been doing has been to pretend we can skirt a line we’ve already crossed.”
He wasn’t wrong about anything, something that was impossible for me to deny as he stood before me in my office, me feeling as vulnerable as ever beside him, wanting him as much as I ever had.
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Jesus Christ, James. I don’t want you to be fucking sorry. I want you to stop being a coward. I want you to stop pretending and be honest with yourself about what I’m doing here right now.”
I couldn’t listen anymore.
We had crossed the line, but we had to go back.
“I think it’s best if you go.”
He moved toward me, the intensity of his expression fucking frightening me as he cornered me against the wall.
“If you want me to stop pursuing you, say it.” A bead of spit shot out of his mouth, landing on my face as he said the words through his teeth. It only intensified my already overpowering desire. “Tell me you mean it, that you don’t have to turn and adjust your pants in class because of me. That you don’t jizz thinking about how good I might feel, how if fucking is anything like kissing, your nerves might never stop buzzing, stinging with life…real life…the kind that’s the only thing that makes living in this fucked-up world worth it. Tell me you don’t spend every day fantasizing about where we could finally make this happen. Tell me that you want me to stop. I want to hear you lie to me and yourself, out loud, and then I’ll be fucking gone. I’ll never bother you again.”
I noticed him trembling with rage. If his words hadn’t expressed his pure desire for me, I might’ve believed he was about to sucker punch me.
“I-I…” I stammered as I attempted to force the words I needed to say out of my mouth.
But all that desire radiating off him, mixed with anger and fury, was so confusing. I knew he meant what he said, and that if I could just tell him to leave me alone, he would, so why couldn’t I force myself to do what was right?
I already knew the answer.
He snickered, not like he was laughing at me, but like he was relieved. He moved even closer, until his lips nearly grazed mine. “You can’t do it, can you?”
I wanted to lurch forward and take a kiss.
Tears welled in my eyes, and I knew they had nothing to do with what we’d discussed before and everything to do with this war I was waging on every impulse trying to seize control of my will.
He scanned my face, taking a breath, like he was fucking breathing me in.
“I don’t know that I can take much more,” I confessed.
“You have to be the one to take this next step, James. I can’t make you. But when you do, I will make you come like no one’s ever made you come before. Just think about having every inch of me to your greedy self…but fair play, that means my mouth can go wherever on your body, that I can shoot my load wherever the fuck I want, because my body will be all yours and yours will be all mine.”
I ground my teeth, if only to distract myself from how hard I was as I clung to what I could manage of my restraint. Which was becoming next to impossible.
His confidence diminished as he seemed surprised at how I’d managed to continue to resist. His expression, all hunger and desire, shifted in an instant as he assessed mine. He looked horrified, as though he’d had some striking realization.
“Oh shit. I really have been a fucking idiot, haven’t I?” He took a breath. “I won’t torture you with this anymore, James.”
All that bravado, all that confidence he strutted, had vanished, and I saw this real side to him, this part that was so much more than the flirting that had certainly been hot as hell, but didn’t allow me to remember that vulnerable quality to his personality.
“I’ll leave you alone now.”
A tear shifted in his eye, and I could sense his hurt, the rejection he felt. His gaze fell to the floor, and he started to turn.
It felt as though he’d given me so much life and then stripped me of it in an instant.
All those things that had held me back, the logic and reason I felt I’d clung to for as long as I could manage, I pushed to