19. Fischer

19

FISCHER

I don't like that he stopped touching me, but I hate the look on his face more. He looks— lost .

What had I said?

That I shouldn't rule out giving myself another shot at a relationship? It doesn't seem that shocking. "What?" I ask again, the tendrils of another panic attack licking at the edges of my brain.

He gives his head another, firmer shake and seems to snap out of it. But his hand moves away from my groin and down my quad. "I just didn't realize you'd had a change of heart about that," he says quietly. "You think maybe Ravenna?"

"No. Absolutely not," I assure him.

"Why not?"

This isn't one I have to think too hard about. "She's fun and everything, but there's something I don't feel like I can trust about her. Besides, she's still friends with Nicole."

Matthew's brows furrow as he focuses on his hands on my leg. "You think there's a chance now that you're back that you and her?—"

"No," I say immediately.

"Why not?" he asks.

"Too much damage. I wouldn't even know where to begin to repair it."

"Would you want to?"

This whole line of questioning has me on edge. Is this why he's been distant the last few weeks? Does he think he's cramping my style or something? "Nicole and I are better off as friends," I say. "To be honest, there was never a spark there."

"Hm." This time, when the side of his hand accidentally grazes my cock, I reach between my legs to adjust myself. There's a semi brewing now that I've had some caffeine, and I want to finish this conversation before I start having inappropriate thoughts about Matthew again.

I need him here, I waited all night for him, and I don't want to scare him off. It's been almost three weeks, and passing him once a night in the lobby, if I even get that, isn't enough. More than once over the last week especially, I've considered asking him to move in. It'd save him some money, and it'd save me missing him.

But I know he loves his loft. It's just so far away…

I run my hand over the back of his head. "It feels better if you need to lie down."

"Maybe I should," he says, surprising me. He usually fights his need to sleep a little longer. Maybe he's still avoiding me. The unwelcome thought makes my stomach turn.

Gently, he removes my leg from his lap and stands, shucking his jacket and laying it over the back of the couch. He yawns. "You have everything you need?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Did you wanna keep talking?'

I shift and avoid his eyes. "We can talk later."

"You know, if you do marry someone, no more sleepovers," he says.

I rub my thigh, trying to make it stop tingling from his firm touch. "Would you miss sleeping over?"

"I didn't invite myself ," he says before disappearing into my bedroom.

I roll my eyes. He's pretty sharp this morning for someone who was up all night.

When the shower starts, I make a game time decision. I'm going back to bed until Nicole and Vaughn get here. I barely slept last night either, and who knows when Matthew will show up again. I don't want to waste it.

I set aside my coffee and make my way back to the bedroom, closing the door to block out the light from the living room. My bedroom's shutters are down, and it gets dark enough in here for Matthew to sleep. I take off my pants because I can't sleep in them and get under the covers, hoping my presence won't make it harder for him to fall asleep.

I'm facing the bathroom door, setting the alarm on my phone, when it opens.

"I don't need my back rubbed," he says.

"Maybe I do."

"Fischer…" He trails off and looks down at the floor.

"Is everything okay? I feel like you're half here."

He takes a deep breath. "It's fine."

"Good. Then let me hold you for a few minutes," I say. "If I'm bugging you, you can kick me out?—"

"It doesn't bug me," he says, but it seems like he leaves something unsaid, too.

"Okay…?"

"You want to hold me…"

I'm not totally oblivious. I know our relationship toes a line, and I know we play it off like it's not a big deal, but it's actually a huge deal. To me anyway. I can't be around him without wanting him closer. It's not in my nature. But if something more were going to happen, it would have happened by now. It would have happened years ago. I assume seeing me in the state I was in after my injury was the turnoff of a lifetime.

He cared for my body with his hands and his time, but I credit the simple fact of his presence with the fact that I was able to regain the mental strength to go back to work. He held me together when I was in literal pieces, and I'll never stop missing those days when I could reach back and find his hand any time I needed it.

He was my silver lining.

Granted, a few weeks ago, I went too far, but we have to talk about it. Not communicating about something this important feels like a betrayal of our friendship.

"Did I go too far the last time you were here? Is that why I haven't seen as much of you?"

He licks his lips and leans on the doorjamb. "Do you think you went too far?"

"I don't know, Matthew. I'm asking."

"I don't know how to answer that."

"Honestly?" I suggest.

He doesn't say anything, though. He walks to the other side of the bed and gets in facing away from me.

"Am I allowed to touch you?" I ask.

"Yeah."

I move closer and put my arm around him. "Is this okay?"

"You don't have to ask, Fischer." He sounds exasperated.

"But I am asking."

"Why? You think now, all of a sudden I'm gonna say hey—this is weird, stop trying to snuggle up to me? If I didn't want you, I wouldn't be here."

My breath stills.

"It. I meant it ," he corrects himself.

I exhale. "I feel like you're mad at me."

"I'm not."

"You seem distant," I press.

He touches me, running his fingertips up and down my forearm. Normally it feels like a mindless movement, but now it feels intentional. It also gives me goosebumps.

"I love you," he says, like a reminder.

"I love you, too."

After a few more seconds, a few more slides of his fingers on my arm, he says suddenly, "Let's switch places."

"Okay." I turn over, and then he wraps his arm around me, nestling his body up to mine, covering my back with his heat.

He has an erection. It's the first thing I notice, high on my ass.

"It's complicated, right?" he asks a moment later.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I guess I am the needy one."

"You always were." His hand runs smoothly over my chest. I still have my shirt on, but damn…it just gives him something to slide his fingers under to graze my skin, which is what he does with the sleeves or straps or whatever. He touches my neck lightly, then traces my collarbones. Everything feels good. Light. Easy.

When he's done exploring my upper chest, he puts his heavy, warm hand on my hip and slides it down my outer thigh, over my underwear, and onto my bare skin. "Are you trying to turn me on?" I ask.

"I don't know. Am I?"

"Yes," I say to whatever he's asking me.

"Did you think it wasn't like this?" he asks.

"I don't know what I thought."

His hips grind gently, and my cock fills. I swallow hard. My heart pounds, and I'm glad he doesn't have his hand on my chest anymore. It'd be embarrassing. But where his hand is headed ? That's dangerous.

"My honest answer," he says, fully palming my rapidly firming cock, "Is that you didn't go far enough."

" Fuck ."

Abruptly, he stops, flipping over in the bed again, leaving me cold and hard.

"What—Hey. What are you doing?"

"Getting some sleep."

"I mean, why'd you stop?"

"I was only trying to make a point."

"Fine. I'll stop touching you. I didn't realize it was…that it was… an issue ," I manage to force out even though it's the wrong word on so many levels.

"It's not an issue for me ," he says leadingly.

"Obviously it is. Why didn't you say something?"

"Like what? That sharing a bed with a man who can't keep his hands off me gets me hard? The better question is why doesn't it do the same for you?'

That question makes me defensive. "It does."

"Bullshit."

I decide to elaborate. "Sometimes it's just comfortable, but it's not like I've never gotten hard for you." Wow, that came out interesting.

"Good. That's good to know," he says, wrapping his arms around the pillow beneath his head.

"How do you want to deal with this?" I ask.

"Did you want to have sex?" he asks.

I bolt upright. "You don't want to have sex with me, Matthew."

"I do, actually." He mumbles into the pillow almost like he doesn't want me to hear it. "I have for a while."

"What do you expect me to say to that?"

"Nothing. So stop asking questions you don't want to hear the answers to."

My hard on is raging with all the rocks this conversation has overturned in my head, revealing visions I thought I'd buried better. "You're gonna go to sleep now ?" I ask.

"I figured I'd try. I'm a little embarrassed."

I go for broke, lying down behind him again and pulling him close, my cock on his ass this time. "As your older brother, I should be the one to tell you that erections are a perfectly natural response to touch and friction."

"You're disgusting."

I grind against him a couple of times as a joke, but also to relieve some of the nearly unbearable ache in my groin.

He laughs. "Fischer, stop. You're like a kid trying to ride a bull right now."

"Because I'm such a bottom?"

"Yes."

"This is why we can't have sex, you know? We'd keep flipping each other over, and no one would ever win."

"That's what you think, huh?" he asks.

I stop grinding and settle for a tight hold, wrapping my leg around his, and locking him close to me. "That's what I know."

"You don't know shit. You've been having sex with girls too long."

"Hmm…maybe," I hum against his neck. "Hope you can sleep like this because I'm staying until my alarm goes off at nine."

"Jesus."

"Can't bring myself to leave you."

"That's both pathetic and sweet."

"You don't want me to go, though. Do you?"

"No," he says, holding my arm against his chest. "Until Vaughn gets here, you're mine."

I close my eyes and settle into him. The cautious part of me wants to chalk everything that just happened up to sleep deprivation—delirium—but I know this man—maybe too well, and we may joke around, but I don't think he'd have touched me like that if he didn't want it.

Me .