Page 102 of Snake

Knox

Sundays have a special significance here in Cinderhart. It’s a time for family, a time for reflection. Slowing down, taking stock.

When I wake up next to Nim and realize she’s not a dream, that she’s really here, I suddenly understand why that’s so important. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but it’s never been easy spending time with them. Everyone was always too caught up in their own survival. Saturday lunches were a norm growing up, but ever since I began boarding at the Academy, they’ve become distant memories.

It’s only now, lying here in this bed, that I realize just how far apart my family has grown. Because I never want to leave...and back then I could always find an excuse to go.

Nim has her back to me, her breath shallow and light. Mason is behind me, our backs to each other, and I see Silas’s mop of sandy hair sticking out beside Nim’s head. His hand is under the sheet that’s haphazardly covering the four of us, his palm loosely cupping her thigh.

We stayed up most of the night out there at the falls, telling Nim stories about our families, about Cinderhart, about ourselves.

She didn’t have much to say in return, and at first, I thought that she was trying to keep some part of herself secret—like that photo.

I don’t know where she hid it. Once we’d come back here, I searched her things and couldn’t find it. The box with photos was just that. Most of the photos were of Cinderhart—the buildings, the mountains, Hart Falls. Group photos where anyone could have been important...or no one. I could only recognize a handful of the faces. My mother wasn’t in many of them either. I have a feeling she wasn’t the one who took them. I can’t help wondering whose photos they were.

But it doesn’t matter. They’re Nim’s now.

I slip my hand under the sheet, trailing a finger over her curves. I avoid Silas’s hand so I won’t wake him, and keep my touch light so Nim will stay locked away in her dreams.

For all I know, she prefers them to real-life…like me.

But soon we’ll have to leave dreamland and contend with reality. With the fact that, come tonight, Nim won’t be in our lives anymore. Unless she finds a reason to stay in Cinderhart. We tried our best yesterday, but we should have done more. As I lie here, losing myself in the feel of her body, her soft skin and gentle curves, it’s as if she’s already slipping away.

And I can’t bear the thought of not having her one last time.

I kiss the top of her arm. Her shoulder. The side of her neck. My dick is already hardening as it hunts out her pussy between the bedsheets, eager to burrow itself deep inside her maddeningly tight walls.

If I’m quiet, if I don’t wake anyone else, then it would just be the two of us. A special, stolen moment. Something to remember her by.

Hopefully, something she’ll remember me by.

My fingers tease their way between her thighs. Her one leg is at a ninety-degree angle to the rest of her body, her other leg much straighter, toes pointing to the foot of the bed.

She’s naked. Her skin cool. But the slit between her legs is deliciously warm. I stroke my fingers over her pussy, gentle so I don’t jolt her awake.

Her breath hitches a little, so I keep stroking. I think that’ll be the most she reacts until I feel a slickness on the tips of my fingers. I smear it over her pussy, pressing dainty little kisses to her skin as my cock grows for her, hardening, throbbing.

It takes everything I have to hold back, but the anticipation is worth it. Feeling her slick heat on my fingers, feeling her body start to quiver ever so slightly. Her breathing is uneven now, and she lets out the softest little sound in the back of her throat.

Christ, my dick is aching to plunge into her.

Behind me, Mason turns over. I think—fuck, I hope—he mistakes me for Nim when he stretches out an arm and lays it over my waist.

Over both our waists.

Thankfully he doesn’t snuggle closer. I think I’d lose my wood if I felt his dick press into my back. We’ve gotten close the past few months, but I don’t think we’ll ever be that close.

I stop, waiting for him to go back to sleep. Nim’s breathing evens out. Her body stops trembling. She lets out a soft sigh and, I assume, goes back to sleep.

But fuck it, I want her more than anything now. Without Mason and Silas knowing if I can manage it. Because it feels wrong that way, sinful as stealing a kiss in church.

Her pussy is still slick, and when I slip the tip of my finger inside her, I’m instantly coated in more of her warm arousal.

I spend a few minutes toying with my dick, drawing out the inevitable. As my hand glides along my shaft, I inch closer to her pussy until the crown is brushing against her entrance with every stroke.

There’s a groan building in my throat, but I force it back so I won’t wake anyone.

The urgency to come turns into a throttled pain deep inside me. But I tolerate it. Fuck, I revel in it. I jerk off with the tip of my dick against Nim’s cunt, and I imagine what it would feel like covering her folds with my cum until she’s dripping.

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