Page 36 of Only This Once
His fingers slid into the waistband of her pants. If he dragged them down, their position was perfect for him to push inside of her. He’d be inside Julia, with her riding his erection, just like that college girl had done that one night.
A spark of alarm slid through him, mixing with all the delicious heat. No, he was okay. This was Julia. He wanted this. They’d agreed. He just needed to ask her about the condom. She said she used them. She had to have one.
Julia made a sexy sound in her throat, sucking on his tongue as she arched against his dick, making the sensation spike. His body loved it while his mind dissolved into a cluster of nerves. If she continued to move against him like that, he was going to come before he even got his dick out.
Of course he was going to come. His body had no problem getting there with this kind of stimulation. It’d proved it the last time a woman had been on top of him.
The nerves twisted and ricocheted inside him. His head fell back, freeing his lips. “I can’t,” he moaned, the pleasure rocketing through him intense but also tearing him apart. “I can’t. I can’t.”
Julia stilled against him, her hands slipping from the back of his head to cup his cheeks. “Hey. You’re okay, Jinx.”
The sound of his nickname quieted the spiraling panic in his head.
Her leg moved, and suddenly she was lying beside him, not over him. “It’s okay. We can stop. We can stop whenever you want.”
Her face moved closer, her forehead pressing against his and her chest brushing against him, but their lower bodies no longer touched. His dick throbbed, bereft without the friction of her moving against it.
His breath shuddered out, relief and shame and disappointment mixing into a sludge of emotion he couldn’t unravel.
“Do you want to stop for tonight?” Julia asked.
Did he? His body definitely didn’t. Precum soaked into his boxers. A few more seconds pressed against Julia and he’d be coming in his pants, but then, anything would make him come. Even if he didn’t want to. He’d learned that once before.
The woman had forced his dick inside her and ridden him until the pleasure had twisted inside his body and he’d orgasmed.
“Jinx?”
He opened his eyes, finding Julia’s. He was with Julia, no one else, but his mind couldn’t seem to push away the shame that had taken over when he’d gotten so close to coming.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Don’t apologize. Stopping is perfectly fine. I promise.”
“But…” He pulled back, his eyes dropping to her still hard nipples and then flying back up to meet hers. “You wanted to keep going, didn’t you?”
“Hey, that’s not for you to worry about.” She patted his cheek. “If I had said stop instead, would you try to get me to go through with it? Call me a cocktease or complain about blue balls or something?”
“No, of course not.” He swallowed, able to breathe again. She made everything seem so simple, but that was Julia. Right was right to her, and she’d always been an advocate for consent, even when they were teenagers.
The desperate ache he’d been fighting eased its hold on his throat. The air-conditioning cut on, sending a chill down his bare back.
Julia bent over to snag his shirt from the ground. “Here,” she murmured, and he took it from her, dragging it back on.
She put her shirt back on as well, and a pang slid through him at seeing the thin cotton covering her chest. They really weren’t doing this.
He had nothing to do with his hands so he twisted them in his lap. He owed her some sort of explanation, didn’t he? Now that the panic and shame were fading, disappointment curled higher in his stomach. He couldn’t even be with Julia. She was the safest, most straightforward person he knew, and he’d wanted to be with her forever. And still, he couldn’t do it.
His head hung forward, his shoulders curling in. He wished he could disappear.
“Can I hug you?” Julia asked. “Nothing more, I promise.”
He nodded, and then she was there, her body pressing against his, but not in a sexual way. He leaned his head into her, breathing in the strawberry scent that clung to her hair.
Her hand found both of his, curling over them in a squeeze. “I’m going to ask you something, but feel free not to answer, okay?”
“Why did I stop?”
“No. You don’t have to justify that to me.” She squeezed again. “I was wondering what parts you liked. Like, what was your favorite thing?”
