Page 37 of The Embrace of Evergreen

He shifts his hips back and thrusts forward. He’s sliding inside of me, and it’s slick and hot and I’m stretched around him and so, so full. I can feel his piercings catch and tug lightly each time he draws back, and I rock my hips to meet his. Chasing the feel of him. He smells like apple and sweat, and I turn my head to bury my face in his hair. His moans have shifted to desperate grunts and gasps, and heat is growing inside of me and crawling along my spine, and the pleasure is building so quickly, and I’m pressed tight and sticky between our bellies as he thrusts into me hard and fast. We meet one another time and time again, our hips rising and falling together as he drives into me with long, deep strokes, and I can’t hold on.

“Blue…”

His name escapes in a whisper like a curse or a prayer, and I never want to leave this moment, never want to stop touching him, never want him to stop touching me. When he's not around, I want to relive the memories again and again until I’m lost in them and back in this moment where there is only us. He’s so close to me, but still I'm vibrating with the need to touch him, to taste and feel and float toward the edge of the unknown with him.

I drag my fingers from his hair to desperately clutch at his shoulders and back and ribs, and I just need something to hold onto because I’m falling too fast and there is nothing but pleasure and skin and Blue, and stillI need more. I need deeper and harder and faster, and I need…

His teeth sink into my neck, and his body seizes around me as he shudders and trembles. I can feel the heat of him spilling inside of me, and he’s still rocking and pressing deeper, his hips grinding against me. I cry out his name once more as I shatter and cling to him, and he is the only thing that has ever mattered.

I fall back to earth in pieces, and there are only glimpses of moments. The brush of his lips across my shoulder. The quick, unexpected sting as his body slips out of mine. The sound of his breath and the whisper of my name.

We’re still clinging to one another as he lies with his head on my shoulder and his thigh across my hips. Our fingers are still laced together, only now they’re resting on my chest. We’re quiet and content to lie together this way, tangled and sticky in Blue’s small, dark bedroom. This moment, too, is nothing like I’d ever imagined. I’m not broken or lost or frustrated or hurt. I’m not panicking and wondering how I let myself wind up in bed with someone only to desperately want to sneak away the moment they fall asleep. Being with Blue is different and new and perfect. All the years I’ve spent searching and clinging to slowly fading hope have fallen away, and this is what I have been looking for all of my life.

His breath skims across my skin as his chest rises and falls against mine. He shifts, rising to press a kiss over my heart before settling an elbow on the mattress and his head resting in his hand. His stormy grey eyes are filled with pleasure and happiness and just a bit of concern as he searches my gaze.

“Was that okay?”

I bring our hands up to press kisses against the backs of his knuckles one at a time.

“It was perfect.”

His concern melts away in an instant, and there is only satisfaction and joy in his smile when he leans in to press his forehead to mine and brush our noses together and steal slow, gentle kisses.

Blue

Just like the first night I fell asleep with Ethan stretched out at my side, when my eyes blink open, fighting against the harsh morning light that's found its way in through half-closed curtains, the bed is empty.

I scrub my hands across my face, trying to figure out just how I could have let things get so out of hand so quickly. The fact that, for some reason, I’ve fallen completely and inescapably in love with Ethan despite my promise to myself to never take that type of risk again doesn’t excuse the fact that I took advantage of him. Yes, he’s the one who came on to me, and yes, he’s a grown-ass adult who can make his own choices, but he’s been open with me. Far more open than I’ve been with him. He’s trusted me with the fact that he’s demi and that he’s never in his life connected with anyone enough to have good sex, and instead of taking my time and making sure we had a strong foundation outside of our friendship. Instead of making sure he knows that I want more, that I wouldn’t just use him, I jumped on him the second heshowed any interest in me sexually. And…now I’m in bed alone.

The soft click of the door opening has me scrambling to sit up and cover my hips with the sheets. Even though Gabriel has seen me hurt and sick and in the shower while he brushes his teeth because personal space isn’t really a thing in our house, I’m not in any hurry for him to see me lying here all sticky and introspective.

“Hi.” Ethan’s smooth voice breaks through my moment of panic.

“Hey.” My voice sounds deeper than normal, and I love the way the slight gravelly sound reflects the fact I spent a good amount of time with Ethan’s cock down my throat last night.

I shift to my knees and reach out for the mug of coffee he extends in my direction as he makes his way to the side of the bed. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants he must have snagged off the pile of laundry that always lives on my desk chair and nothing else. The bruises I sucked into his pale skin are dark and obvious, and I both hate the idea that Gabriel might have seen him like this and love the way my marks look on his thickly muscled body.

“I, uh…I thought you’d left,” I mumble around a sip of coffee as he crawls back into bed at my side. I’m more than slightly embarrassed by my assumptions and spiraling thoughts, even though I’m the only one who heard them.

He grins, and it’s a vibrant, joyful thing. “You thought I panicked and fled to cry through my regrets somewhere.”

I nearly snort out my coffee, my cheeks heating at just how accurate that statement is. “Something like that, maybe.”

“For the record,” he smiles softly, “I don’t really regret any of my attempts at sex and dating and relationships. I may not have enjoyed them, but I don’t regret trying.”

The small fluttery, hopeful thing that’s taken up residence in my chest over the past month dies an instant, painful, fiery death. “Got it. Well, that’s good to know, at least.”

Ethan’s eyes widen almost comically. “Oh my god, no. Jesus, no. Ugh, nice, Ethan, real nice. Okay, that’s not at all what I meant. I meant in the past, with dates that didn’t go well and sex that was terrible. I didn’t mean you or last night. Last night with you was…indescribable.”

His panic over the misunderstanding seems to indicate that indescribable is a good thing, but I’m still a bit too shell-shocked to be sure. “And that’s…that’s good, right?”

He sets his untouched coffee on the nightstand and pulls mine from my hand to set it down as well before crawling over me to straddle my lap. His strong fingers trace my cheekbones as he smiles tenderly, his brilliant emerald eyes only inches from my own.

“It was everything, Blue. It was everything I’ve ever read about and seen in movies. Everything I always hoped it could be, and so many things I never even knew I wanted.”

Every moment of pain in my past, every second I’ve been hurt or doubted myself. Every day and month and year of living without hope, of hiding my heart behind towering, impenetrable walls, of giving up on the idea that love - real, complex, heart-stopping, chest-aching love - might actually exist are erased with one smile, one sentence, one man.

My hands fly to his hips as I bend my knees and plant my feet on the bed, pulling him close, pinning his body against me and bringing our lips together. Our lips play slow and gentle, and he is everything I’ve ever wanted. I never want to leave this moment, never want to remember what it’s like not to have his weight pinning me to the mattress, his hands clutching my neck, his breath mingling with mine.

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