Page 127 of Echoes of Us

He sat back on his heels. “It’s up to you, Att. I won’t pressure you into it. If you want us to stop here, that’s fine by me.”

I pressed my lips together. I knew Noah had been having sex since we broke up. I wasn’t sure if he was right now, and I hadn’t heard of him being in a relationship, but he could have had one. Even if I had kissed him, I didn’t owe him anyexplanations. We had broken up, Noah had dumped me, and we weren’t together. Even if he was back in my life, we weren’t anything to each other.

“As long as it’s just for fun,” I told him.

Mathew grinned. “It’ll be fun. Don’t worry about that.”

He moved closer to me again. He seized me by my neck, bringing me back to his lips. I groaned as he slipped his hand into my joggers and grabbed me. He tugged on my sweats with his other hand, and I lifted my hips to help, letting him pull them down my thighs. He stopped kissing me, raising his eyebrows and smiling appreciatively as he leered. He started stroking me, and I closed my eyes, feeling his hand moving over me.

“Hey, Att, what do you like to do?” he asked.

I glanced back at him, trying to focus. “This is okay.”

“I mean, what do you like for sex…top?” he clarified.

I swallowed thickly and nodded.

“Do you want to? Have sex with me?”

I pushed down my thoughts and reservations and nodded again.

He smiled before leaning down and taking me in his mouth. Mathew was good at this, skilled. I tried to lose myself in the feeling. I watched his head bobbing between my legs. Mathew’s short, brown hair might have been a little tousled if I got my hands into it. I couldn’t go there—even edging on the idea felt wrong.

He stayed there for a few minutes, and I kept trying to get into it. It’s not that it was terrible. It wasn’t bad at all. It just wasn’t amazing.

He let go and looked up at me, his hand still moving on me. He was frowning, his expression was curious.

“What?” I asked.

“Are you not into this?”

“No, I am, I am,” I told him.

He tilted his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever had any complaints in this department. It’s a little unsettling.”

“No complaints from me either. I swear, you’re not doing anything wrong,” I said quickly.

“But?” he prompted.

“I just feel weird sitting here.”

He appeared even more confused. “You don’t like getting sucked off? That’s a first,” he said, clearly puzzled.

“No, it’s not that. Let’s just get into it. I can’t sit back.”

His smile grew. “Oh, I get it. You like to be in charge,” Mathew said and let out a throaty laugh. “That’s fine by me.”

He stood up and took his shirt off. Mathew was lean too. He had a great body; I couldn’t complain about that either. He got out of his jeans, revealing a pair of tight boxer shorts that were visibly tenting. I swallowed again, and he touched my shoulders. I realized what he was going to do a second before he did and held him back by his hips.

“No. Don’t do that.”

He was puzzled again. He looked like he was about to ask me why I didn’t want him climbing on my lap, and I really didn’t want to get into that, so I pulled on him to get him to sit next to me and leaned down to kiss him again. Any objection he had died there. He offered to get himself ready, but I refused. Even if I hadn’t done it in a while, I still preferred going through the motions myself. When he deemed himself ready, he got on all fours while I put the condom on, and we began.

I soon understood what Noah meant by mediocre sex.

It was like going through the motions but not being there. There was an overwhelming feeling of wrongness in my chest. He didn’t move right. He didn’t sound right. Everything was just slightly off, and I couldn’t concentrate properly. I was never going to finish like this, and I was going to be stuck having lousy sex forever.

I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him up against me. Iplaced his hands back into my hair, and closed my eyes, resting my face against his, getting my hands on his hips. I tried to get them moving correctly, forcing him to push back on me like Noah did. I tried to get myself there, to feel him against me, calling my name, begging me to go faster, harder.

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