Page 33 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
In three quick strides I had him dwarfed in my arms, inhaling him, kissing the nest of curls at the top of his head, running my hands all over him, ignoring the metaphorical dirt under my nails. “Take all this off.” Consumed with a frantic need to have my skin against his, I removed my clothing as he worked on his own. With my palm clasped too tight around his, I led us to the bedroom.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” I said, drawing back the covers. With his ear to my heart and a leg thrown over my hip, he filled me in on how things had been going in his life outside our bubble. He quivered when my hand ran down his spine possessively, but he kept talking.
“Your happiness comes first, Phoenix.” I rolled him to his back and braced myself above him. “We’ll collapse before we’re done building if you feel stifled by this relationship.” It would be all too easy for me to forget Phoenix had a life outside of me. Had people who wanted his time, who noticed his absence. “Do they know how serious this is? Do they understand what’s at stake if this gets out?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“If you trust your friends, then I will too,” I said, praying that our trust wasn’t misplaced. “You’re worth the risk.” I said another silent prayer, swallowing around the dread lodged in my airway, and quelled the thoughts that said we needed to stop this now.
“I am?”
“You awakened something in me that first day with your passion and willingness to challenge me. In all my years of teaching, there’s never been a student who came to me not seeking knowledge but to exchange information and ideas. I’d become complacent, jaded even. You forced me to stand up straight and call on all the parts of my brain I no longer used.” My life before Phoenix mocked me now, tickling the back of my neck, calling me home. I refused to turn at the sound of its voice, and I smacked my nape as if ridding myself of a buzzing fly.
“I’d been preparing all my life for it,” he said. “It’s the one area I’m completely confident in. I’m the most comfortable in my skin during your class.” He squeezed my straining biceps. “And here, like this.”
“‘How many are the things a man can do without.’” I situated our cocks and began a slow frot.
“Socrates.” His breath stuttered in his lungs, and his fingers dug in hard enough to leave marks.
“You are not one of those things, Phoenix.” I kissed the corner of his eye, my lips soaking up the moisture that slipped from it. I bore my weight down on him, clutching him to me, inhaling from the spot behind his ear, wishing I could swallow him whole.
We took a shower after our climaxes spurred an impromptu nap. With the steam encasing us in a bubble, I brought up a point I hadn’t thought to earlier. “I understand your need to tell your friends,” I said gently, “but discussing this at school can’t happen again. What if it wasn’t me who’d walked through those cafeteria doors, Phoenix?”
“God, you’re right,” he said, raising his fists to his brows and turning from me. “It’s just… we were in our corner whispering—” He stopped himself, likely remembering the volume of Danny’s outburst. “I’m sorry. I’m ruining everything.”
When he refused to turn back to me, I stepped around him. “It’s okay. Luckily, this time it’s okay.”
He nodded.
“Let me take care of you,” I said when he reached for the soap dispenser. With a few pumps in my hand I started at his neck and shoulders.
“You like to take care of me.” His eyes closed as I made my way down his chest. “Did you take care of Alex?”
I flipped my gaze to his before squatting to get his lower body. “Yes,” I whispered. “After a childhood of not being able to keep my delicate things, nothing made me happier than tending to him.” I had treated Alex like a baby bird, but then I tore his wings from his back and expected him to fly. My eyes fell to the wings across my chest.
“I’m not a delicate thing.”
“No, you’re anything but, Phoenix.” I continued to his feet, he placed a hand on my shoulder as he lifted them one by one.
“That doesn’t make me jealous, you know. Hearing you talk about him. I see the way you look at me when you do, but it’s just another thing that causes my heart to both break and reach for you.” His hair curled tighter from the humidity, and I rose and slid a bold hand through it, my heart sailing to my throat. I never wanted him to feel like a replacement.
“You like to be taken care of,” I said. “Because it’s been too long since someone took care of the boy in you.”
“Yes,” he barely said. “But I’m not a boy anymore.” He was sure to mention, always so prickly about his age in comparison to mine. “Can I take care of you too?”
“I’d like that,” I said, surprised to realize that I would.
We changed positions so that his back was to the spray, the suds running off of him and into the drain. When he couldn’t reach the top of my head on tip-toes, I bent to give him access. He took his time massaging my scalp and detangling my hair before rinsing and applying conditioner.
He worked quietly and after, we held on to each other under the jets until the swirl of water beneath our feet ran clear. There was something about being held like this, when neither of you were counting down the seconds to when it would be appropriate to pull away. When time didn’t exist, when everything else disappeared, and you were truly in the moment.This is why wars are waged. This is worth fighting for.
“I’ll always fight for us,” he said in response to what I’d apparently said aloud. Hopefully it wouldn’t have to come to that.
I breathed in the scent of his wet hair, and then led him out of the shower by his hand. “How are things with your mother?” I passed him a towel.
“I don’t know. She’s been acting strange lately. Checking in on me, asking about my day more often, showing up in my room more often too.”
“So she’s being a mother?” The edge of my mouth tipped upward.
