Chapter 13
Study Break
Bash
I nearly jumped out of my skin when my headphones were pulled off my head and warm lips touched the back of my neck.
I hadn’t heard Edge enter the room, and I wasn’t expecting him. He was about five hours later than he said he was going to be, and I’d given up on him coming to help me study after my third phone call and second text went ignored. The first few hours I’d been pissed, too angry to sit down and get any work done. But eventually, I realized failing my test wasn’t going to make me feel any better or make Edge any less of an inconsiderate jerk, so I cranked up the music and buried my head in my books.
Mac had come and gone, mumbling something about a date with a Swedish ski instructor, and both Klein and Theo had returned from practice. I ran into Klein when I needed a bathroom break, and then Theo when I was raiding the kitchen for a snack. They were doing their best to avoid one another. Theo had camped out in the living room with the Xbox One, while Klein was holed up in their room. He must have been the one who let the blond intruder in.
I swiveled around in my chair and pushed him back. He stumbled back a step and landed on the edge of the bed with a sigh. He looked like shit. His usually perfect hair was a mess, his tie hung loosely around his neck, and his eyes were bloodshot and watery. He clasped his hands together in front of him and lowered his head so he was looking at the carpet between his polished wingtips instead of at me. His wide shoulders slumped, and I swore I could see defeat or something close to it stamped all over him.
“I’m sorry I’m so late.” His voice was low and raspy, but not in a sexy way. He sounded like he’d been choking on something. If I had to guess, I would bet it was his emotions, and he was having a hard time getting them down. “Something came up.”
I slipped my headphones off my neck where they had fallen and let them drop to the desk behind me with a thump. I ran my hands over my face and tried to marshal my thoughts. I was pissed he left me hanging and didn’t respond when I tried to contact him, but I was also worried about him because he was obviously shaken up about something.
“You could have responded to one of my messages. I waited for you for a while. I could have used that time to study. I wasn’t kidding about passing this test.” I copied his pose almost exactly as his head came up. His eyes roved over my naked chest and lingered on the low-slung sweatpants I’d changed into when I realized he was going to be a no-show.
He cleared his throat and lifted his hands to his already tousled hair. It looked like he’d been pulling on it all afternoon. “I talked to Cutter. It didn’t go well.”
I blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair, which rocked under my weight. I hadn’t been expecting that. Edge was always so composed and unreadable, it was easy to forget he had soft spots like the rest of us. It looked like Cutter had hit at his hard.
“What did he say?” I rolled the chair closer to him so our knees were almost touching. I wanted to reach out a hand to comfort him, but I was unsure of what he needed, and still uncertain if I was willing to easily forgive him for making me feel insignificant. I’d had a lifetime of people who were supposed to care about me, but had only made me feel like I didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to accept that from a boyfriend, lover, friend, or anyone else.
Edge tossed his head back and stared at the ceiling. “He broke up with me.”
I barked out a surprised laugh and felt my eyebrows shoot up. I swiveled in my chair, nervously. “Broke up with you? Were you dating and I missed the memo? And I thought he was straight.” Goddamn Mac and his keen perception. The boy needed to go into the business of reading minds. He was scary in more ways than one.
Edge sat up and reached out for the arms of the chair I was still swiveling in, pulling it closer to where he was sitting until I was situated between his spread legs. He leaned forward until our foreheads touched, and I could feel each time he exhaled across my lips.
“I’ve taken advantage of my friendship with Cutter my entire life. It was always him and me against the world. It didn’t matter that my family wanted to hide me away, or that his was too busy for him, because we had each other. I figured it would always be that way. Whoever else came and went, it would always be us at the end of the day. I guess I didn’t realize somewhere along the way I needed to work at being the kind of person who deserved his loyalty. I never imagined he’d walk away, but today he did.” The words whispered across my lips and settled like lead in my gut. “I’m not sure I know what to do with myself without him to lean on.”
I pulled back and used my foot to roll the chair away from him. I needed the space to think and to breathe. “That doesn’t sound like the end of a friendship, Edge. That sounds like the end of a relationship. I think you need some time to figure out what that means.” I’d only had him for a minute, but I felt the loss of him all the way down to my bones. I knew getting tangled up with this beautiful boy was going to be nothing but trouble. I was supposed to be better at guarding my heart than this. It was the one thing I was really good at.
Edge shook his head and reached out to pull me back to the spot I’d just vacated. He put his hands on either side of my face and held me still. Our eyes locked and I could see the tiny fissures of cracked ice in his. That ice wasn’t as solid as it was before. Rutledge Darby was starting to thaw out and he was struggling with everything seeping out through those cracks.
“That’s what I realized when he walked away. I’ve never been a good friend; never tried to be. It’s something I clearly need to work on.” His thumbs brushed the rise of my cheekbones and a lopsided grin pulled at his mouth. “But being good enough for you to give a shot, I didn’t even have to think about it. I just did it. I can see why that pissed Cutter off, and I can also see that it means I need to be more careful with this,” he pointed to the space between us indicating all the things that were there but invisible to the naked eye. “And with you. I owe you more care than I typically show the men in my life. I’m a pretty smart guy, but all this consideration and self-reflection is new to me. I got buried under it and it took me a minute to dig my way out. I’m sorry I bailed on you. I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”
The apology was sincere and so was the look in his eyes. He was out of his element and he knew it. Change was never easy; I knew that better than most. For a guy who was used to things always going his way and the world adjusting to run at his whim, I was sympathetic to the fact he was faltering to find his footing. I also couldn’t deny that the thought of him being more careful with me than he originally intended sounded sweet and lightened some of that weight in my stomach.
I found myself unconsciously leaning closer to him, closing the gap I’d opened up when reacting to hurt feelings and rejection. My heart kicked up its tempo, like it always did when he gave me that grin of his, and I could feel myself starting to slip under his spell. I wanted to believe I had better defenses built up from all the years of dealing with my parents’ neglect and dismissal, but hearing him admit he needed to do better by me sent all the walls crumbling to a useless heap on the floor at our feet.
“I guess you’re allowed to slip up every now and then. You can be an asshole, as long as you’re my asshole. I don’t love knowing how easy it is for you to flip that switch, but I can learn to deal with it as long as you’re honest with me about what’s going on behind it.” He gave me a somewhat grim nod, but his pale eyes were gleaming with barely hidden relief. I noticed he started to lean toward me as well. Slowly, there would be no more space between us.
That’s how it should have been from the moment he walked into the room.
I wasn’t expecting him to get a personality transplant, that wasn’t fair. But I was expecting him to treat me like I mattered, and that included respecting my time. It was just as valuable as his. “I rage studied when you didn’t show, so I actually got quite a bit of work done.” I wasn’t sure how much of it was retained since I was hot with the fury I’d gathered, but some of the info had to have stuck.
His frosty gaze drifted over my nearly naked form once again, and this time the blue burned like the base of a flame. “I can still help you go over everything. We’ll do a quick review. How about we make a game out of it?”
I lifted my eyebrows and raised my arms over my head so I could stretch out my spine. Edge watched the move with hungry eyes, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his beautiful head. He was sharp and clever. Keeping up with him was tricky, but I liked the way it made me breathless and excited.
“What kind of game?” I doubted it was going to be one I could win. He wasn’t going to play unless he was assured a victory.
A slow smile spread across his face, and it was purely predatory. I shivered in response and swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. His eyes roved over my torso again, lingering on the trail of dark hair that disappeared into the low waistband of my sweats. The thin material did little to cover my body’s reaction to his perusal. I liked having him look at me like he couldn’t wait to get his hands on me.
“I’ll quiz you, ask you questions. For every one you get right, I’ll take something off. When you get one wrong, you have to take something off.” There was a promise in his voice I wanted to instantly take him up on.
I looked down at my lack of clothing and then over at him. “If I get one wrong, I’ll be naked.”
His grin widened. “I love that you go commando. It’s so hot.” He motioned for me to hand over my notes and my history book. “You better not get any wrong or this is going to be an awkwardly short cram session.”
I rolled my neck and shifted my shoulders. I leaned back in the chair and laced my fingers together behind my head. “My roommates are home.” I wasn’t sure why I was reminding him or myself to behave.
He looked up from the notes and told me slyly, “No, they aren’t. I interrupted them in the middle of a fight when I knocked on the door. The big one left when the little one started yelling at him about something. The little one muttered something about living with animals and took off shortly after.”
I sighed. “They could be back at any time.”
He shrugged. “So what?”
I wanted to argue that we shouldn’t fool around with anyone in earshot, but I didn’t have a good reason why. Their constant bickering made me uncomfortable and annoyed. Why should I care if whatever I did behind closed doors bothered them?
I closed my eyes and leaned back. “Fair enough. Hit me with your best shot, pretty boy.”
He chuckled and I felt his gaze like a physical touch as it crawled all over me. “You’re the pretty one, Bash. All those colors, all that art that’s a part of you. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at you.”
It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me. Before I could swoon or tell him he didn’t need to charm me because I was already his for the taking, he started asking me questions. My eyes popped open at his sudden shift from flirty and fun to all business.
He didn’t even start out with an easy one. I rattled off the answer and watched with bated breath as he checked it against my notes. Nodding in approval, he slowly started to work the knot on his tie free. I stopped breathing for a second when it hit the floor by my feet.
He asked two more questions, both I answered correctly. He lost his blazer and his expensive ass shoes. It was getting harder to concentrate and the questions were getting more difficult.
The gleam in his pale eyes was knowing and playful. He was getting a kick out of torturing me with the slow striptease.
“This is a good one. Get it right and I’ll let you decide if I take off my shirt or my pants.” The question went in one ear and out the other, as I got lost picturing him sprawled across my bed without his pants on.
I asked him to repeat the question, and he did with a laugh. He was well aware of why I couldn’t focus. The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but I still struggled to get it out. Once I blurted out something I thought made sense, he slowly shook his head and told me I was only partially right. He helped me round out a better answer and then bent to take off his socks. I didn’t get full credit for the question, so I didn’t get the pants or the shirt. I moaned in frustration and glared at him as he fired off the next question. I got the next two right and was rewarded with him ending up in nothing but those designer boxer briefs he seemed so fond of. Today they were dark blue. The color looked good against his tanned skin. The bulge pressing against the front of his briefs matched the one tenting the front of my sweats. This game was no longer fun. I was ready for someone to win.
He asked what had to be the final question, because one of us was going to be naked in the next few minutes and the other wasn’t going to be able to resist jumping on all that exposed skin.
I paused and tossed the question around in my head. I thought I knew the answer, but I was tempted to get it wrong so I could take my pants off and beg him to put his hands on my dick. But I really needed to pass my test, so I growled in frustration and bit out my response.
Edge looked up from the notes and then over to the book. He scanned something on the page, then looked up at me with a frown. “That’s not right, handsome. It’s a trick question.”
I balked and got to my feet. “No way. I’m sure I’m right.” I sat next to him on the edge of the bed and was immediately wrapped up in the heat coming off his skin. How someone so cold on the inside could be so warm on the outside was a mystery.
He pointed to the correct answer on the page and I swore in aggravation. He was right. I was way off the mark, tripped up like the question had intended. I pushed the book off the bed and tossed my notes in the general direction of my desk. “At least I won’t forget the correct answer.” It would be impossible to, since it was the reason I was losing my pants.
I climbed to my feet so I could push my sweats down. I heard Edge let out a breath, but before he could reach for me, I put my hands on his shoulders, pushed him back on the bed, and climbed on top of him. My bed was nowhere near as nice as the one in his mega-mansion on the mountain, but it was flat and it had enough room for both of us. It would get the job done.
He grunted as I slammed my mouth over his, working a hand down his body until I got to the waistband of his briefs. It took very little effort to free the hard shaft calling my name. He felt like velvet and steel in my hand, and I couldn’t get enough of how heavy it felt throbbing against my palm. He curled his hand around the back of my neck and held me in place as I worked on devouring his mouth.
I licked, sucked, bit, and tasted every spot I could reach. He didn’t taste like whiskey this time, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He still tasted like something expensive and forbidden. His hips bucked against mine, as I started to slide my hand up and down his rigid length. My cock pulsed eagerly where it was pressed between us. I could feel the smooth ball of my piercing rubbing across the corrugated lines of his taut abs. He shivered beneath me and let out an animalistic sound as I moved so I could wrap my hand around both of us as best as I could, instead of just him. Combined, we were too thick for a solid grip, but that didn’t matter. The underside of our cocks rubbed together, both of them so hot and so hard. It didn’t take long for both of us to start leaking, making the motions easier and allowing me to stroke faster and faster.
“Feels good.” Edge sounded rough, like the words had to fight to find their way out. It was a powerful feeling, being able to do that to him.
I pulled my mouth from his and leaned back so I could watch our cocks sliding together in my fist. Both were shiny and wet. Both were flushed and throbbing. I rocked my hips with the glide of my hand, and bit back a moan as the overload of pleasure ran through me and tightened along the base of my spine. I used the pad of my thumb to trace circles around his flared crown, making sure I rubbed along his wet slit. A translucent line of fluid followed my finger when I pulled away, and I couldn’t resist sticking the slick digit in my mouth and sucking all his flavor off.
Edge’s eyes blazed. His broad chest lifted and fell like he was trying to catch his breath. The look in his eyes went from passion to predatory in the span of a heartbeat.
“Bash?” My name was a question with a million more questions trapped inside of it.
I wiggled my hips and moved up so I was straddling his trim waist. The erection I’d been happily torturing was now resting along the cleft of my ass. Edge twitched with awareness, and in no time, his thick length was riding between my cheeks, the wide head prodding insistently against my hole. It had been a while for me. I’d been too focused on getting free of my parents and somewhere I could settle to worry about getting it in, or getting it on. It was safe to say I had trust issues as it was, so I didn’t fall into bed with just anyone. But I was more than ready to let Edge have his way with me.
I rocked up and down, riding his shaft where it was pressed along my crevasse until my eyes crossed and my breath caught. Edge held onto my hips, keeping me balanced as I leaned over and dug around in my nightstand for condoms and lube. I paused when I came up empty. I grunted in frustration and slammed the drawer shut with more force than necessary.
“Goddamn, Mac. He must have raided my stash of supplies. That little slut.” I huffed out a frustrated breath that sent some of my two-toned hair fluttering across my forehead.
Edge laughed and levered himself up using nothing but those impressive abs. If I wasn’t already ready to fuck his brains out, that impressive display would have had me lifting my legs over my head and begging him to take me.
He pressed a hard kiss to my pouting mouth and ran a hand up and down my spine. “I’ve wanted inside you since day one. Do you really think I haven’t been prepared any and every time we’ve been together? On the off chance you were ever ready, I didn’t want anything to get in the way.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and bent so he could reach the spot on the floor where his pants had landed in a heap. He was strong—stronger than he looked in his preppy uniform and shiny shoes. The way his arm muscles bulged and the way his shoulders tightened had me grinding shamelessly on his dick once again. Mac wasn’t the only one who knew how to get what he needed… and wanted.
I heard something tear, and then there was a trickle of cool liquid along my crack. The sensation had my entire body quaking in anticipation. I twined my arms around Edge’s neck and bent forward so I could feather kisses over his perfectly arched brows and along the line of his razor-sharp jaw.
The first press of his finger at my entrance stole every thought from my head and had spots of white popping in my vision. I sucked in a breath so hard my lungs protested. I felt him hesitate when I let out an involuntary gasp. Not wanting him to stop or worry about whether or not I was into it, I pushed back into his touch, driving his finger deeper inside me.
He muttered my name and turned his head to capture my wandering mouth with his. The stretch was unbelievable, the pressure enough to have my head spinning and thoughts scattering. When he moved his hand and I felt him add another thick finger, I swore the top of my head was going to come off. He started thrusting them in and out, tagging my prostate on each stroke. It was a lot of sensation in a short time and my entire body was feeling it. My skin felt overly tight, and my dick was so hard it hurt. I reached between our now slick abdomens and wrapped my hand around my turgid length. I rolled my palm over the engorged head, taking a second to play with my piercing. I couldn’t stop the low moan that crawled out of my throat. Sex was always good, even bad sex was still mostly okay if not worth a repeat. Sex with Edge was on a whole other level. I felt like I’d been doing it wrong, or at least with the wrong guys, since I started having sex. There wasn’t a single way he touched me, or moved underneath me, that I didn’t feel from the top of my head down to my toes.
A foil packet was pressed into the hand I didn’t have wrapped around my dick and a gruff, “open that,” was issued as another finger pressed against my stretched hole. I was brazenly fucking his fingers at this point. I was so close to the edge (pun totally intended), I forgot his cock was just as hard and just as eager for relief as mine. I opened the condom with my teeth and practically howled when he really went to work on that happy spot inside of me. How anyone could pass that up during sex was beyond me. It felt so fucking good.
I hated that I had to lift up and interrupt his rhythm to get the latex in place. My hands were shaking as I got him covered and slicked up with the remaining lube from the tiny travel pack he’d dropped on the bed.
I put a hand on the center of his chest and balanced over his straining erection. I could feel my pucker tighten in anticipation and fear. He was a big guy all over, and no matter how diligent he’d been with his fingers, that was going to be a lot of man to take inside.
“You okay?” Now the rasp in his voice was sexy, and the fact he was asking went a long way to easing some of my nerves.
I dipped my chin in a slight nod and gave him a shy grin. “I’m good.”
He chuckled and the movement pushed his cock against my entrance. The sexy contact had my back teeth grinding together. “You’re better than good.”
I sighed and slowly relaxed so my weight lowered, sinking slowly onto his unbending flesh. The resistance burned for a second, hot and sharp. We both made strangled noises, his soaked in pleasure, mine sharp with pain. Edge let me run the show, staying still as stone as I painstakingly took him in, aching inch by aching inch. It took a minute or more to adjust to being filled and stretched out around his impressive girth. I was pretty sure by the time he was all the way in, my body was going to have had enough time to memorize every bump and ridge of his cock.
“That’s what every boy wants to hear.” We were an odd combination, but he was right, we were better than good when we got together.
My dick had lost some of its excitement at the first press of his flared head against all those tight muscles. Now that he was fully seated, my legs resting on top of his, so full I couldn’t feel anything but him, my cock was starting to get back on board. I grunted as my erection thickened in my hand and started to move over the man waiting so patiently below me. Edge growled my name and used his hold on my hips to help me rise and fall, so I was riding him like he was my favorite attraction at a carnival.
I worked my cock as he worked my hole. When he moved a hand so he could spread my cheeks open, leaving me exposed and straining, I almost came all over his chest. He grinned up at me when I went a little crazy on top of him and winked at me as he used the tip of his finger to stroke along the sensitive, stretched skin wrapped around his dick. It was the most erotic and masterful handling I’d ever experienced during sex. Edge played with every single part of me he could reach. He begged me to lean over so he could suck on my nipple rings, something I started to realize he was obsessed with, but I held him off because I knew as soon as his mouth was on me, I was going to explode. I was enjoying him owning my ass, and I wasn’t ready for the swirling sensations I was drowning in to be over yet.
Edge wasn’t used to anyone denying him something he wanted though. Before I could argue, he had us flipped over, my legs bent nearly to my head as he reversed our positions. I could count the number of times I’d fucked while face to face like this on one hand with fingers left over. It was intense. There was nowhere to hide as Edge pushed back into my body and lowered his head to suck one of the little metal rings into his mouth. My hand tightened reflexively around my swollen cock and I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer. He found an angle that pushed the tip of his dick right up against my prostate with every thrust. There was no fighting against that kind of pleasure. His name came out on a strangled cry as warm ropes of cum shot out to coat my stomach, only to smear across his. Man, did he look good covered in my cum.
He twisted his head to torture my other nipple and my entire body contracted. I was so sensitive everywhere. I was like an exposed nerve; every place our skin touched was electrified and alive. I clenched around his pounding cock and rolled my hips against his steady thrusts. He moaned, and I saw his silvery eyes go foggy and unfocused. I tightened my muscles around him again and felt the rush of heat and throb of his orgasm as he filled the condom. His hips slowed to a leisurely bump and grind as he rode out the end of his completion.
After a quiet minute, he pulled out, leaned back, and looked at the mess all over his stomach. He lifted a golden eyebrow and ran a finger through the wetness, lifting the sticky fluid to his mouth so he could lick it off. If I wasn’t wrung out and empty, that sight would have made me shoot another load all over him.
“I don’t know what you’re gonna get on your test tomorrow, but I give you an A-plus.” The grin he gave me made my heart do funny things inside of my chest.
I rolled over and futilely tried to find a shirt or something on the floor I could use to clean up with. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him dispose of the condom and clean himself up with one of his discarded socks. I wanted to reply that I’d had a good teacher, but the truth was I didn’t know anything about how good sex could be until I’d decided to break all my rules by hooking up with him.
“You pass too, pretty boy. With flying colors.” And it was amazing because I was so sure we were meant to fail.