Page 129 of Jaded

“Yeah, that’s right, baby.” Olli’s cooing against my throat, and he’s stopped pumping my cock, but his hips are still thrusting. “You did so good. So good. You want to watch me come too?”

He’s still thrusting, still jerking himself, and the way his voice escapes in a breathy scrape, he’s close.

“You don’t have to,” he says, but I know that’s not true. I do have to, I want to, I want to watch him come undone. “Shit, I’m so clo—shit. Shit.”

His head tilts toward the sky, body softens. A faded little moan escapes the perfect O of his lips, and I look down to watch his cock spill milky-white into the snow.

The thrust of his hips weakens, and it’s instinct, to put my arms around him and pull him against me. Hold him in close so I feel the heave of his lungs and the frantic thud of his heart, so we share breaths as much as we share body heat and bare skin.

“That was,” I murmur, but I don’t have the words, any words, so I just press a kiss to his hair. “Thank you.”

He laughs. “Maybe I’m the one thanking you.”

“You don’t need to,” I say, too softened and sated to be affronted by the suggestion, even in jest. “I have no expectations, you know that.”

“I know.” His beautiful mouth still curves upwards. “I was lying. I just really, really wanted to touch your cock.”

I laugh, pull him in closer. “You’re kind of a pervert ghost.”

“You’d be lying if you said you didn’t like it.”

“I would,” I agree, marveling at the way our slowing hearts beat in sync, the way our breaths form one single cloud out in the cold, the way even the mess in the snow at our feet seems to be one homogeneous spill of . . . us. “But I’m even more impressed how you figured out what to do with the cum.”

Chapter 31

Olli

There’ssomethingincrediblyterrifyingand powerful about showing someone your inner darkness—your true, whole self. Looking them in the eye and saying, here I am, all of me, ragged edges and shattered shards and all.

And when they don’t turn away . . .

It’s like being seen for the first time.

Like you’ve given someone all the pieces of your scattered puzzle, maybe not entirely put together, maybe not all the pieces in the right places, but there, all of them, in all their broken, ugly, dark beauty.

Nat Taylor still hasn’t turned away. In fact, he followed me into the woods and back again, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t doing it for a quick—and man was it quick—frot against a tree, because he looked pretty shell-shocked when I pulled out the lube.

And now that we’re tromping back into my yard, Nat’s cheeks reddened from so many hours out in the cold, I realize he’s going to have to leave now, right, because he has a whole other life to get back to.

I don’t know how to feel about that. I don’t know how to feel about not knowing how to feel about it.

I’m exhausted. Inside and out. Because those dark spells have a way of wearing me down at the soul level, and that kind of wear-down you feel everywhere, like the shadow of it's etched into my bones.

Not to mention I’m an introvert, which means I require alone time—with my thoughts, my notebook, the TV or a book. And yet . . . I don’t want him to go.

I don’t want to think about what that means.

“You hungry?” I ask as we near the back door. “There’s a place down the street—” I freeze, hand on the knob. “I mean, that is . . . you’re welcome to stay, but like, it’s not like, required or anything. I mean, I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter, or I’m not gonna . . . um.”

Way to go Olli. Way to go from zero: let’s keep it professional—to sixty: you found me half-dead and stayed and hooked up with me and now I’m inviting you to dinner—in one second flat.

Way. To. Go.

His hand covers mine, effectively shutting me up. And his next words come out soft and smooth and decidedly right. “What do you want?”

“What do you?” I cock my head to study the smooth, serious lines of his face, the questioning pull of his brows.

“I want to stay for dinner,” he says, soft and slow. “But only if you really want me to.”

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