything we need in my toiletry bag.” I tossed the stunning man on the bed my most seductive smile—the best I could muster, anyway, when I smelled like coconut and chlorine, and my hair was doing plovers-alone-knew-what—and scurried out of the bedroom.
I examined myself in the mirror. I looked well fucked in every way that a man could be. Eyes overbright? Check. Hair artfully arranged in a wood chipper chic style? Super check. Goofy smile stuck to my lips like I’d just won the biggest prize at a fair I hadn’t known I’d be attending? Enormous, outrageous, sanity-threatening check.
I blew out a shaking breath and grabbed my toiletry case, only knocking half my Sunday Riley skincare regimen in the sink in the process. Deep down at the bottom of the bag were several strings of condoms I’d packed on top of the case last week in a variety of sizes, knowing I’d find someone fuckably cute and totally forgettable to pass time with in the Maldives. Instead, I was here in Whispering Key, Florida, ready to be fucked by a virgin, and my goddamn hands were shaking.
I remembered Beale calling my energy soothing, and I wished I could summon just a tiny fucking shred of “soothing,” because I was a nervous wreck and it was all his fault.
How dare he attempt to take me seriously as a person?
How dare he hold me like he was afraid I might fly away?
How dare he be all hearts and flowers perfect, when everything about our fake relationship was so very clearly impossible, including the fact that when I’d had the opportunity to tell the truth, I’d purposely lied and told him the situation in New York was “a relatively minor personal problem” that had nothing to do with him?
I had no clue how to handle this because it was totally outside my frame of reference. I didn’t have real relationships, let alone fake relationships. Jesus Christ in a blanket, I didn’t even do friends other than Mason. I didn’t do… trust, and I wasn’t sure how to start.
Beale was the one person in the world who knew me as Toby and as Hagatha, and he not only liked both parts, he saw them as two halves of a whole. Even I didn’t do that. It was weird enough to have someone like me; it was next to impossible to believe that someone liked all of me. It was an equation that would not equate.
“And