Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Alex

"I'M REALLY SORRY about this," I say the moment I'm sitting in Henry's car again. The night was bad enough when it was me and Ellie my parents were humiliating. They went way too hard on Henry when they saw him there with us, though.

"Hey, stop doing that."

I don't realize I'm hanging my head until Henry's soft admonishment has me jerking it back up. "What?"

"You keep apologizing to me," Henry says. "I don't need an apology from you."

"Sor— Um, right. Sure. But I really do feel bad about how tonight went. None of that was supposed to happen."

"And what was supposed to happen instead?" Henry says. "Your parents were only supposed to bring you down, right? You're only sorry about me and Ellie getting in the line of fire, but what about you?"

"I'm used to it," I mutter.

Henry doesn't respond, but a tense silence accompanies us all the way back to his house. Even when he inflates an air mattress and sets it in his roommate's abandoned room, we don't talk beyond the necessary. If I can't apologize to him then I don't know what else to say about what happened tonight. The explanations and regret pile up on my tongue until it's too heavy for me to speak at all.

Instead, I undress and lie there in the dark on the air mattress, blankets piled atop me, and stare at the ceiling. My parents have belittled my choices for my entire life, and I've learned to shrug it off, but something about watching them do it to Henry made me snap. I've never pushed back so hard against them, and I barely raised my voice to do it. They sure reacted like I screamed at them. I didn't think they'd leave like that. What do they want? Do they expect me to chase them and beg for forgiveness?

I drape an arm over my eyes to try to avoid the answer. Because it's yes. It's obviously yes. When I don't come back tonight, they'll be pissed. Or happy, if they think Ellie's the one who gave me crash space.

The awareness that I'm back in Henry's house presses in on me from all sides. I haven't even spoken to him since that thing on his couch, and he still offered me this refuge. The blankets he lent me smell like him. I'm not sure how I know that, but the truth of it thumps through my body beside every heartbeat.

I throw them aside and sit up. Breathing him in proves too much for me to handle. The air mattress squeaks from the sudden movement. I sit on it in nothing but boxers, but the cool air isn't dispersing the heat gathering in my gut.

You know what would make them really mad…

No, I can't do that to Henry. If I get up from this air mattress, if I do what my body is urging me to do, then it has to be for me. For him.

I'm not sure if I can keep that promise, but I get up anyway. Because fuck it, I want this. I'm not sure if all the reasons I want it are pure, but some of them are. Some of them are extremely pure … in the most impure way possible.

I cross the hall on numb legs and tap gingerly at Henry's door.

"Everything okay?" he says when I barely step inside.

"Yeah, I just…"

I peter out, swallow hard. My gaze flickers from the floor to Henry. He's sitting up in bed, sheets around his waist, his chest bare. My mouth goes dry, my eyes raking over him before I can control myself.

I don't realize he caught me looking until Henry slips out of bed and pads toward me in nothing but boxer briefs with a cute stripey design. His steps make him … move around in those briefs, and I shoot my gaze lower, but that sends me down his long, slender legs.

"Alex."

My eyes claw their way back upward, past a slim waist and flat chest. I should be into the opposite of those things, but my body begs to differ. Henry's body is causing every reaction I'm used to associating with a woman, and he's definitely not a woman. Again, I wonder why it's not different, why it's not strange, but my body simply doesn't care. It wants him. It wants Henry.

"Why did you come in here?" Henry asks quietly.

He stands just out of reach, calm and still.

"Because I…" I wish my body could speak for me, raw physicality taking the place of clumsy, inadequate words. "I want… Could I…"

"Yes."

The word bursts out of Henry like he's been holding it in for hours. One long stride brings him to me. My hands are ready to catch him. They fly to his waist to bring him to me, and Henry's mouth slams into mine. Abruptly, every anxious, buzzing piece of me quiets as something inside me slots into place.

Nothing in my life has ever felt as right as this.

Henry throws his arms around my neck, one hand grasping my hair so he can kiss me deeper. I growl into his mouth and yank him against me so I can feel his excitement pressing urgently at me. My body responds just as swiftly as his, and I taste in his gasp that he feels that. Any doubt burns away in the heat of Henry's kiss.

He starts pulling me backward. I fight to keep my mouth against his as we stumble blindly. I only realize we've reached the bed when Henry starts falling onto it, dragging me with him.

"This isn't why I offered you a ride home," Henry says as he lies beneath me.

A surprised chuckle escapes my lips. "I know."

"As long as we're clear that I'm entirely innocent in this."

He is, and he looks the part too. Those painfully blue eyes of his are watching me with wonder, his reddish-brown hair splayed out around him in soft drifts like down. I bend down to kiss his plush lips, slow and lingering this time, like maybe I can soak in some of his goodness if I only take my time.

Henry groans and loops his arms around my back to pull me against him. His legs open around me so I can drape my weight over him like a blanket. His nails prickle at my back, and I realize I had most of my clothes on last time we did this. We both did. This time, thankfully, my chest presses against his, skin to skin, while his warm hands rake at my back.

It's so much more . The awareness of the contact buzzes through me, and suddenly the scant bit of fabric remaining between us offends every sense. I didn't actually see his cock last time, either, but I find that doesn't intimidate me when I push up so I can peel away his briefs.

Henry watches me do it, his nerves clear in the shortness of his breathing. I free him from his final bit of clothing, and there he is, bare and blunt before me. His cock juts at his belly, long and engorged. I never thought about how someone else's dick would look to me in a moment like this, but it turns out it looks … good. I reach out, running a hand wonderingly along the shaft, not quite sure what I'm doing, and Henry shudders beneath me, his whole body reacting to my touch.

It's addicting to affect him so much by doing so little. I touch him again, more intentionally this time, actually wrapping my hand around him to stroke. Henry gasps in a sweet little breath of arousal as I find a rhythm, slow and clumsy though it is. I feel like I can't possibly be doing this right, but Henry is whimpering under me, rocking into my hand, and the sight threatens to melt my brain into a soup of raw desire.

"You too," Henry gasps out. "Touch you too."

I'm not sure what that means. He wants to touch me? He wants to watch me touch myself?

"There's lube," he adds, nodding at the nightstand beside the bed.

That doesn't clear anything up, but I scramble to follow his instructions. I'm so worked up even boxers feel restrictive, so I fling them off while I'm shuffling around on a nightstand covered in mail. I open a drawer and dig a bottle of lube out of it, but when I go to return to Henry I find him lying on his side instead of his back.

"Come here," he says, and that command, at least, is clear as day.

He grabs my hair and pulls me to him when I'm close, our mouths slamming back together. Henry snatches the lube out of my hand, but I barely notice too concerned with kissing him until I have no breath left in my body.

At least, I feel that way until he touches me.

Out of nowhere, Henry's slicked up hand is on me. No, it's on both of us, squeezing our cocks together in his fist. When he strokes, it's not just me he's stroking; it's both of us, our cocks grinding in his hand.

I guess this is what he meant by "you too."

"Fuck," I rasp as his hand moves.

He's fast and sure, practiced where I was unsure and fumbling. He pumps us hard, swipes his thumb over both our tips when he gets to the top, smears lube and pre-cum back down us. And he kisses me while he does it, his hand tangled in my hair, his tongue jabbing into my mouth. All that innocence seems like a ruse now, a siren call luring me to my death. If that's the case, I'm ready to be dashed against the rocks and drown.

I groan like I might actually die. The pressure is building inside me fast. I grab for him, finding a hip and clinging to it. Henry moans as my fingers dig in. His hips jerk at his fist, something I know mostly from the way his cock thrusts against mine. The friction is blinding. I find myself following him, throwing my hips at his fist, searching for more even as what he's already doing barrels into me like a freight truck.

"Henry," I groan.

"Are you close?"

His words gust hot against my face. The question sounds more like a plea, as though an affirmative answer will free him to respond in kind.

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah. I am."

"God, yes, come for me."

I've never had anyone say that to me, and the desire sizzling in every word shoots to my already over-excited dick. He really does want this. He wants me. For all his quiet, sweet nature, Henry strokes furiously, demanding I follow him over the precipice. And fuck it, why the hell am I holding back? Why am I not giving this man what he wants?

I grunt, teeth grinding as pressure seems to explode out of me. I hear Henry gasp, but my eyes are squeezed too tightly shut for me to see it. My hand digs into him even harder as my body jerks to get closer to him.

And then he's moaning, pressing his forehead against my bare chest as he whimpers and adds to our mess. His free hand clings to my arm like he needs it to steady himself, and I pry my eyes open to watch the moment that perfect bliss twists through his body.

All I can think to do when it passes is hold him.

I don't care about the mess. I don't care about cleaning up. I wrap my arms around him and pull him against my chest while we're still warm and panting. Henry throws his arms around me, tangles himself up in me, buries his face against my chest.

We stay that way far longer than we should.