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I took a seat on the edge of the cliff and let my legs dangle over, letting Sterling decide if he wanted to follow. Sterling quickly sat beside me and grabbed my hand in his, linking our fingers together. I gently squeezed his hand in mine. “Thank you for bringing me here. It’s just what I needed.”
“I know,” I told him softly. I cupped his cheek and turned his head to face me. Slowly, I leaned forward, giving him the opportunity to back away. I didn’t know where he was in his headspace, so I made sure to tread carefully. But when he closed the remaining distance between us and expertly moved his mouth against mine, I knew exactly where he was at.
Our tongues danced together in a slow, erotic dance. My body came alive, and it felt like sparks were igniting all over my skin as we slowly made out, savoring each other and this moment and the absolute peace surrounding us.
The safety we felt with each other.
“I love you,” I rasped once we parted to catch our breaths. Our chests were heaving, and I was so hard it hurt, but none of that mattered in this moment. I needed Sterling to know I was madly in love with him. That he was my one. “The moment I laid eyes on you freshman year, my entire fucking life changed. I’ve loved you from the moment you told me you don’t like to be touched. I love you so goddamn much that I ache when you’re not within reaching distance.” I slid my fingers into his hair and rested our foreheads together, closing my eyes. “You are my beginning and my end, Sterling, and I cannot exist without you.”
Sterling crushed his mouth to mine and pushed me back on the ground, crawling over me so he was straddling my hips. His hands roamed all over my body, and I did the same to him, licking and nipping at his lips. Our kiss was sloppy and filled with passion, and it warmed every single part of me as if I was lying on a beach in Florida in the hot, summer sun.
“I love you, too,” Sterling finally managed to get out between kisses. “So goddamn much, I could never put it into words. You’re my safety net. The reason I’m able to crawl out of bed every morning, even on my bad days. You’re the reason I didn’t leave school and go home my first month of college.” He leaned up on his elbows to look down at me. “You’re justmy reason, Graham.”
I cupped his cheek. “I’ll always be your reason, baby.”
He leaned down and kissed me. And I proceeded to have the hottest make-out experience of my fucking life.
7
Graham
Idrove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other on Sterling’s lap, our fingers linked together. We’d spent hours at the cliff, and it was well past midnight now. The only reason we left was because the temperature kept steadily dropping, and my hoodie wasn’t thick enough to rival the temps. Well… and my stomach was rumbling, which Sterling proceeded to call a parasite.
“How’s your appetite?” I asked Sterling as we neared campus.
“Eh,” he muttered. “Not very good.”
I headed for the store closest to us that was open twenty-four hours. “So, it’s a soup and crackers night?” I asked him.
He rolled his head to the side to look at me, a small smile tilting his lips. “That would be preferred.”
I nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll get for you.”
Sterling hummed, his tired eyes shutting for a moment before he forced them to reopen. “You’re too good to me.”
I shook my head and hit my indicator to turn into the parking lot of the supercenter. “Baby, you deserve everything good and kind in this world, and you’re not getting damn near enough of it.”
He squeezed my hand in response, and that was okay because I didn’t need anything verbal from him. I just needed him to know how I felt. His feelings always came through his actions, and I couldn’t believe how blind I’d been to them before.
But I wouldn’t make that mistake again because I didn’t want to miss another fucking thing about Sterling Hardison. My eyes had been closed long enough.
Now, they were wide open.
“Do you think I’ll ever be normal?” Sterling surprised me by asking as we lay together in my bed. We were on our sides facing each other, our heads on one pillow. He’d been silently running his fingers over my body for the past hour with only the sound of the movie playing breaking the silence. Not wanting to get in the way of his wandering hands, I’d been resting my hand on his bare thigh, brushing my thumb back and forth over his hair-roughened skin.
I frowned at Sterling. “Normal is overrated,” I told him honestly, shivering when he hit a certain sensitive spot on my side. “I mean, what the fuck even is normal? Everyone has got some kind of demon in their closet or something else hindering them from being what someone might deem normal.” I pecked his lips, and the corners of his quirked up into a smile. “I love you just as you are, Sterling. What’s normal for you, right now, is the only kind of normal I want.”
He sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder what it might be like to be able to touch a stranger without having a panic attack. Or just be able to get hard without trauma forcing me to go soft again.”
I frowned at him. “I think those things will go away with time, especially the ED,” I assured him. “Maybe one day, you and Dr. Clancy will find a medication that works for you to allow that part of your life to be what’s medically normal. And if your touch phobia never disappears, then that’s okay, too, Sterling.”
He slid closer to me, our bodies pressing together. My dick was reacting to his closeness, but I ignored it. “You think I could survive in normal society like that?” Vulnerability laced his words, making my chest ache.
I rested my forehead against his and pressed a kiss to his lips again. “I think you can do whatever you put your mind to, baby.” And I meant that. Sterling was incredible. He’d survived something so traumatic, it might’ve killed someone else.
He slid his palm over my heart. “How do you always know what to say?”
I chuckled. “I’m just speaking my mind, Sterling.”
