Page 108 of The Longest Shot
“Morgan, I’m going to?—”
She pulls back entirely, and I actually arch off the couch, a desperate sound tearing from my throat.
“Not yet,” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, which is somehow both crude and elegant. “One more question.”
“You’re killing me. They’re going to find my body here, and the cause of death will be terminal blue balls combined with sociology overdose.”
She laughs—actually laughs—and it’s the most beautiful sound. Then her expression turns serious, but there’s something softer in her eyes. “If you want to finish in my mouth, then I need you to explain Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence.”
It’s obscure, something from his religious sociology that definitely wasn’t in our assigned reading. She’s testing whether I’ve done more than the minimum. And suddenly I want to prove that I have, that I’m worth her faith, that I'm worth her love.
“It’s the energy created by group gatherings,” I say, meeting her eyes. “The shared emotional experience that creates social bonds and reinforces group identity. Like what happens atgames, in the locker room, when we’re all focused on the same goal.”
She goes utterly still, hand frozen on my thigh.
“How did you know that?” She whispers. "You were meant to get that wrong."
“I…” I swallow hard, suddenly feeling exposed beyond the physical. The truth sits heavy in my throat, the memory of all those nights when anxiety kept me awake, when the silence got too loud and I couldn’t shut my brain off. “I’ve been doing extra reading at night when I can’t sleep. I wanted to prove I’m not just the dumb jock everyone assumes I am.”
Something shifts in her expression, and what I see then is soft and surprised and maybe proud. She leans down until her lips barely brush mine. “You beautiful, brilliant man,” she whispers, and the raw honesty makes my chest crack open. "Now you can choose, finish in my mouth, or play round two…"
My cock shouts at me to take the first door, but suddenly I don't want this moment to end. "Round two…" I croak.
That wicked smile returns, warmer now, and she shifts just enough to brush against my cock, making us both gasp. “I was hoping you'd say that…"
The combination of threat and promise in those words makes me groan.
thirty-nine
MORGAN
His cock standsrigid before me, flushed dark and wet at the tip, and the sight sends possessive satisfaction burning through my core.
He looks up at me with those warm brown eyes, his chest heaving in ragged breaths that make his abs contract in measurable intervals. His hands clench against the sofa cushions, knuckles white, fighting some internal battle between reaching for me and following my unspoken rules.
The desperation in his face, the raw worship written in every trembling muscle… this is control. Real control. Not the brittle fortress I built around myself, but something alive and electric, something that makes my nerve endings fire in patterns anatomy textbooks don't cover.
I never intended for him to get the Durkheim question right. That obscure detail about collective effervescence was supposed to be my kill switch, a calculated denial to keep him desperate, focused, and completely at my mercy, but he surprised me.
Something he's doing more and more of lately.
But surprise feels good because, for the first time in three years, I’m not just surviving behind my walls. I’mliving. The armor is scattered across my apartment floor with our clothes,and instead of feeling exposed, I feel powerful. And, somewhere along the line, the impossible happened.
I started to trust him.
“Next question.” I trace a finger down his chest, cataloging each involuntary twitch. “An easy one this time. Define social stratification.”
He swallows hard, his throat working visibly. “The systematic inequalities between groups in society. Based on wealth, power, and prestige.”
“Good.” I lean down until my lips barely brush his ear, noting how his entire body shivers. “Tell me what you want, James.”
When he speaks, raw honesty cuts through my defenses with surgical precision. “I want to taste you. Please. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”
Heat pools between my thighs, but it’s the look in his eyes that gets to me most—not just desire but a genuine need to give me pleasure, to worship me the way he should have three years ago—and right at that moment I realize he could ask foranythingand I'd say yes.
I shift on the sofa, swinging one leg over to straddle his face. The position leaves me exposed in ways unrelated to nudity; it’s intimate and vulnerable, requiring me to put myself in his hands (or, rather, his mouth). But whereas a month ago my brain would have been screaming at me, right now it's eager.
His hands grip my thighs, guiding me down with gentle insistence. The first touch of his tongue makes me gasp, shocking against sensitive nerve endings, and he groans against me like I’m sustenance, the vibration resonating through my entire nervous system.
