“Coming!” She appears at the bedroom door, breathless, her hair coming out of her ponytail, framing her face in soft waves. “Sorry, I was locking up.”
“Let’s warm J up.”
She blinks, then she throws her glasses on the nightstand and she’s on the bed in an instant, stroking Joel’s hair and kissing his face. “What do you need?” she asks him, and he turns his head, finding her mouth with his.
Yeah. That’s what he needs. Her touch. After all, her touch is not forbidden. It’s me he argued with his parents over. It’s me who’s in his way of being their golden boy, the perfect—
His hand snakes around the back of my head and jerks me forward. He breaks the kiss with Candy to attack my mouth, crushing his lips to mine.
My mind blanks out as he sucks on my mouth and angles my head to deepen the kiss and thrust his tongue inside.
When he draws back, I’m dizzy with lack of oxygen and my body pulsing with pure, white-hot desire.
Whoa.
“What do you want, J?” Candy asks quietly, her eyes bright. “Anything you like. We could sprawl on the couch under a blanket and watch one of those history documentaries you’re collecting. Or we could bake cookies together. Or—”
“I want to fuck,” he says, his voice hoarse, and the raw honesty of that hits me straight in the gut.
Yeah, I’d sort of figured as much. That kiss was a dead giveaway. But is it really what he needs? Or only what he thinks he needs?
“J, we won’t let you sink.” I lick my lips, because turning down sex with Joel is tough. “But we could just sit and talk and—”
He pushes off the bed, so suddenly I almost fall backward on the mattress, and strides to the window, his bare feet whispering on the carpet. He splays his hand on the glass and bows his head. “Fuck,” he whispers.
I exchange a worried look with Candy. “Dammit, I think I’m making things worse.”
“It’s not you,” she whispers, but she slips off the bed and pads over to him, kicking off her shoes in the process. “Hey, J…”
She lifts his arm, burrows against his side, and he sighs. I can see his face reflected in the glass, his eyes half-closed, that fuckable mouth a little slack. He doesn’t look angry.
But he looks kinda defeated, and I hate that.
“I love you,” he whispers, so low I barely hear it. “You two, you are all that matters.”
“Your family also matters,” Candy protests. “Today must have been hard on you. You can say it.”
“It was.” He nods, a light dip of his chin. “I won’t deny that. Fuck, I can’t deny it.” He pulls his hand from the glass and touches his swollen jaw. Winces. “But you two are what matters the most to me. Your presence. Your opinion. Your…”
He swallows. Shakes his head.
“We love you, too,” Candy says. “Don’t you know that?” He nods again, looking too much like a lost little boy. “Anything you need, J.”
“Told you. I need you. Need to feel you. Fucking feel you everywhere. It’s as if…” He trails his hand to his chest. “As if I can’t feel my own skin. My flesh and bones.”
I get up, my heartbeat thrumming in my throat, behind my ribcage, at the base of my cock. “We’ll make you feel again.”
His gaze slides sideways to find me. “I need you to fuck this cold out of me.”
I can’t breathe properly, every inhale catching in my lungs. “Fucking hell. Get back to bed, J. Now.”
I’m done protesting. Done trying to decide for him. He wants this, and hell, I want it. Maybe I need it, too. Hell knows I’ve been barely scraping by these past weeks, mired in my bad dreams and doubts, and I need to feel something, too. Something deeper, because I feel hollow inside.
No matter what goes down tomorrow or next week, this is happening tonight.
***
I push him down on the pillows and kiss the living shit out of him, while Candy pulls off her long sweater and fiddles with her pants. I kiss him until his dick is hard and straining inside his pants and his breath comes in short gasps.