41. Echo

41

Echo

B yrd: What are you doing right now?

Missing you.

I'm always missing you. Every second of every day. In my sleep, at school on the rope or the straps or the trampoline. Even when I'm reading your texts, I'm wishing I was hearing your voice.

One fucking FaceTime in eight weeks, and I could barely see your face. It's not enough, and I'm slowly starving on the scraps.

I don't send any of that. I'm trying to prove he didn't make a mistake reaching out and giving us another chance. That I'm strong and independent and totally fine with him a million miles away. That the scraps are enough.

And I am fine. Sort of.

Because, yeah, NCC is pretty awesome. I've made friends, people who challenge and inspire me and make me laugh. I'm learning new skills and expanding the limits of my creative process—taking modern dance and contemporary theater and even performance art. I'm muddling through the culture shock and picking up pieces of Dutch and German and figuring out how to navigate a new city on a fucking bicycle, for fuck's sake, because that's how everyone gets around over here.

It's everything I dreamed of when I decided to audition—except for the part where I'm not getting laid. I mean, I could —there are plenty of guys in Tilburg who would love to fawn over my dick—but none of them have chestnut hair or eyes like sunlight through redwood needles. And none of them look at me like they want to put me back together after they take me apart.

So I can wait for an eventual future with Byrd.

But it doesn't stop the gaping pit of loneliness that cracks my heart open every time I get one of his stupidly casual, frustratingly adorable texts.

I roll over in search of a cool spot on my sheets and try to decide how to respond to the latest.

I could be honest, but mopey, needy Echo is unlikely to get me what I really want—another video call to tide me over. One where I actually get to stick around for the stunning Coen cock finale.

Immature and sassy it is, then.

Me: Hanging out with Thor.

Byrd: Is that a real person? Or are you talking about the Avenger?

Me: Real people can be named Thor. Especially this close to Norway.

Imagining him thinking that over, I bite my lip to stifle a grin.

Byrd: Is he a new friend? You haven't mentioned him before.

Me: He's my new roommate.

Byrd: …

Byrd: It's a one-bedroom apartment.

Me: So? It's bigger than a dorm room. Isn't sharing a room one of those classic college experiences I'm supposed to be having ?

Five minutes later, he still hasn't answered, and I'm starting to sweat from more than just the lack of air conditioning.

Me: jk.

Still nothing. He hasn't even read the text.

Fuck . Why did I think it was a good idea to taunt him? I jump out of bed and almost trip over the box fan in the doorway. Fucking things are all over the apartment, and they barely do shit.

Me: Ignore me.

Me: I'm an idiot.

Me: There's no roommate.

I pace the living room, eyes glued to my screen. Should I call him? Should I hop on a plane back to California and climb naked into his bed and refuse to let him make me leave ever again?

I should calm the fuck down.

Yeah, that's not happening.

The phone is halfway to my ear when the front door flies open, and I'm suddenly staring at a very large, very pissed off, very beautiful man.

"Where. The fuck. Is he?"

Thank fucking god.

And also, oh no.

Because that's not just heat in his eyes, that's rage. An inferno of green lit by lightning gold.

"You're here," I say. Rather stupidly. His hair is unbound and he's wearing jeans and one of those threadbare T-shirts that make me want to lick him, and is that my duffel bag slung over his chest?

"Obviously. Stop fucking around and let me in."

Fucking around? Is he serious?

Actually, I probably deserve that.

"It's your apartment."

"Good point." He pushes past me and scans the living room, eyes narrowing on the half-open bedroom door when he sees I'm alone.

"Is he in my bedroom?"

His bedroom?

"Byrd. There's no one else here."

Turning to look at me— finally —he frowns.

"You pierced your nipples." A menacing step closer. "Did you do that for him?"

Okay. This is getting ridiculous.

" Coen . There is no Thor. Well, there is, but he's not my roommate. I mean…" I shake my head. "Thor is a dildo."

Some of the tightly wound tension leaves his body, replaced by wary suspicion.

"A dildo."

"A vibrator, actually. And it does this other swirly thing—"

I stop talking because his fist is in my hair and his chest is pressed against mine and his lips are mere inches away. Trying to close the distance, I push up on my toes, but he brings his other hand to my throat and holds me in place.

"Have you been fucking yourself with a dildo named Thor?"

"Well," I gasp, neck straining as he tugs my head back. "Calling it ‘Byrd' seemed a little on the nose."

My fingers burrow behind the strap across his chest, and the hitch of his breath is a memory carved of hopeless desire.

But this time, he doesn't turn away.

This time, he crashes his lips to mine and plunders my mouth with his ravenous tongue, and his familiar taste—cedar and caramel and Spirits under stars—trickles down my throat like ambrosia .

"You brought me my bag," I mumble when he lets me come up for air. My brain is apparently still back at the front door.

"You noticed that, huh?"

"It's kind of in the way."

Stepping back, he shrugs the strap over his head and lets the duffel fall to the floor, and I immediately launch myself back into his arms. He catches me with his hands under my ass and doesn't even flinch under my weight.

"I can't believe you're here." His stubble scrapes over my cheekbone as I pepper his neck with kisses and thread my hands into his glorious hair. "I really, really missed you."

He carries me to the back room without answering and tosses me onto the bed before reaching back to rip his shirt over his head.

Holy fucking Hercules. If he was ripped before, now he's fucking intimidating , all corded muscle and taut, tanned skin.

And splayed in vivid color over his heart…

Wings.

"You got a tattoo," I blurt. My wings. And…a raven ? He grunts without taking his predatory gaze from me, toeing off his shoes as he unbuttons his jeans. Okaaaay . "Are you gonna say something or just keep looking at me like you're about to make me your snack?"

"Oh, I'm gonna say something. But first I want to see it."

My dick ? I shove my thumbs in the waistband of my cutoff sweatpants and start to slide them down my hips.

"The dildo, Echo." His lips twitch, but his eyes are definitely glued to my half-exposed erection. "Show me this toy dick that's been taking what's mine."

"Oh." To be fair, all of my brain cells have taken up residence significantly south of the space they're supposed to inhabit .

It seems like a bad idea to turn my back on him right now, so I scramble up the bed on my ass and fumble under the pillow while he sheds his jeans and boxer briefs.

Keeping an eye on him was definitely the right call. Thor is a top-of-the-line sex toy, but it's nowhere near as impressive as the hulking Shiva looming over me.

The mattress dips as he throws a leg over my hips, caging me between his knees. When he holds out his hand, I hastily relinquish the dildo.

"The little dial is for levels of vibration, and the button—"

"Lube."

Oh my god.

Conveniently, the bottle is still within reach, tucked under a corner of my rumpled sheets, where I stashed it after my last session. I squirt some into my palm, and he watches with lethal fascination while I spread it over the silicone shaft. Low tremors course through my body, potent with lust and alarm, and my eyes dart between Thor, Byrd's face, and the larger-than-life erection jutting up between his thighs.

"What are you gonna do with it?" The words come out hoarse and breathy, and I thrill at the dangerous lilt that lifts the corner of his mouth.

"First, I'm gonna toy with you until your deviant mouth can't do anything but beg, and then I'm gonna use it on your ass." He hovers over me, bracing himself on one arm as he flicks the dial, and the vibrator hums to life. "And then I'm gonna fuck you again with the real thing. Maybe I'll make you take us both at once. How many times do you think I can make you come screaming before the neighbors complain?"

" Oh ." My hips cant of their own accord, my cock hungry for contact, but instead of crushing his body to mine the way I want him to, he leans in and drags Thor along my jaw. The hum sinks into my teeth, saliva floods my tongue, and I arch my head back into the pillow with a gasp.

"We're done with these games, Echo," he says, dragging the vibrating tip down my neck and placing his lips against my ear. "No more fucking teasing me with Josha or Thor or Gale fucking Shepard. You want me unleashed? You want me feral and possessive? I'm right there. Every fucking minute of every fucking day."

His teeth sink into the sensitive spot behind my ear as Thor brushes over my recently pierced and extremely sensitive nipple, and everything fucking short-circuits. An embarrassingly high-pitched whine escapes me, and my hands clutch at his biceps, carving half-moons into his impeccable skin. He rewards me with a far-too-brief but still highly effective grind of his cock against mine before sitting back on my thighs to consider his handiwork. "You don't need to push anymore, baby. I'm ready to take ."

"Can you start by taking off my shorts? Please?" I add hastily when his eyes flash.

"Not yet." He turns Thor over in his hands and thumbs the dial to the next setting. "Hands on the headboard." His grin is wicked. "Let go, and I'll stop."

"I love you like this," I confess. My heart is back in the 4-Runner, racing to the rhythm of memory. All these moments with him—each one a tipping point. How much deeper can we dive before we come full circle and start to fly?

"I know."

"To be clear, I love you spread out and whimpering for me, too."

Fuck me . I could drown in that smile.

"Next time."

And I'm ready to soar .

I thought Thor and I had a pretty good rapport, but under Byrd's merciless attention, I discover we've only been flirting at the edges of the possibilities. With devastating care, he rewrites the language of my body—delicate over my ribs, vicious along the V of my groin, fucking catastrophic on the sensitive hollow beneath the head of my cock.

My first orgasm paints my chest before he's even bothered to remove my shorts, and his eyes gleam with satisfaction as he studies my writhing, wretched remains.

"Look at you," he says. "Not so cocky now, I think."

"Don't say ‘cock' unless you're planning to give me yours."

"That smart mouth." He smears his thumb over my lower lip, and I chase it with my tongue. "What should I do with it?"

"Anything you want."

How he could possibly look any more erotic, I can't fathom, but his lids go heavy as he toys with my mouth, and when he sucks his own lip between his teeth, I almost sob with jealousy.

"So hungry." He smirks, dripping with this new, alluring confidence. "Should I feed you my cock next?"

I can't speak around his fingers, so I nod eagerly, swirling my tongue in encouragement and fighting the urge to peel my fingers from the headboard and reach for his hips.

Hooking my lower teeth, he pries my jaw open and uses his other hand to smear his cock through the cum on my chest.

Holyfilthyfuckinghell.

"Suck me clean," he commands, bringing himself to my lips.

Yes. Sir.

The taste of him is rich with reunion, the clean musk of his skin mingling with the sweet salt of my cum. A satisfied hum ripples from my chest as he guides himself deeper, filling me at last .

"That's it, baby. Fuck, you look gorgeous with that smart mouth gagging on my cock." Lacing his fingers with mine, he anchors us both to the bed frame and starts to fuck with steady, plunging strokes. My insatiable cock fills again as I suck in air through my nose and flatten my tongue along the thick vein running up the underside of his shaft.

I want him frenzied, incautious, unfettered. I want my jaw to ache for days and my voice to burn tripping over the tracks of this claiming.

"You keep looking at me like that, and I'm gonna come," he warns, but he recognizes my unspoken urgency and lets himself go. "Gonna make you choke on it." His fingers tangle in my strands, and he yanks me up until the short hairs of his groin tickle my lips. My throat spasms and he groans, punching savagely deeper to bury himself with short, punishing thrusts.

The world swims to a haze of textures—pain biting at my scalp and jaw, the heady scents of sex and sweat, the swell of his velvet crown filling my ravaged throat—and then the hot slide of his cum floods the back of my tongue.

A string of praise and curses spills from his lips, and I am so gloriously used, it becomes worship.

He releases me with all the drugged reluctance of a junkie relinquishing their favorite fix and slumps back against the headboard. I turn my face into his hip as he brushes his thumb along the tear tracks leaking from the corner of my eye.

The move is so unspeakably tender after the spectacular ferocity of the throat-fucking I just received that I lift my head, searching his face for signs of remorse.

"No apologies." He smiles, reading my worry. He nods at the bed frame. "You can let go now."

Peeling my cramped fingers free, I give him a relieved grin. "Can I take my pants off, too? "

His eyes dance over the erection trapped behind my waistband, and his lips twitch.

"Go ahead."

"Thank god." I shimmy out of my shorts and climb up to straddle his waist. Cupping my face in his hands, he brings me in for the kind of kiss that curls my toes and has me moaning into his mouth—all slow, sultry exploration, like he's capturing the imprint of my soul with his thorough tongue.

"I missed this mouth," he murmurs when we finally come up for air.

"Even when it's being too smart for its own good?"

"Even then." He drops his head against the wall and trails his fingers down my neck. "Every shape and sound."

"Is this a dream?" I whisper.

"No, baby. I'm right here."

"Me too."

But it feels like a dream—too full of Byrd and wonder and bright with sticky sunlight to be real. And Byrd himself—all his cautious, careful edges, forever fragile beneath the burden of my need. Are they really now strong enough to bear my weight?

"Tell me about the tattoo," I say, tracing the raven's watercolor tail feathers. "Is this us?"

"The seraph and the bird," he confirms.

"Are we falling?" The forms are entwined, a carousel of limbs and claws and wings of muted black and brilliant blue.

"We're diving."

Diving is different from falling. Diving is on purpose .

I lean in to press a kiss to the raven's head upon his heart, then peek at him through my lashes. "Do you want to see mine?"

"Do I?" He rolls his eyes. "Audrey told me that was real."

Pausing in the act of twisting to show him my new, very sexy ink, I raise an eyebrow. "You saw Audrey? "

"She did mine."

He drove all the way to LA to have his body marked by the same woman who covered my scars and scribed my story across my skin. It's—staggering. And poignant. And it makes me instantly, irrationally, incredibly horny.

"I need you to fuck me now," I inform him. "You can check out my tattoo while you're riding my ass."