Fuck.

“Buckle up. I’m very close and won’t hold back.”

“Good.” He looked back at me with flushed cheeks. “I want you to lose control. Fuck me the way you want.”

There was no stopping us after that.

I pushed into him with one hard, decisive thrust that made us both groan. Once I’d bottomed out, I molded myself against his back, putting an arm around Antony’s collarbone, and started giving him just what he’d asked.

One hard, rough fuck with no finesse, no control to be had, only raw lust and need.

With each thrust, Antony was letting out small, high-pitched sounds that went directly into my bloodstream. Each slap of skin against skin only made me want to push harder, get deeper, getcloser.I needed to be as close to him as physically possible, I wanted to merge the both of us so completely there would be no telling where one ended and the other one started, and with each slide of my cock, I was reaching for him. Reaching for his heart, for his very soul, and I nailed his prostate, again and again, wanting Antony to reach the highest of ecstasies because he deserved the world.

He deserved everything.

Antony was steadily fucking himself back against me, the feeling of his need increasing my own, and when I felt way too close to my orgasm, I started jerking him off, making him cry out from overstimulation. I didn’t stop until he came all over my hand, and as his tight, glorious asshole contracted all around me, I spilled inside the condom. Selfishly, I imagined spilling intohim, each rope of come a dirty promise for more, a promise of forever.

Panting, we both laid down, me carefully pulling out and throwing away the condom on my trusty trashcan. Then I didn’t resist the urge to pull Antony against me, holding him tight, his face on my throat and his strong arms around me.

This is it,the monster in my head said.

This was everything I’d ever wanted.

Antony was trembling a bit, probably from the intensity of our fuck, and God, what did it say about us that each time it felt like this? Mind-blowing, world-ending, heart-shattering.

I could only hold him tighter in response, caressing his back and whispering sweet nothings, calling him darling, because I couldn’tnot. He was the most dearest person to me.

And I was in fucking love with him.

“Jesus, sorry,” he said when he managed to calm down.

“Never apologize for this,” I told him, kissing the side of his head and continuing with my soft, soothing motions.

Antony was silent for a long moment, and then, voice small and ragged, he said, “I never want this to stop.”

My throat closed up, overwhelmed with emotion, and I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.

I felt the exact same way, but whether it was today, tomorrow, or the next, reality was going to come crashing down on us, and we were both going to be collateral.

So I just held him close. For as long as I could. And for just one more day, I kept my eyes and ears closed and pretended it was okay to love the most wonderful guy in the world.

Chapter 30

Antony

Things had inevitably changed. It was impossible for me to deny what this feeling inside me was when I thought about Henry, which was all the time. It was futile to pretend that all along, I hadn’t been in love with him, and now that I finally could admit it to myself, it was when I felt on the verge of losing him.

So, suffice it to say, the next day, I felt like a ghost. I’d had my suspicions that Henry knew—just like Maddox had suspected—that I’d had secret motivations to reach out to him in the beginning. It had obviously not been because my moral convictions had compelled me to do so, and instead, my reasoning had everything to do with the selfish desire to be in Henry’s life at any cost. To slither my way into it, however briefly, just so I could get over the pain in my chest every time I caught sight of him across campus. Connell’s favor had been the perfect excuse, and even if Henry didn’t know the specifics, after our conversation yesterday, I was more than sure that hedidknow something about my secret motivations.

I’d wanted to tell him. I really had. And yet I hadn’t been able to resist him (nor had I wanted to) when he started kissing me softly like that, seducing me in the best way possible, trying to close his eyes to the reality of the world, and like a fool, I’d wanted to do the same. And we had.

And now everything was worse.

Today, I had my interview with the top company I’d selected. This was the best chance for me to get the career I desired, it would be the golden ticket towards my future, because even if I wasn’t as charismatic, well-spoken, or accomplished in many areas as other future candidates, this company’s name would speak for me.

And of course, it went horribly.

Getting into the tall, majestic building, going up the elevators with people whose suits were worth more than the average person’s salary, and sitting stoically in the waiting room, I’d been trying to push away all of my thoughts about Henry. I’d been trying to forget about the lies between us, the desperation and need that had permeated our love-making, and I’d tried to embody the version of myself that I’d always wanted to be. I tried to become, even for just twenty minutes, the person who could get this internship easily, effortlessly, the type of guy who didn’t even worry about his future because doors were always open to him, who was worthy of having such successful loving parents and would have their hard work bear fruit.