Page 18 of One Hot Summer
He whimpered, voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m sure. I need you inside me. Please.”
I couldn’t have held back if I’d tried. I pushed in, slowly but relentless, splitting him open inch by inch. He gasped, fingers flying to my forearm, but didn’t tell me to stop. I watched his face the whole time, needing to see every twitch, every wince, every blissed-out moment where pain gave way to pleasure.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” I said, breath hitching as I bottomed out.
“Move,” he begged, heels digging into my lower back. “Just fuck me, please.”
I set a rhythm, slow at first, then harder as he adjusted. His moans got louder, his hands frantic, trying to pull me deeper. I gave him everything, pounding into him with a force I didn’t know I had.
I grabbed his jaw and kissed him, biting his lip until he moaned into my mouth. “God, Adam,” I groaned. “You feel so fucking good. So perfect and hot for me.”
He whimpered, his nails digging into my shoulders. I could feel the pressure building; knew I wasn’t going to last much longer. Adam was even better than I’d dreamed, responsive to my every touch, meeting me thrust for thrust, and spewing out filthy words that spurned me on.
I shifted my angle slightly and he cried out, his back arching off the bed. “There,” he gasped. “Right there. Oh God, Griffin! Don’t stop! Don’t you dare fucking stop!”
I kept going, chasing the edge, losing myself in the heat and the sweat and the way he looked up at me, like he couldn’t believe I was real. I could feel him getting close, the way his cock throbbed between us, leaking onto his stomach. I reached down and stroked him, matching the rhythm of my thrusts. He went rigid, body arching off the bed, and came with a shudder so violent it almost threw me off. He cried out, clamping down hard around my dick until I saw stars. I followed him over the edge, my vision going white with the power of my orgasm. For a minute, I thought my heart might explode. We collapsed together, tangled and shaking, breath mingling in the space between our mouths.
For a long time, neither of us moved. I lay there, holding him, feeling the aftershocks ripple through us both. I pressed my lips to his temple and whispered, “You okay?”
He nodded, still catching his breath. “Never better.”
I stroked his hair, marveling at how right it felt to have him in my arms. We stayed like that, limbs tangled, bodies cooling, until his breathing slowed and he drifted off to sleep.
Adam slept like the dead, sprawled out, one arm flung over my chest, cheek pressed to my shoulder, mouth slightly open. Every now and then he made a noise—a soft huff, a sigh, once a breathless laugh—and every time, it hit me right in the center of my chest.
I lay there, unmoving, staring at the ceiling and wondering how I could feel so strongly about someone so quickly and what in the hell I was going to do about it. My hand hovered over his back. I traced circles, then lines, then random shapes I couldn’t name. He was warm, soft in places I never expected, but I could feel the strength coiled beneath his skin. He was beautiful. He was trouble.
I should have felt guilty. I did, a little. But mostly I felt terrified. It should have been just sex. A way to bleed out the tension, to get it out of our systems and go back to normal. But nothing about this felt like a one-time thing. There was a gravity to it. A pull I didn’t want to admit to but couldn’t deny.
I wondered if it was the same for him. Maybe it was just a fling, a box to check before he moved on to someone his own age. Maybe tomorrow he’d laugh it off, or worse, regret it. I tried to imagine letting him go, watching him leave for home, only seeing him when I visited Dalton. The thought made me feel sick.
I kept tracing his back, the shape of each vertebra, the dip at the base of his spine. I tried to memorize every inch, in case this was all I ever got. He murmured something in his sleep, a jumble of words I couldn’t make out. I almost asked him what he was dreaming about but stopped myself at the last second. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to keep this moment, unspoiled, for as long as I could.
The night stretched on. Adam’s breathing got deeper, steadier. I stayed awake, fighting the urge to run, to hold him tighter, to wake him up just to see if he’d still want me in the cold morning light. I thought about what I was willing to risk for this. For him. For the possibility of something real. I didn’t like the answer.
Chapter Seven
ADAM
For a good five seconds after I opened my eyes, I didn’t remember where I was, or why every muscle in my body hurt in the best possible way. Then the events of the night before came rushing back to me in strikingly colorful detail: Griffin’s hands on me, his breath in my ear, his body pinning mine to the mattress as I begged him not to stop. The memory alone made my dick twitch.
I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, replaying everything second by second. The desperation of our kisses, the way he’d moaned when I bit his lip, the taste of his skin, the helpless sounds I’d made when he finally pushed inside me. It had been rough, but not careless. There were moments when Griffin had slowed down, when he’d searched my face to see if I was okay, and that made it so much worse. Or better. Or just more.
I flopped onto my stomach and buried my face in the pillow. He was probably already up, probably pretending none of it everhappened, probably making coffee and reading the news like he hadn’t spent half the night railing his son’s best friend.
I felt like I’d gone through some kind of transformation, but for him it might’ve been just… a thing. Something to do, a way to blow off steam. Or maybe he regretted it. Maybe he was sitting on the porch right now, drafting a carefully worded apology in his head and mentally rehearsing the speech about how we needed to “move on” and “pretend last night never happened.”
I yanked the blanket over my head and groaned. When I finally managed to extricate myself from the bed, I was sore in ways I didn’t even know were possible. My thighs ached, my abs felt like I’d done a thousand crunches, and my ass—well, it was a miracle I could even stand. The worst part was, I liked it. Every twinge was a reminder that, for one night, I’d gotten exactly what I wanted.
I staggered back to my own room and headed straight for the bathroom, wincing as I caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair looked like a flock of birds had nested in it, and there were teeth marks along my collarbone. Bruises, too, perfect fingerprint shapes blooming right above my hip bones where he’d held on tight as he thrust into me, deep and merciless. I trailed a finger over one of them, a rush of heat pooling in my groin.
After a quick shower, I brushed my teeth then pulled on a pair of shorts—hissing as the rough material grazed my raw skin—and a soft t-shirt. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, someone special, cared for. Someone brave enough to ask for what he wanted and not apologize for it.
My phone was charging on the nightstand. I picked it up and thumbed through the notifications, but there was nothing important except a message from my professors verifying that they’d received my completed assignments.
Out of habit, I pulled up Dalton’s Instagram. He hadn’t posted in days, but I scrolled through some of the photos from the humanitarian project he was working on. Dalton’s smile in the photo looked different from the one he wore back at school—more real, less forced. A pang of guilt stabbed me right in the gut. He was out there doing good in the world, and I was here, fucking up the only thing in my life that actually mattered.
Or maybe it wasn’t even a fuck-up, maybe it was just… sex. A fun memory, a blip on the radar. I was probably overthinking it. Griffin was attractive, smart, and way out of my league. People like him didn’t fall for people like me. He’d said it himself: it was a mistake. So why did it hurt so much to think about him treating last night that way?
