Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(32)
“Topher . . .” he breathed, searching for a rhythm. His arm was tight around me, clasping me intimately close. His face pressed into the curve of my neck, the susurration of his breath warm and moist on my skin.
He whispered my name again and I felt cherished. This might be wrong, but he wasn’t treating me like I was wrong. I twisted, turning my upper body toward him, seeking a kiss. The angle was bad, but he gave it to me, our tongues sliding together between the imperfect fastening of our lips and my hand coming up to hold the back of his head, my fingers weaving into the hair at the base of his skull.
His hand on my chest traveled lower as he picked up the pace, moving faster between my thighs as they grew slick with sweat.
“Topher, may I—”
“Please.” I was hard and aching when those gorgeous long fingers I’d once admired wrapped around my cock. My spine arched and I thrust into his grasp, my head tipping back to rest against his shoulder. His hand knew its way around a dick—probably from playing bachelor Monday through Friday for years, or so I was really hoping—and he gripped with just the right pressure, twisted and curled in just the right places. He slicked his palm with my pre-cum and found a rhythm that would send me over the top fast and hard.
“Fuck. Brendan . . .” The tympanic bass line of wrong, wrong, wrong that rumbled with every beat decrescendoed. A chorus of pleasure rose up high and clear on the descant, trilling above that dire thrumming, pushing it to the background.
It was wrong, but it was good and just now the good mattered more. I kept my arm hooked back, holding him with my fingers tangled in his hair, writhing between his body and his fist as he f*cked into the gap between my legs. Our breaths erupted in sharp bursts. I finished first, pulsing over his fist, dripping down his fingers, then I clung to him, panting and shuddering for breathless moments as he gasped and groaned and strove for his own release.
When it was over, we lay entangled limply together, sticky with each other’s cum and earthy with sweat and musk. And, God help me, for those few minutes of afterglow, lying there with his arms around me, his heartbeat drumming against my back, it didn’t feel wrong.
I got my wish, at least. When we finally parted to go shower and dress, it wasn’t a shamefaced slink. Brendan kissed me one last time, almost chastely, and urged me up with gentle hands. Then he helped me gather my scattered clothes.
“We’ll talk later, Topher,” he murmured, and I nodded mutely and left.
I don’t think it’s fair to say we avoided each other the rest of the day, but we stayed apart, gave each other space. It probably wasn’t safe for me to go swimming today, as exhausted and confused as I was, but I did it anyway, punishing my body by driving it against the choppy waves. I swam until every muscle in me ached with fatigue, then stumbled ashore and collapsed onto my blanket, almost literally burying my head in the sand. I napped there for some time, catching up on days’ worth of lost sleep. Then I threw myself at the lake for another desperate swim before the clouds started to darken and the wind picked up.
When I returned to the house, Brendan had made dinner and eaten already, leaving the leftovers out for me to help myself. That’s when I did start to feel like he was avoiding me.
I did the dishes and went up to my cozy dormer bedroom for a shower, then wrapped myself in my plush microfiber robe and sat on my bed with my knees drawn up to my chest and my arms around them. I looked through that half-moon window above my headboard, out at the sky as the clouds went from steely to black, and wondered if Brendan was in his room directly below me, staring at the same vista.
I might have thought Brendan had left the house if the car hadn’t been in the garage, that’s how quiet it was. There were no sounds except for my own breath and the ominous growls of thunder beginning to rumble across the water.
Now I understood what people meant when they said the silence was deafening.
It was better this way, I told myself. We’d done what we’d done, and we’d managed to make it out of that situation without the sort of shame or resentment I’d been afraid of. Where we’d left things this morning had been as good a place as possible, given the circumstances. Now we could step back, cool off, and figure out how to fix this without destroying Mo, her mother, and ourselves. If that was even possible.
It was finished. So why did my chest ache at the continued silence? I was drowning in the open air.
It got worse when I tried to imagine what I’d say to Mo, how she’d feel, what she’d do. I couldn’t imagine confessing this to her, but I couldn’t imagine pretending to be her friend while knowing what I’d done, either. If and when she found out, it would probably destroy the best relationship—the only good, true relationship, really—in my life.
And yet, when I thought of losing her, I wanted him more than ever.
The first flicker of lightning appeared over the lake, and I could hear the waves crashing even through the walls. The more I thought about it all, the lonelier and more hopeless I felt. I was going to lose them both, I was sure of it. All I could do now was cherish what time I had left with them until it all came apart.
Wiping my eyes, I pushed myself off the bed and rummaged in my bags. I dropped the lube in the pocket of my robe when I found it and descended the stairs with calm, deliberate steps.
Brendan’s bedroom door was open, and he was sitting on the side of his bed in just his pajama bottoms, gripping the edge of the mattress, his knuckles white. He wasn’t at all surprised to see me, like he’d been expecting me to come to him—or perhaps trying to talk himself out of going to me.