Page 27 of Shut Up and Score
She pouts, lips pushing out just enough to remind me how much effort she puts into looking perfect. “She’s gone for the next few hours,” she says, eyes gleaming. “Told me to have fun.”
Her hand moves again, purposeful now, wrapping around me with the same kind of care she always gives. Gentle. Sweet.
Wrong.
I try.
God, I try.
I tilt my head back against the pillow, lips parted as I force myself to focus. On her. On this. On being the guy I’m supposed to be.
Nothing.
The silence stretches, thick and awkward.
So I close my eyes.
And there he is.
Micah.
Pressing against me in the showers. Panting under me in a dark room. On his knees, mouth open, voice low and full of sin as he begs me for my come. Heat floods my stomach.
I grow hard in her hand. Aching for something I can't have.
She climbs onto my lap like she’s the reason. I don’t correct her. She wants this.This will make her happy,I tell myself.
Fantasizing isn’t cheating. Right?
She guides me in with a satisfied sigh, rocking slow at first, hands braced on my chest. She whispers something—sweet, maybe even loving—but I don’t hear it.
My eyes stay shut.
Micah fills every frame in my mind. His body. His mouth. His voice.
I grip her hips, thrusting up into her harder now, chasing the high I shouldn’t want. Not here. Not with her. She moans, and it takes me out of the fantasy for a moment. So I flip her over, my fingers going to her neck. She likes it a little rough, right? I squeeze enough to cut off the sounds as I pound into her. She gasps, her pleasure in that sound even. I need something else. Fuck.
“I need your ass,” I grunt.
She moans, and I take it as consent. I work my hand between us, prepping her to take me. Holding on to the image of Micah in my head. I pull out and flip her over, tugging her ass back and up. Then I slide in slowly, adding some lube she has in her bedside table, as her muscles clench around me.
Then I shut my eyes and fuck her the way I want to fuck Micah. Replacing the sounds she makes with the ones I want to hear from him. I’m so fucked up. This is so fucked up. But it’s the only way I can finish.
When I come, it’s with a groan that could’ve been a name. But I bite it back before it escapes. Jasmine collapses against the bed, panting, murmuring something into her pillow.
I keep my eyes closed.
Because if I open them, it will remind me of what a bastard I really am. The guilt of not being what she deserves might kill me.
By the timethe sun sets, the whole house smells like cinnamon candles and glitter hairspray. Jasmine’s got me carrying boxes of decorations from the storage closet to the living room while she and her sisters hang silver streamers and string twinkle lights along the banister.
“Higher,” she calls, standing on a chair to tape a cluster of masks to the wall. “No, like…two inches more to the left.”
I adjust the ladder and try not to sigh. “Like this?”
“Perfect!” she beams down at me, and it should make me feel warm. Instead, all I can think about is the way her smile looks nothing like Micah’s.
I swallow that thought down and focus on untangling the fairy lights. The bass from someone’s pre-party playlist rattles the floorboards, and a couple of her friends weave past me in sequined dresses, laughing as they take shots in the kitchen.
