Page 91

"Word," I say.

"Whistle." He's already pulling my T-shirt up. "I know. I know the word. Dane, please."

None of the other times were like this.

There are no orders. There's no tape, no count, no don't move. I don't think either of us could have stopped moving if we'd tried.

He gets my boxers off and his own, and he's on top of me, and then I roll us and I'm on top of him, and he wraps his legs around my waist and pulls me down with his heels. We're kissing so hard it hurts. I get the lube from the nightstand, and my hand's shaking, and I knock both our phones onto the floor and neither of us cares.

I open him up fast. Too fast. He doesn't let me go slow. Every time I try, he pushes down on my fingers and says more through his teeth, more, it's fine, I'm fine, please.

"Look at me," I say.

He looks at me. He's right there. His eyes are on mine. But there's something behind them, closed off, a door I can't get through.

I push into him.

He arches off the bed with his mouth open. I stop. I hold still, buried in him, my whole body shaking with it.

"Okay?"

"Move." He's got his nails in my back. "Move, move, don't stop, please⁠—"

I move.

It's fast and hard and deep, and he meets every thrust, his heels digging into the backs of my thighs, pulling me in harder. The bed's creaking. I put my hand over his mouth because he's getting loud and the walls in this house are nothing, and he moans into my palm and bites the heel of my hand and I almost come right there.

"Harder," he says against my hand. "Harder. Make me⁠—"

"Make you what?"

He doesn't answer. He shuts his eyes.

I take my hand off his mouth and put it on his face. On his cheek. I make him look at me.

"Theo. Make you what?"

"Forget," he whispers.

It goes through me like a cold wind.

I don't stop. I can't. He's holding onto me like I'm the last thing on earth, and his body's moving under mine, and he's asking. But I slow down. I go slow and deep and I keep my hand on his face, and I kiss him, his mouth, his eyes, the wet at the corners of them.

"I'm here," I tell him. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

He makes a sound like a sob.

He comes first, with my hand wrapped around him and his face in my neck, shaking apart, and he says my name so quietly I almost don't hear it. I follow him over a minute later, pressed deep inside him, my forehead against his.

Neither of us says anything.

I pull out slowly. I clean us up with my T-shirt. He doesn't move. He lies there on his back with his arm over his eyes, breathing.

I lie down next to him and pull the blanket up over both of us.

After a while, his breathing goes slow and even. His arm slides off his face. He's asleep. For the first time in days, I think, he's actually asleep. His mouth is a little open. He looks about fifteen.

I lie awake.