Page 100 of The Sound Of Us

Yes.

We should be able to get her on a plane easily.

Pepper dances around us like she knows she’s about to go away with Eli, too.

I have a moment, just one single moment of… sadness. Leaving Frank. Leaving this town. Leaving Ben. It’s all I’ve ever wanted but to be faced with the reality of it happening, it’s almost suffocating.

Eli pulls me close, his back against the tree trunk. His lips find mine under the moonlight. Kissing me, owning me like the night owned the moon.

In him, with him, I shine. I shine the brightest when he claims me as his like this. I kiss him back, deep and true. The truest thing I have ever experienced. This tenderness that helps me live even as I’m dying. This tenderness that will help me die a little less every day.

It feels like an eternity since I touched him when it was only this past weekend. His abs dip at my touch as I explore his body with slow movements.

Frank is the furthest thing from my mind as my fingers trail possessively over Eli’s chest, my palms spreading over his shoulders and then back over his beautiful pecs. I lose myself in every inch of skin, of muscle that tightens and loosens at my touch.

His hands move harshly over me, matching his loud, harsh breaths as they mingle with the cold, crisp air.

I tangle my tongue with his, sucking and groaning like I’m his husband. Like I have the right to demand more from his touch. He gives me more, biting on my lower lip, pulling on that lip and then releasing it with a pop. The sting is so fucking delicious I go back for more. Over and over, Eli sucks my lip into his mouth, biting hard enough for me to groan loudly against his lips, before he releases it. My bottom lip throbs, but fuck, I need more.

Pulling Eli even closer to me, if it were possible, I smash my lips to his, kissing him like I, too, owned him. The way he owned me. What I’m doing is selfish and villainous and right. Fucking hell, this is right.

My hands travel fast and harsh to Eli’s waistband. We’ll go to the house in a minute and there he’ll fuck me so fucking good, but I need him, at least a little bit, right fucking now.

He races for my waistband too, and in one second, my cock slides against his as he bends his knees and lines us up. We are so fucking hot together like this. He rubs us up and down slowly and I tilt my hips forward, dying for a harder grip. Eli creates some space, releasing us, and signs. I love your—

I frown. I don’t understand. He laughs, a loud, uninhibited sound, and then closes his fingers around my dick.

—Dick. He loves my dick. Even if it’s bigger than his. I swallow down the lump threatening to make me cry because this is yet another thing, like my hair, that I can’t change and won’t ever again have to feel awful for.

I join in his laughter. Why didn’t I ever ask him to teach me the sign for dick?

Closing my hand around his cock, I move with him as he massages me from base to tip. So firm and sure, his strokes send me hurtling to the edge of the universe. I close my fingers around his girth, lost in the feel of Eli’s cock in my hand.

I don’t know how I hear the crunch of twigs underneath boots.

Chapter 54

Eli

Axel jerks my sweats back over my cock, his body stiffening with what I’ve come to learn as fear.

His head jerks to the side. I lift my head and—

I spin Axel around, shoving him behind me. I move to the left, making sure he’s completely hidden by my frame.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” Frank stalks toward us, his face twisted. His lips move slowly, letting me read him with clarity. As I read his words, a gleam of metal catches my eye. The moon plays no favorites, shedding its light for anyone who needs it. But it isn’t the flash of the gun that makes me freeze.

Behind me, a slight shuffle and then Axel’s fingers sinking into the material at the back of my sweatshirt. Its impact is stunning. This man behind me is terrified.

I lift up one hand and with the other, reach behind to make sure he’s still hidden behind me.

“Leave him alone,” I enunciate as clearly as I can. I hope it’s as loud as I need it to be. I hope I've pronounced the words correctly.

In no universe did I ever think that on the rare occasion I would use my voice, it would be in a situation like this.

“You can talk, you fuckin’ deaf cunt?”

I read that clearly enough.

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