Page 67 of No One But Us

He pulls my mouth to his, and I reach down, unfastening his belt, pushing down his khakis and boxers, unable to work fast enough for either of us. He is beyond ready, groaning as I slide against him, separated only by the thin satin of my thong. “Fuck,” he says. The desperation in his voice, that last note of resistance, drives me to move faster, and suddenly he is lifting us both off the couch and walking us to his room, grabbing my dress as he goes. The door slams behind him, and moments later he’s tossing me on the bed, hooking his hands beneath my knees to get me flat on my back. With one finger he pulls the thong down and sends it flying somewhere behind him. He leans over me, his stubble scraping my jaw, his breath against my ear. I arch against him, where he rests between my legs, seeking contact, needing something more, and I hear the air hiss between histeeth.

“Do I need a condom?” heasks.

“No,” I pant. “Just...please.”

Wordlessly he thrusts inside me, and my body bows off the bed with a moan I can’t begin to callback.

He stays there for just a moment, flinching. “Oh, fuck,” he hisses. “You feel too good. I need asecond.”

I shift uncomfortably beneath him, trying to adjust to his size and desperately needing more from him at the same time. And then he begins to move. Slowly at first, capturing my gasps with hismouth.

His hands slide up, span my waist, move higher. His touch and his mouth grow desperate, less calculated, our skin slick, dampening the sheets beneath me. He no longer moves slowly inside me but with a force that finds me bracing myself against the headboard, and I thank God we’re alone, because if we weren’t, my noises would be waking the wholehouse.

His jaw is locked with restraint as he tries to hold back, but his thrusts become fast and irregular, and I feel my whole body tightening up, every muscle coiling and ready tospring.

“I’m close,” I cry, and the words are barely out of my mouth before it hits me, my blood heating and exploding as I clench him inside me, my nails digging into hisback.

His whole body goesrigid.

“Elle,” he groans, a single pained syllable as he comes, his mouth pressed to my damp skin, eyes squeezed shut. With one final pulse, he stills and relaxes against me, burying his head in the crook of myneck.

I let his weight settle over me as our breathingslows.

“So perfect,” he mumbles, kissing my jaw, my neck, my ear. “Oh my God. I knew it would be like that with you.” His voice is sorrowful, though, and it makes something squeeze my chest like a vise. He’s already thinking of this as something he will miss when itends.

He begins to roll off, and I stop him. “Don’tgo.”

“I’m crushingyou.”

“I like it.” But he is already gone, pulling me onto hischest.

“I’d have risked it before, but now that I know what it’s like to sleep withyou…”

I laugh, and then we lay there with his fingers tracing quiet patterns over myskin.

“You really thought I wasn’t ready to sleep with you?” heasks.

I shrug, the motion tiny, masking a thousand insecurities. “I didn’t know what the deal was.” I guess I stilldon’t.

“I wanted to,” he says, flipping me to my stomach so quickly that the air rushes from my chest in a sharp burst. He bites my earlobe as he nudges my knees apart. “And I want toagain.”

“You just finished. You can’t possibly be ready to go again. You’re stilldressed.”

He pulls his shirt over his head and kicks off his pants and boxers, which were at mid-thigh. He lowers himself and—damn. There it is. He’s more thanready.

“You have no idea how many times a day, anhour, I’ve thought about doing this,” he says, moving against me until he’s in the exact right place. “I have some catching up todo.”

Chapter 39

JAMES

My dad wentto law school hoping to save the world. I remember his old room in my grandparents’ house, preserved in its teenage glory. The huge tomes in the bookshelf about social injustice, the walls covered in stickers and slogans for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He wound up at my mother’s family’s law firm instead—pretty much the opposite of what he’d planned—defending rich assholes who didn’t deserve his help. Because that was what my mother wanted—the two of them, side-by-side in her family’s business. And my dad loved her enough to go along withit.

My mom always told the story as if it was comical—sweet, naïve Jim who needed to be steered in the right direction. She laughed about how little money he’d be making if he hadn’t met her. And he’d laugh too, but his laugh was more subdued, and sometimes I’d see this look on his face as if he was somewhere far away, watching a different future unfold—the one he stillwanted.

My dad shouldn’t have given up his dream. My mom shouldn’t have nearly starved herself to death when he tried to leave. My family’s history is riddled with people who did stupid shit for love, and I refuse to become one of them. But the more time I spend around Elle, the more I find myself wishing things were different. Wishing we’d met at another time, maybe when she was out of college and we had other options. Those are thoughts I shouldn’t have at all, because the natural progression from wishing things could work is to start trying to make them work, and there are too many reasons a relationship with her nevercan.

Was it a mistake to sleep with her? Of course it was a fucking mistake. It’s a mistake for any addict to give into a weakness, and now that I’ve given in once, I will give in a thousand times, because she has opened the floodgates. I’ve just ensured that when this summer ends, it’s going to be fuckingawful.

---