Page 59 of Take My Breath Away
But James isn’t every other man.
“Oh, Perry,” he says on a sigh. He kisses me long, slow, and tender, and I melt into him because I just can’t not, as I taste both him and me, warm and wet on my tongue. He breaks the kiss and rolls onto his back and sighs again as he crosses his arms behind his back and stares up at the ceiling.
I’m wracked with indecision. This is the bedroom he chose. I don’t know whether I’m to stay here with him or go to my room. I steal a glance at him, still lying still and staring up at the ceiling and giving no clue, and I begin to shift off the bed.
“What are you doing?” His head whips around, and his eyes blaze into mine.
“I, erm, thought that maybe now we’ve… well, you know… that you might want your space and—”
“You think I want you to go? Is that what you think?”
Yes, because that’s how it’s always been… But I don’t say that, because there’s anger like a storm on the horizon in his eyes and in his tight, taut words.
He looks away from me, as though he needs a second to gather himself. He says something, low and under his breath, but I know it’s to himself and not to me. When he looks at me again, he’s reined that anger in, but it’s still straining at the leash. When he speaks, his words are careful and measured.
“No Perry, I don’t want you to creep off next door. What I want is for you to get back into bed and for you to be here when I wake up in the morning. If that’s what you want too. Is it?”
He looks at me, a shadow of apprehension on his face as he waits for me to give the only answer I can give.
“Yes, it is.”
The words feel huge, monumental in a way I’m too dazed to examine right now. As James holds me tight, and runs his fingers through my hair, I settle into him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest against mine.
Closing my eyes, and hardly able to comprehend what has happened, I drift into the dark depths of sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
JAMES
Perry’s lying on his back, his lips gently puffing in and out on each soft breath. He looks so peaceful, so relaxed, his auburn hair messy and tumbled. I itch to push it away from his brow, to run my fingers through the soft strands. The first signs of dark scruff are marking his fair skin. I take all this in under the soft lamplight, which we’d not switched off before both of us had tumbled into sleep.
I reach out, just to lay a soft touch on him, just to know that he really is here, with me, in bed, after a night of sleeping in each other’s arms, but I let my hand drop, fearing that I’ll wake him.
He mutters in his sleep, and shifts to his side, moving closer as though seeking me out, as he snuggles into my side.
“Perry?” I whisper, but his only answer is his deep and steady breathing.
It’s been years since I properly spent a night with a man. I go or they do, leaving me to wake up every morning alone.
Some may think that’s a cold and soulless way to live — Elliot certainly thinks so — but he and I are cut from very different cloth.
No sleepy, morning cuddles; no sharing a shower; no first coffee together. They’re the acts of those in relationships, and I’ve worked hard to keep clear of those for more years than I want to remember.
There’s no reason for me to change my outlook and my ways, not when they’ve served me so well. Keep it simple, keep it clear, keep it casual and no strings. Nobody gets involved, so nobody gets hurt. It’s pretty much the rule I’ve lived by since I walked out on Alex — hell, it’s what I lived by when we were together, to my eternal shame — but now, and for what I know is truly the first time in my hedonistic, self-centred life, that rule is not only bending, it’s breaking.
Perry shifts again, and I slip out of bed. My naked skin goosebumps in the chilly early morning air, tempting me to climb back into the warmth, bundle Perry up in my arms, and breathe in the salty aroma of what we’d shared together.
I climaxed last night, the evidence crusted on my stomach, but what had happened between us hadn’t been about me and my physical needs. Everything had been about Perry, giving him what he wanted and needed. Touch, caress… His response had been pure instinct, utterly and completely beautiful.
I run a finger across the dried cum on my stomach, feeling it flake under my touch. That’s another chip of my defences falling away. I always wash the men off me, cleaning every inch of my body, scrubbing my teeth and mouth-washing. Literally and figuratively removing all trace. But not last night, not with Perry. I run my tongue over my teeth, over the insides of my cheeks, seeking out the lingering taste of him.
As I gaze down, he shifts again, and my lips curl up into a smile. The boy’s a fidget, and a bed hogger, with his arms and legs spread wide beneath the duvet, like some kind of human star fish.
The urge to touch him, to have that connection that I never, ever seek, is too strong to resist this time, and before I can think to stop myself, I run my fingers through his hair. My heart leaps when he sighs, and murmurs something that, if I let myself, I can believe is my name on his lips. I withdraw my slightly shaking hand, and swallow down the lump that’s lodged in my throat.
As quietly as possible, I collect some clean clothes and tiptoe out of the bedroom, leaving Perry to sleep and for me to head to the shower and try to work out how I’m going to navigate a landscape for which I have neither a map nor a compass.
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