As Atticus lays his knees on the edge of my bed, crawling toward me, I remember that everything feels…off.
In my excitement to be near him for the second time in one night—I am always so desperate to be around Atticus Chastain—I forgot how awful I feel and how weird the whole night has been since I arrived home.
“H-hey,” I stutter, my own voice softer now that he’s gotten so close. I can smell the familiar scent of mint and pine on him, but now it’s coated by something smoky. “Stop.”
Atticus doesn’t stop. He advances until my drawn knees are pressed to his stomach, and he’s peering down at me with emotionless eyes.
I have dreamt of being with him again so many times, even before tasting him again this very evening, but never like this. Never with thislookon his face, or my head swimming the way it is.
And my knees…fuck, my skin breaks out in goosebumps. As if the mere touch of his flesh to mine through layers of fabric is enough to cool me off from the heat that surrounds us. As if he’s sick.
“Atticus.” I sound frightened. But there’s also longing in it, in that one word.
Like Iwanthim to touch me again, even if it hurts.
And then, he finally speaks.
“Warm,” he purrs, but his voice doesn’t sound like his own. It’s as if Atticus is speaking through two different microphones at once, all slightly distorted and just barely noticeably wrong.
“Uh, yeah. It’s pretty hot in here, so can you back up?” I want to push on his chest, but I’m afraid it’ll feel just as startlingly cold, or that I’ll like it too much and he’ll say something even meaner than he did before.
Atticus grins.
Something is wrong. Something is so fucking wrong, and I just can’t put my finger on it. I can’t see it through how badly I want him to be this close to me.
It feels almost as if Atticus isn’t the same man he was mere hours ago.
“You crave for it,” Atticus says, and it sounds almost as if he’s learning how to speak again for the first time. Like someone who’s speaking a language second to their own. “He craves for it, too.”
“H-he?” The word slips out of my mouth, startled and high-pitched.
Who the fuck is he talking about? Is he thinking of another man while pressing himself against me, onmybed?
Atticus closes his eyes, his head tilting back just slightly as a contented sigh falls from his lips.
“So, so good,corculum,” he coos. “Your lust isdelicious.”
A small, embarrassing noise leaves me. This only seems to excite Atticus more, as his eyes shoot open, darting back to meet mine.
Only… those aren’t right. I know Atticus’s eyes. I’ve spent hours dreaming of them, looking into them, and reading them. I saw them just tonight; that hazel will live inside of me forever.
But this? It’s as if the black has swallowed up all of the color, leaving one big dot in the center of the white sclera.
“When two want it, it makes it that much stronger, yes?” Atticus asks, leaning in closer to me. The smell of smoke grows stronger. “He is inside, just as hungry as you, Cameron.”
When he says it, when Atticus says my name, it is the only word that doesn’t sound so distorted. That doesn’t sound wrong.
Almost as if, since he took it so many years ago, turning it into something he owns, he cannot manage to get it wrong. To say it any other way.
As he leans in, brushing his lips over my cheek, I shudder. His lips arefreezing.
“Go,” I tell him, my voice steady but quiet. I never thought I’d be the one telling him to disappear, but here we are.
“You do not crave my leaving,” Atticus purrs. “You crave my touch. You crave my body.”
Then, his hand falls to the outside of my briefs, where he wraps his fingers around my half-hard shaft.
I gasp, my hips jerking against the mattress. But as I look closer, I realize that the tips of his fingers are… are they purple?
