Page 46

Young. Small. But never quiet. Never allowed his size to dictate how large his personality could be. But there have always been times when I catch a moment of an Emery I've never fully met. Like looking behind a curtain at a play to find the main actor pacing with nerves.

Emery clears his throat and tugs at the hem of his shirt. He's still looking anywhere but at me. I can see the anxiety in the way he breathes. The way he doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands, or whether he wants to move a step closer or three steps back.

My chest burns, watching him. I want to be the one to make the first move. To take away the pressure and his discomfort. But I can't. It has to be him.

So I fold my hands over my stomach and sit.

Wait.

We both find our breath when his eyes finally meet mine. My nostrils flare with the connection as if it's a physical caress. His hands finally stop fidgeting.

He assesses me with slow sweeps of his eyes. Taking in my hair, that's likely disheveled from going to sleep with it wet. He lingers on my eyes again, then they fall lower to my chest. The white sheet is pooled around my lap, tangled with my legs, so only one is covered. It does little to hide what seeing him here does to me. But I don't try to cover up.

I'm done trying to cover up.

Emerson

This is insane. You are absolutely, certifiably, insane.

My knee aches from how I landed on the ground when I decided it was a good idea to climb through Dillon's bedroom window like a thief in the dead of… eight o'clock at night. Just like my ankle still aches if I step just wrong from how I landed the other morning, jumping out of the same window.

I try to focus on those aches now, because they feel way safer than dealing with whatever the fuck is having me feel like my insides are trying to all slither themselves up my throat.

At no point from the time I left my apartment until I landed on the floor did I stop to think about what I would do when I got in here. I mean, I expected him to swing the door open and immediately annoy me with smart-ass remarks and his sexy, dumb smile. But the smile on his face can barely be considered a smile. It’s…soft. Gooey. Warm.

My heart is palpitating. Like a fish out of water, just flip-flopping around cluelessly, wondering where all the damn oxygen went.

“It's hot in here,” I snap, fanning my t-shirt. He's supposed to be a gentleman. A gentleman would not just sit with that soft curve on his pouty lips and watch me panic.

Because that's what this is, isn't it? I'm panicking.

No. A gentleman would have tossed me on the bed by now and saved me from this…this…

“Stop smiling at me like that right this instant.” I walk a few steps to the other end of the bed, then back. “I was just at home talking to Eleanor, and I think that maybe the kiss theory was bullshit.”

“You don't say?” he says softly, and fuck, why does he have to have the sex sleep voice?

“Yeah. I'm older now; you're old as shit. What's a kiss going to do? We've just gotta do it. Do it all. Rip off the Band-Aid, let the sickness…bleed—Hey!” I snap my fingers at him in alarm. “Hey. Stop—don't touch that. What are you doing?”

Dillon pauses with his hands on the sheet at his waist. My eardrums are going to burst with how loud my heart is beating inside my head. He adjusts himself on the bed to sit straighter, holding the sheet in place.

Do not look at his dick. Do. Not. Look.

“Continue,” he mutters, sniffing back a laugh. Asshole.

I rub my chest.

It's curved. Slightly up.

Stop. Looking.

“Jesse said we could just fuck. Just like…because why not? And I thought that was insane and contemplated never talking to him again, but what if he's right? What if all I need is to…is to…” I fan my shirt again. “It's so hot in here, Dillon.” I peel it off completely, tossing it somewhere behind me. “So maybe I just need to let you fuck me and then we can move on. Because I thought blocking you would do the trick, but you just won't leave me alone. And you keep leaving me those obnoxious cupcakes, and I'll probably get cavities now because of you, so the least you can do is make me come my brains out and let me live my eighteen-year-old fantasy.” I suck in a ragged breath, forcing myself to shut the hell up.

Dillon's face is still soft and relaxed. Everything about his posture screams self-assured and confident. He knows exactly who he is. What he looks like and what he's capable of. He knows that my eyes will snag on his thick, beefy thigh like a fiend when he bends his leg, letting the sheet fall the rest of the way off on that side.

His cock is still covered. Thank fucking God for small… eh, above average mercies.

“Please say something before I pass out.”