Page 55 of A Totally Platonic Thing
“So what’s the problem?” Chris demanded. Now his eyes had gotten all bright with what I recognized as Chris on a mission. Fuck. “If it’s fine, then it’s fine! And it’s mostly not for you anyway. I promise.”
I waited for a second to make sure he was done.
“Okay, look, yes,” I said, starting to feel a little cornered. “But there’s things like, I don’t know. Like trading laundry for scrubbing the shower, because that’s about both of us sharing the same space. Or not sleeping with other people, because that’s something you do when you’re sleeping together since it affects both of you. But not going to your classes! That has nothing to do with me. That’s all about you, and it’s all on you. And it can’t be about me or on me, and that’s what’s going to happen if you expect me to spank you to remind you to behave yourself every time you feel like blowing off your seminar!”
Chris glared at me, eyes blazing. “And what if I want you to spank me, huh?”
“I know you want me to spank you, and that’s not exactly making your case for you!”
“Ugh!” Chris shouted, somehow managing to flounce even though he was sitting on a bed. “Ugh. You aresoannoying sometimes!”
“Yeah, well, you ought to be used to it by now!”
We stared each other down for a second, both breathing hard and pissed-off and too stubborn to back down.
And then the corners of Chris’s lips twitched, and he started to laugh—but when he collapsed down onto his back again and covered his face with his hands, I kind of suspected he was crying a little bit, too.
“Shit,” he said from behind his hands. “This is stupid. I know you’re right. I totally know it. But I swear to you, Lucas,” and he pulled his hands away, revealing little drops clinging to his eyelashes, “I’m going to class for me. I want to graduate. I know I’ve been fucking up, and maybe you were, like, the catalyst. But it’s for me. And I don’t expect you to take any responsibility for me. If I screw up, you can…not spank me. Maybe I only get spanked if I go to class?”
He sounded so hopeful that I couldn’t keep it together, shaking my head and starting to laugh, rubbing my temples to try to clear my head a little.
Jesus. How did Chris always get under my defenses? Even from the first day we’d met, he’d slid right past every normal standard I had for dealing with people.
Maybe it was those eyes.
Damn it.
Okay, so he’d already won, and he knew it. I hadn’t gotten out of bed and I hadn’t told him this wouldn’t work, and I didn’t think I had it in me in any case. The thought of never fucking Chris again…well, it didn’t matter how it made me feel, because I wouldn’t be able to say no.
And I’d already established that nothing scared me more than the thought of losing him completely. Total non-starter.
“Promise me,” I said at last. “You have to absolutely swear, on—Donna Summer’s favorite sparkly jumpsuit, okay?” Chris made a face at me, and I made one right back. He knew I was never going to forgive him for the night he’d sweet-talked me into watching like two hours of Donna Summer live in concert a million years ago that he’d found on YouTube. “Better yet. Swear on Colin Firth’s ass. Something. But you have to promise you’ll take care of yourself for yourself, and not expect me to come running wh—if you screw up. I can’t live like that. I was already beginning to not be able to take it, and we weren’t even sleeping together.”
“I promise,” Chris said, eyes so big and round and bright and sincere. “I absolutely promise on Colin Firth’s ass in a sparkly jumpsuit. I really wish I could see that. Never mind, sorry, sorry, not getting sidetracked. I swear to God, Lucas, this,” and he gestured between the two of us, “isnotabout motivation for me. And I won’t fuck up, and if I do I won’t expect you to deal with it.”
I had to believe it. Not only did I desperately want to believe it, but what alternative did I have, realistically speaking? Moving out? Keeping my hands off of him in a small, enclosed space day after day and night after night?
Yeah, right.
So I leaned down, propping myself over him, and bent to kiss him. Despite my misgivings, a thrill went through me at the touch of his soft lips and the feel of his body under me.
Chris. Mine. I had Chris, and he wasmine. I could kiss him, and fuck him, and pet him, and touch him any way I wanted any time I wanted, and he was fuckingmine.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. So we’re—I don’t know. We’re seeing where this goes?”
Chris’s blinding smile lit up the whole room. It definitely lit up every dark part of me that wanted to doubt him. Christ, but it made me happy when he was happy. It felt like my chest got lighter and my brain quieted down, like everything in the world narrowed down to that smile.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we are. And, um, it could go in my ass again. You know, if you wanted suggestions for where it should go right now?”
I rolled back on top of him. “I like that suggestion. Make some more.”
His face went bright red and he got all shifty, and I fucking knew I was going to love whatever came out of his mouth next.
“Maybe suck on my nipples again?”
“You have the best ideas,” I breathed, and moved down, kissing along the way.
He kept me busy with suggestions for the next two hours, and when we finally passed out, exhausted and aching and barely able to move, we were both smiling. And I had him in my bed, in my arms, where he belonged.
