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I do crunches, but that achieves nothing but a burning in my core muscles.
Nothing helps. Nothing is fucking helping.
When the door opens, everything snaps.
“Where were you?” My hand grabs onto the first thing I see—a worn, white t-shirt, the fabric so thin it’ll rip if I tug on it. I’m shouting, loud enough to feel each word, sharp in my own ears. “You fucking left. Where have you been? You said you wouldn’t leave, and after,” I make a choking noise, and realize I’m sobbing, and I can’t stop, but I’m not fucking finished telling this man what I think about him. “After what we did? You’re not there, and what am I supposed to do with that? You took something of me when you walked away, and now there’s this hole, this fucking hole in my chest and it hurts, Javier, it really fucking hurts.”
I’m not in my body, not anymore. My fists beat his chest and when I try to breathe, I get a noseful of his sharp sweat. An anguished sound rips from me and I can’t get enough air to think straight. Things are moving so quickly around me and all I want is to stop, stop, stop, please, Daddy, make it stop.
“Aleks.”
There are hands on my shoulder, but I try to twist away. “No! Get off of me!” Please, fucking please, Daddy, make it stop.
“Aleks.” His voice is louder, more commanding.
Forcing my eyes to focus, his face becomes clear before me. There’s concern there, his mouth drawn into a thin line made by those two soft lips pressing hard together. His eyes—so deep, so dark and steady—watch me carefully. His hair is wild around his head, dishevelled, and I wonder if it was my hands that tugged it loose from his ponytail.
I can’t do this.
“I don’t know what to do.” The words are weak, small, and I hate myself. I hate that I’m not stronger, that sometimes I struggle to let it fucking go and not carry the weight of it all on my shoulders.
Another surge of anger gives me the energy I need to keep going. “If you’re going to go, then go. I’m scared if I let myself want more with you, and if I…if we actually make something together, and then you leave? I’ll be broken. Completely broken. I know better than to set myself up for that kind of hurt.” My voice is hoarse, but there’s still more. My hands meet his chest, and fuck, it’s soft, and I can feel the thick hair through the thin cotton of his shirt. I shove him, but he doesn’t move. A pained sound falls from me. “If you’re messing with me, then put me out of my fucking misery.”
My vision blurs—I’m crying, again—when I feel pressure around my throat.
Chapter 8
Right the First Time
Javier
His throat fits under my palm perfectly. Skin taut and so, so smooth. I squeeze, just a bit, to remind him I am here.
His mouth works, trying to form words between his ragged breaths. I imagine him gasping for air, but that would never happen. Not in the water, where he is as much at home as any fish. His pale green eyes are wide, panicked, like he does not know what exactly he is afraid of.
“Go, Javier…” he starts, and I cut him off, pressing my mouth to his.
Mi sireno.
His mouth is mine the moment I taste him. I do not waste time with gentle pillowing of lips or sweetness. Not when he is like this, so far outside of himself, so wrapped up in his fears. I slip my tongue in, curling around his, and Dios, this boy is going to ruin me.
This is what they talk about in stories. Knee-buckling, overwhelming rightness that leaves you changed. Transformed.
I turn my head so I can get deeper. I need to learn every bit of Aleks, this sad, bratty boy who will not shut up.
He is quiet now, but for the breathy sighs he makes every time I flick my tongue against his. His long, hard body crowds mine, his lean frame meeting the softness of my stomach and chest.
I am fucking hard, keyed up for him, and when I feel the soft give of his package against my thigh I let out a groan, wrenching my mouth away.
He stares up at me, pupils blown and mouth already red from my beard. Perfecto. Mi sireno.
“Are you sure you know what you are asking for?” I need to know, because once my mind catches up with the rest of me, I will not be able to stop.
Aleks’ eyes harden. “Don’t pull that bullshit with me now.”
“Language, boy.”
He scoffs, but when a quick glance up at me shows how serious I am, he shifts. I loosen my hand around his throat, thumb stroking over the place where his pulse flutters. I watch his cheeks flush, and feel him swallow.
