by Mia Madison
It was kind of a lie, but just close enough to the truth to be believable. Her eyes softened and she gave me a small smile.
“We made plans, remember? We’ll get jobs and look for a place closer to the city. Nothing has to change.”
But it did. Things did have to change and Finley was lying to herself if she thought otherwise.
The entire conversation was leaving a shitty taste in my mouth, so I waved my hand through the air dismissively and said, “I know we did. I’m just… I’m a little stressed out.”
She shuffled on her feet, clearly not satisfied with the weird tension that had sprung up between us.
“You want some help getting ready for your big mystery date?”
“Thanks for offering, but I think I’m good. Go back to your marathon. I’m going to hop in the shower.”
She nodded and disappeared, leaving me alone to get ready for my date. I didn’t worry nearly as much about my outfit this time—I obviously impressed Joshua enough the first time to get an invitation back—and I noticed that a lot of the nerves I felt the previous Friday were gone.
Instead, something far more ominous was lurking in my stomach. Something I strongly suspected was related to the fact that I knew I couldn’t keep dodging Finley for the rest of the semester, nor could I imagine myself telling her the truth.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered to my reflection, unsurprised by the sadness I could see in my own eyes.
I knew that putting an end to whatever was happening between me and Joshua before either of us got in too deep was ultimately the right thing to do, but I still decided to spend one last night with him.
I just prayed I could hold myself together long enough to enjoy it.
Leaving the apartment turned out to be even more awkward than the conversation with Finley had been in my bedroom. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she and Ben had been talking about me—the sudden silence and twin looks of worry as I entered the living room was a dead giveaway. Neither of them said a word as I briskly walked towards the door, not until my hand was on the doorknob and Finley’s hesitant voice called out to me.
“I’ll see you later?”
The real question she wanted to ask was obvious.
“Don’t wait up.”
Without giving her a chance to comment on that, I left the apartment and rushed downstairs. Every step I took towards Joshua’s car made me feel guiltier.
Once I got in the Mercedes and closed the door, I let out a heavy sigh and tried to expel the negative emotions. I was determined to enjoy the little time I had left with him.
“Hello, beautiful,” Joshua greeted, leaning over the center console to press a sweet kiss to my lips. “How was your day?”
“Not great,” I admitted as I slid the seatbelt over my chest and clicked it into place.
I could feel his eyes regarding me carefully for a long moment before he softly asked, “Is there anything I can do to make it better?”
“You already are,” I said with a smile that was a lot sadder than I intended it to be.
Joshua’s eyebrows knitted together with concern, but he chose not to comment. He nodded his head and drove away from my building, his worried look staying focused on the road all the way to his place.
9
Joshua apologized profusely for not having time to cook for me but I really didn’t mind considering there were various cartons of food from my favorite Chinese restaurant scattered around the small dining room table. We ate dinner in relative silence, though not for a lack of trying on Joshua’s end.
But every time he tried to make small talk, a lump formed in my throat that made it difficult to speak. I knew that it was my own mind trying to keep from talking and getting more attached to him than I already was, which just made me feel even more guilty for being here and taking advantage of his hospitality.
There really wasn’t any other way to describe it. I was leading him on while knowing that this couldn’t go any further. It made me feel like shit.
But the guilt I felt paled in comparison to the need for closure. As soon as he was finished eating, I shoved my emotional distress to the side and stood up, going right to his chair and straddling him. He seemed pleased by my forwardness, grinning up at me as I began to rock my hips against his in the most suggestive way possible.
“You’re eager tonight,” he said with a chuckle as he gripped my hips and helped me grind down on him. “I like it.”
“Take me upstairs,” I breathed into his ear, sucking on the lobe before I trailed my lips down his neck. “Make me forget.”
I wanted him to make me forget my own name—and I damn well knew he could—but it was clear that he thought I was referring to my bad day. His hands slid under my ass and he held me to him as he stood us up and began the short walk towards the stairs. Each step shifted my body against his and I bit back a moan at the feel of his already hard cock rubbing so close to my core. He carried me all the way up the stairs and into his room, his pupils blown wide with lust by the time he finally laid me down on the bed.
My hands reached out for him but he swatted them away, shaking his head a little before he said, “Just relax, baby. Let me make it better.”
The tender way he touched and kissed my skin as he undressed me made tears prickle at the back of my eyes. He didn’t tease me like the last time we were together, but he did make use of his knowledge of which spots were my most sensitive.
One night in bed and this man had already mapped out and memorized what turned me on the most. Incredible.
Once I was naked below him, he made quick work of removing his shirt. He kissed me passionately and pressed our bare chests together, rolling his hips between my legs to let me feel that I affected him just as much as he did to me. When he began to pull back, I locked my ankles together behind his ass and thrust my hips up against him.
“You want these off or not?” Joshua asked with a chuckle, gesturing down to his slacks. “Cause I can fuck you with them on, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
I shook my head and let him go, sitting up to watch as he finished undressing. The sight of his erection bobbing in the air made my mouth water and I somehow managed to twist both him and myself until he was lying on his back.
One more taste, I thought as I wrapped my lips around the head of his cock and sucked. Joshua groaned and fisted my hair, breathing heavily as he directed me to bob up and down.
“Your mouth was made for this, Brooke,” he panted, tossing his head back on the pillow when I brought my hand up to roll his balls in my palm. “Fuck. Just like that, baby.”
I savored the taste of him in my mouth, wishing that I would’ve gotten the opportunity to fully taste him one last time before I pulled the plug on us. But since I wanted to feel him inside me far more than I wanted that taste, I slid my lips off with a lewd pop and crawled up his body.
Joshua began to sit up and I swore he was going to argue with my positioning, so I took him in my hand and guided him into me before he got the chance to voice any sort of protest. He inhaled sharply as I sank down and I didn’t bother to suppress my load moan, shuddering hard once I finally took his entire length inside.
I shifted my hips back and forth minutely, trying to speed up the process of getting used to his thickness again. Joshua let his hand wander up my stomach to my breasts, toying with my hard nipples until I cried out from the pleasure. His hands returned to my hips and he lifted me up until only the head of his cock was still inside before he pulled me back down.
I moaned and he hissed, sitting upright and bracing one of his arms behind him while the other curled behind me and rested on the small of my back.
“Bounce,” he growled.
Our gazes stayed locked together as I followed his command, quickly working up a steady rhythm of riding him. When I got comfortable enough to go faster, his eyes lowered to my breasts and they seemed to glaze over even more.
“So sexy,” he grunted, remo
ving his hand from my back to cup one of my breasts in his large palm as it bounced up and down. “All of it. Your tits, your ass, your tight little pussy—You’re fucking perfect, Brooke.”
Under any other circumstances, those were words I’d be dying to hear. But even though I was succumbing to pleasure as my climax grew closer, I couldn’t get my brain to stop reminding me that this was going to end very soon.
The knowledge made me ache in ways I didn’t know were possible.
The next time I cried out, it was more of a sad whimper than anything else. Joshua’s attention was so rapt that he recognized the difference in my tone immediately and with a quick tug at my upper body followed by a roll, I was flat on my back and he was rocking his hips between my spread legs.
“Look at me,” he commanded, gripping my chin and keeping my face turned towards his. When I didn’t obey, he stilled inside me. “Brooke. Open your eyes.”
They fluttered open and I felt a hot tear roll down my cheek. Joshua frowned and swiped his thumb to catch it, the question clearly visible in his eyes before he spoke it.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I lied, trying to ignore how much worse his concerned voice made me feel. “Keep going.”
But he didn’t move. If anything, his frown grew even deeper.
“You’re crying, baby. Am I hurting you?” I shook my head and his confused eyes roamed all over my face. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I had intended to wait until the morning to have the ‘it’s over’ conversation, but Joshua wasn’t going to let it go. The irony of telling him while his cock was still inside me wasn’t lost on me, but I couldn’t hold the words back with the way he was looking at me.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, turning my head to the side so I didn’t have to look into his eyes. “We need to stop.”
He was silent for what felt like a long time before he gently eased himself out of me, lying down on the mattress and staring up at the ceiling as he asked, “Why?”
“I can’t—I’m just not cut out for this whole secret affair thing. My roommate is worried about me acting so cagey lately and I can’t explain myself to her without putting us both at risk.”
“Then why the hell are you even here?” he growled, his angry eyes turning towards me. “What? Did you just want one more go before you fucking broke up with me?”
“I-I’m not… Are we even dating?”
I don’t know if it was the scared look in my eyes or the confusion in my voice, but his expression softened considerably and he let out a long sigh as he scrubbed his hand over his jaw.
“Fuck if I know,” he admitted. “So what now? You want me to pretend like you’re just another student? Like I don’t know what you look like when you come on my cock?”
I winced at the bluntness of his words. “I guess so.”
“You still want me to pick you up in the mornings?”
“The snow’s melting, Joshua. I can walk.”
I could tell he was angry so I rolled off the bed and began looking for my clothes with the intention of calling a cab to take me back to my apartment. I didn’t have any desire to prolong our torture by asking him for a ride home.
I just spotted where my jeans had landed when I felt his strong arms wrap around my waist and haul my body back against him. I let out a squeak of surprise as he spun around and carried me back to the bed.
“Not so fast,” he said as he opened my legs and slid back inside. “We’re not done yet.”
I tried not to think about the hidden meaning I could sense beneath his words. I dug my nails into his back as he began to thrust into me, unable to choke back the loud squeals and moans caused by his brutally hard pumps.
An orgasm tore through me a few minutes later and Joshua hissed as I clamped down around him, rolling his hips in circles. He didn’t give me any time to come down from my high before he started fucking me again, staring down at me with dark, wild eyes.
“No one else can fuck you like this,” he growled, slamming into me at an angle that he knew was hitting my g-spot. “This pussy was made for me and you know it. You were made for me. You. Are. MINE!” he roared as he reached between us and pressed two fingers firmly against my clitoris.
He didn’t need to say anything else. The way my body immediately responded to his touch said more than my words ever could. Within seconds, I was screaming as another climax slammed into me, hot on the heels of the first.
Joshua pulled out and shuffled down to lick my slit, shoving his tongue inside and growling as I flooded his face with wetness.
The torture went on for at least half an hour. Joshua would fuck me until I screamed and pull out before he found his own release, making me come over and over again. After the fifth orgasm, I deliriously panted that I couldn’t take anymore and he responded by gently sliding back inside.
His forearms rested on either side of my head as he slowly rocked in and out, gentle enough not to cause my oversensitive body to protest. I forced my eyes to open, gasping when I found him gazing down at me tenderly.
“I can’t let you go, baby,” he said softly, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “But if you need me to wait until May, I will.”
I could hardly believe it, but there it was. Joshua was offering to wait until graduation to resume our relationship.
There’s really something here.
“There is,” he whispered back, alerting me that I’d accidentally spoken my thought out loud. “Will you wait?”
I nodded, but he sensed my reluctance. His fingers threaded into my hair and he stopped moving, glaring down at me.
“I’m fucking serious, angel. I’ll cool it for a few months, but I’ll lose my shit if I find out another man has been touching you in my absence.”
“N-No, that’s not... That won’t happen. I promise.”
His eyes darted back and forth between mine, trying to spot any signs of dishonesty. But I wasn’t lying. My hesitance was only from the thought of what others would say about our relationship given the age difference.
When he was satisfied that I was telling the truth, Joshua began rocking back into me. Which was the worst possible time for me to mentally imagine introducing him to my father—but that’s of course when it happened.
It took some effort, but I managed to get those thoughts out of my head. I watched Joshua as he slowly made love to me—because what else could I really call it? He was going so slow and holding me so close, like he was afraid of losing me.
With a start, I realized I was wrapped around him in a similar fashion.
“I’m close, angel. I need—”
“Faster,” I gasped, giving him permission to use my body however he needed.
He sped up his pace and the sensations began to overwhelm me once again, but I was able to subdue my moans long enough to beg him to finish inside me.
That was all he needed. His head tilted up towards the ceiling and he let out a tortured groan as he came, his cock throbbing within my walls. He didn’t move away to clean me up right after, instead opting to stay right where he was while we held each other for a long while.
“Gonna be a long four months,” he grumbled against my neck.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it still felt pretty damn close.
I fell asleep in his arms while he nuzzled his nose against my neck, his softening cock still buried deep inside me.
10
Being so close to and yet so far away from Joshua was a lot more difficult to handle than I thought it’d be. Some days, it felt like sheer torture.
The Monday morning that followed our last night together was the worst. I knew better than to expect to see the silver Mercedes waiting for me, but it still hurt like hell when it wasn’t there.
But being in his class hurt more than anything else. Judging by the way his eyes constantly drifted to mine, I knew I wasn’t alone in th
inking it.
As the weeks dragged by, things with Finley and I became less strained. Something had shifted in our relationship and Ben wasn’t making it any better, but we were doing a pretty good job of returning to normal.
Or at least that’s what I thought until the second week of February—when she and Ben started acting insanely weird every time I entered a room. I wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but I was seriously regretting putting in that good word for Ben.
I was working on accepting the fact that my friendship with Finely was never going to be the same again when I realized that Valentine’s Day was just around the corner.
Was that why they were acting so odd? Because I told them that my mystery relationship had ended and they knew I’d be alone? It seemed ridiculous, but I couldn’t think of any other logical explanation for their behavior.
Valentine’s Day landed on a Friday this year and though I was dying to text Joshua the moment I woke up, I ignored the urge. We had mutually agreed not to message each other just because it’d make it all the more difficult to stay away.
So when I left my apartment and spotted his car at the curb, ‘shocked’ was a huge fucking understatement for what I felt inside.
The window cracked open a few inches as I approached and my heart twisted painfully in my chest when I spotted his sad smile.
“What are you doing here?” I asked incredulously.
“Giving you a ride. Get in.”
His tone left no room to argue. I hastily got into the car and slammed the door, trying not to let my disappointment eat at me when he immediately pulled away without his usual greeting.
But when he pulled to a stop at a red light and reached into the center console to pull out a long, rectangular box, the lack of greeting no longer mattered.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, baby,” he said as he handed me the box.
I opened it carefully and my jaw dropped at the sight of the diamond tennis bracelet resting inside, my mind immediately trying to calculate how much it must have cost. But Joshua was grinning like it was him who had received a gift instead of myself, so I assumed the price didn’t really matter to him.