Chapter 25

25

By the time I'm inside, I'm soaked to the bone and whimpering in pain. It's been too long since I've taken one of the prescription pain pills.

Carter shoots up out of nowhere like a damn vampire rising from his coffin. "Jesus," I say, startling back on my bad foot. "Fuck, no ," I add as I tumble to the ground.

Carter grips my arm and hoists me up into his arms before my face can meet the wood floor. "Stop fucking saving me all the time," I mumble into his pec.

"Maybe I like saving you all the time, you ever think about that?"

He sets me on the sofa gently, like I'm something precious and beautiful. It feels like a lie, not just because I'm actually not precious and beautiful, but because as of late, one of his hobbies is to romantically reject me.

"I'll get you a towel." He reappears in about twenty seconds with what looks like half the towels he owns, and he begins wrapping them around me like I'm some orphan he found on the side of the street. And I'm too exhausted—and in too much pain—to stop him.

He clears his throat. "Would it make a single bit of difference if I scolded you for going out while your ankle was this fucked?"

"Nope."

"Thought so." He says it with tenderness. Like he's accepted my stupidity as some dreamy personality trait. He pulls out a glass of water and one of my painkillers, and I down both like they're as important to me as air.

"I got takeout from the Greek place downtown, the one by the pizza places. You like the chicken gyros, right? With extra tzatziki on the side?"

I can't help but give him a weak half smile. "You remembered what I like?"

His eyes on me are the way pure gold looks next to candlelight. "I remember everything, Teal."

It's these kinds of things that make my brain and my heart trip all over each other. Like the way he told me how much he wanted me at our wedding party, how he had to run to hide his apparently massive erection when I kissed his neck. How he ran after me and yelled at me after I climbed the beach rocks, how he grabbed his heart afterward like I'd nearly ripped it in two with my carelessness over my person. The way he kissed my body and ate me out last night, like he was savoring me, like he'd spent a decade waiting to do that and he tried to make it last as long as he could.

So he doesn't want me for real. That's not news to me. I know I'm not supposed to believe my ex's words— No one would ever want you but me —but there's a grain of truth there, a grain that's not going to dislodge until I find Mama.

Why not enjoy this marriage, then, while I can? I can leave my heart out of it. All I have to do is remember that his heart checked out of wanting me years ago. It's a very effective reminder.

The pain in my ankle has already gone from throbbing to dull, so I turn to him and say, "Can I make you come, Carter?"

He freezes—I think he was about to stand and heat up our dinner—and huffs out a short exhale. "We can't. Sex isn't—"

"I don't want to have sex with you," I say sharply. It's only half a lie. I would love to have sex with Carter, but not if he so obviously doesn't want it. "I want to suck on your cock until you come down my throat, if you're good with that."

He freezes again, only this time his cheeks pinken right before my eyes. When I look down at his lap, there is no denying how my words have affected him. He swallows. "Here?" he says in a bit of a croak.

I get on the ground, on my knees and on my hands, and crawl to him, dragging my injured ankle slightly above the ground. I don't think I look particularly like a jackass. I've got the ab control to make this look natural despite my injury, I think.

He groans. "Jesus, Teal, seeing you like that. All hungry for it. You want to do this for real?"

There are things I know I can't tell him right now. I can't tell him that I have wanted him for so long—even before he came over and kissed me a year ago at Nadia's, when he stopped me because I'd drunk too much moonshine.

And I can't tell him that I broke things off with Nate Bowen, who was arguably the nicest and most polite boyfriend on the planet, because I couldn't stop thinking about that damn kiss.

I can't say these things, so I hope I can somehow convey them with my hands, my mouth, my tongue. I lift up on my knees, wincing just a little when I rest my ankle on the floor.

"You okay?" he says quickly, blinking out of his lusty haze to put a hand on my shoulder. "We should probably just eat, Teal, yeah? You don't—"

He stops when I skim my fingers over his erection through his jeans, and he throws his head back. "God." It comes out as a moan that makes my entire body want to shiver.

I try to wrap my hand around it as best as I can and give it a gentle squeeze. He squirms as he tries to smother his grunt. "I know you want me to suck you off, Carter. So stay still "—I grip his hips, hard enough to pinch—"and be good , or I'll have to punish you."

I'm throwing his dirty talk right back at him, and he's loving it. He inhales in a grunt as his pupils dilate so much it looks like his eyes are simply rings of gold around fathomless black holes. His breath is already so ragged. "How—how would you punish me?"

I raise an eyebrow and flip my hair back. "I wouldn't let you come."

"You w—" I begin to unbutton his jeans and his voice is completely gone, he is so intent on watching this, like he wants to memorize every moment and won't let anything distract him, not even his own words.

I reach in his boxers and pull him out, all thick and hot and so hard, this must honestly be painful for him. He hisses through his teeth and drops his head back again, shifting his hips.

"I said, stop moving ." I make my tone strict, like how I'd imagine a woman who was super confident at this would be. "Or I'll lick you"—I bend down and drag my tongue from the base to his tip—"suck you"—I put it all in my mouth, practically, but not quite, down my throat, and tighten around him, releasing him with a wet pop—"and then leave you here in agony."

He is trying so hard not to move, he's already got sweat beading up on his forehead. "I'm not moving, I'm not moving." He nearly whispers it, his fists clenched at his sides.

It's such a turn-on, being this much in control of his body and his pleasure. Making it into a game for the both of us, a game that feels safe and sexy at the same time, something I had never experienced before Carter went down on me last night.

I try my hardest to make it as good for him as possible. I bob my head over him, getting sloppy until he's moaning loud, and then I focus on the most sensitive spot on the underside of his tip until he's begging me to…I'm not sure what. "Please, Teal," he keeps saying. "I'm going to come too fast." It sounds like he doesn't want to come fast, but at the same time, he's begun to lift his hips in a ridiculously hot rhythm, and I'm not sure he's even aware of it.

I release him and shove his pants down. "Spread your legs."

He obeys without question, without hesitation, his erection looking almost angry with its reddened tip. "You were moving," I say accusingly. "You were trying to fuck my mouth!"

"I'm sorry!" he says. "I didn't— I couldn't—"

"So now I get to put my finger wherever I want." I point straight up and wiggle, and unfathomably, the memory of Sky miming getting fingered at the restaurant, using all five fingers, comes to me and I have to suppress the urge to laugh.

I know, I know, I just said if he disobeyed I wouldn't let him come. But I think he and I and all the old gods all know I couldn't do that to Carter. And it's also for my own selfish purposes—I've never seen him come before. I've never made him come before. And I need to do it, to wring it out of him, like I need my next breath.

"You're going to—" His eyes are wide. "I've never—"

"Can I? Put it anywhere I want?" This isn't part of the game, for me to ask, rather than demand, but obviously I need his consent to do this. I've never touched a guy there before—but I've always wanted to. I've read how wild it makes them, how good it feels. And right now, the way he's looking at me like I'm some kind of sex goddess who's just dropped out of the sky, I want to prove it to him. I want to be the best he's ever had, even if this is all he will allow me of him.

He nods. "You can do anything to me. You know that."

Anything but intercourse. Anything but making out. Anything but me telling him how wet he always makes me.

Anything but allowing me in his heart, because he doesn't want me like that.

I shove these thoughts away by returning my mouth to his cock while sliding my hands between and under his legs. It takes a little searching, but I find what I'm looking for, and I don't give myself time to stress about it—I do exactly what I've read in all the magazines, putting pressure at what I hope is the exact right spot.

I think it is the exact right spot, because he gasps, "Teal," and instantly comes. "Fuck," he chants over and over, lifting his hips again, in the exact way I'd just scolded him about.

When it's done, and I've swallowed and pulled my hand back from him, he cups my face like I am a precious jewel he discovered completely unexpectedly and he's too scared to be anything but tender and gentle with me. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it in your mouth…"

"It's okay. I wanted it."

He relaxes back, letting his head fall on the sofa. "Christ. Teal. Jesus. Christ."

I laugh because it sounds like it was as good for him as I'd intended. "You liked it?"

He laughs now, his voice husky and deep. "What, did it seem like I would have any complaints? I think you just sucked my soul out of my body. Jesus."

I smile and stand. "Let me clean up and get our food ready."

"I should do that. You need to be off your feet." But he doesn't make a move to get up, his breath still recovering. I think his entire being is still recovering.

"I'm fine to heat up the food. You can get the dishes after." I can't help the grin on my face any more than the balmiest, clearest sky outside, like it hadn't rained at all today, the first stars beginning to show like pinpricks through the deepest indigo-painted sky.