I shuddered and tried to brace myself against the door. “I –God, stop teasing me!”
I felt him smirk as my cock was drawn out into his palm. My stomach was dancing as he pushed his hands under my shirt and the burning, wet heat of his mouth engulfed me. My knees went weak as he swallowed me deeper. Rocking my hips and reveling in the pleasure bubbling inside me, I yelped when I found myself being flung down on the bed and straddled.
Bracing himself on his arms Casper looked down at me, his chest heaving and his lips red and swollen as he gazed into my eyes. “Why did you stop?” I asked thickly.
“I need you,” he panted, pressing his hips against mine.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to be inside you,” he growled.
My cock jumped at his voice. Sweat started to dampen my body as I shifted underneath him. It had been so long since I’d had anyone inside me. I hadn’t even touched myself there in a while because I’d gotten used to not having to. The last person I’d had inside me was my ex and I was more than happy to erase that memory.
“Are you sure you want to?” There was a quiver in my voice but I couldn’t help it. Up until a week ago we hadn’t even touched one another naked. “Where’s this come from?”
“Seeing her looking at you like that got me going. I need you to be mine, completely mine, do you understand?” His husky voice was making me harder as I looked up at his flushed cheeks, his black hair forming a dark halo around his head. “Do you have protection?”
“Er …” Why was I cringing at the fact I had lube and condoms in my drawer? “You don’t have to. Not because of her.”
Casper leaned over towards the drawer and yanked it out. He snorted to himself and shook his head, “This isn’t because of her this is because I want you. To be mine. I want you to feel me inside you and remember it whenever you walk, sit or move. I want to be your only thought.”
“What makes you think you’re not?” I asked, as he found the lube and condoms. I swallowed at the foil wrappers. I was on edge about us crossing another boundary after a petty confrontation. I could easily stop him and avoid this, but to have him buried inside me, making the world melt away, was too enticing to pass up.
Casper gave a soft smile, “I want this, Avery. My mind is made up. Let me be inside you, let me show you just how wonderful you make me feel.” His grip on my thighs burned and I couldn’t help but groan through clenched teeth.
“I don’t want you to regret it.”
“Isn’t that my line?” he teased.
I watched him for a few moments before he brushed his thumb firmly along my hard-on. “O-Okay!” I moaned out loud as he licked his tongue over me. “God, you’re such a tease!”
“Last chance,” he grunted as he nipped down my stomach. He was driving me crazy.
“God, don’t stop, Casper! Don’t fucking stop!” I let out a loud moan as his teeth grazed my thigh.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
“Jesus Fuck are you KIDDING ME!” Casper snarled as he bolted upright towards the door. “What the hell do you want?” he snapped as soon as the door was flung open.
“You think you can just run off and avoid me the rest of the month?” Isabel’s voice snapped back.
“That was the general idea,” he ground out.
“Well I want to talk to him alone this time, not that it’s any concern of yours.”
“Making him miserable just because you haven’t had sex in months, IS my problem.”
There was a moment of silence before Isabel spoke again, her voice smug and a little cocky. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Tell me what?”
“That we kissed before you went away for the holidays.” My body went rigid at her words. Casper’s muscles tensed; I watched his fingers glow white where he gripped the door. How dare she be so smug over something she forced onto me!
I wasn’t having any of this. Dragging my jeans up over my hips, I stood up and yanked the door out of Casper’s grip, and pushing him a little behind me. I could feel how angry he was but I couldn’t let him think that any of it was my fault. “When the fuck did you get so poisonous?” I snapped as I towered over her. She flinched a little but glared right back up at me. “Seriously, I am finally happy! Happy! Do you know how hard that’s been for me after all this time?”
“You think you’re happy, there’s a difference,” she countered bitterly.
“No, I am happy, Isabel. You just don’t want to see it because you threw yourself at me and I said ‘no’.”
“Well you didn’t say ‘no’, did you?”
“We agreed to not speak to one another and I pushed you away as soon as it happened. Stop trying to make a scene. I don’t feel that way about you; just get that through your head!”
Without another word, I slammed the door in her face.
The silence was a relief and at the same time frightening. My body was humming with the pride of finally standing up for myself for the first time in ages, yet at the back of my mind I was worried about what I had to come. Casper’s presence was like a raging black energy that was threatening to consume me. My muscles were stiff as I turned my head and looked over my shoulder at him. His face was a blank mask. His eyelids were narrowed.
My shoulders slumped, “Just say what you’re going to say. I can’t bear it when you look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re disappointed in me.”
“I can’t help the way I look when it’s factual,” he stated dryly. “Were you going to tell me?”
“About the kiss?”
“No, about your pregnancy,” he growled, “Of course about the kiss!”
“I tried,” I offered meekly, “Honestly, as soon as it happened I wanted to tell you. I didn’t want the secret, but as soon as I got back and I saw you … It didn’t matter anymore. It was as irrelevant as she is in my life now.”
“I wish there was some way I could believe you.”
“You think I’m lying?” I murmured.
He titled his head to the side and then shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know what to believe. You should have told me this before. Now I want to know what else you’re hiding from me.”
“Nothing, I swear!” I gushed, my eyes widening at the thought that he suspected I was a pathological liar.
“How do I know that? You didn’t tell me about the money and now I find out you kissed Isabel –”
“SHE KISSED ME!”
“Regardless, you kept it from me,” he cut across me, his monotone making me feel sick. I had to press my back up against the door to keep myself from sinking down to the ground. My knees were trembling for a whole other reason now and all I wanted in that moment was for his strong arms to pull me against his chest. “I want to believe you wouldn’t lie to me but I can’t do this if you’re not being honest with me.”
“What?” I asked looking up at him, disbelief colouring my voice. I forced myself to stand upright and reach out for him, only to have him pull away. My hand dropped. “You really are doubting me aren’t you? Just five minutes ago you wanted to fuck me into the mattress!”
“KEEP your voice down!” he hissed spitefully.
“No, no I won’t! Do you really think I want to kiss her?” I took his face in my hands and stroked my thumb along his cheek, “I don’t want to kiss her I don’t want to hold her or love her or be with her. I want you, Casper, you, you, you and no one else, do you understand me?” I dared to believe he would relent when he didn’t jerk away as I leaned our foreheads together. “You’re quickly becoming my ‘everything’ and I refuse to let her come between us and try to fuck it up again.”
He gave a dry little laugh before reaching for my hands and prying them away from his face. Fear knotted in my chest as he drew away yet again. “I need to go away and think about this,” he stated.
“Please don’t go,” I pleaded, snatching his sleeve. “Just give me a chance to explain and I promise y
ou it won’t feel like a betrayal. Please, don’t leave me alone.”
He sighed. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn’t want to leave. That didn’t mean he was going to stay though. “Look just get on with your revision for exams, okay? I just need a couple of hours.”
“You’re setting yourself a time limit?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes,” he shrugged, “If I feel the same about you in the next couple of hours it won’t be a problem, will it?”
My heart skidded to a halt in my chest. The hollowness bloomed, like a chasm had opened up beneath my feet and swallowed everything that made me ‘me’. I shifted awkwardly, “And what if you don’t?”
He looked at me with an expression filled with so much self-loathing and loss that it physically crippled me to see it. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“What’ll I do if you’re not back in a few hours? What if you fall asleep?” I loathed how dependent I suddenly sounded, but the truth was, I was afraid to be alone. The white noise was growing louder and louder, soon I’d have to shout just to hear myself speak.
“Then you fall asleep too, and we’ll see each other tomorrow.”
He left no room for argument. He brushed by me and made for the door. I didn’t reach out for him this time. There was no need to make it any more painful.
As soon as the door clicked in his frame, my knees buckled. I didn’t care if I made noise, crying out loud was my only solace. I choked on my sobs until my throat was a raw mess. I wish I could say that I picked myself up, dusted myself down and used those allotted hours to sit and do my revision for my looming exams, but I didn’t. Not to mention it was hard to concentrate when Isabel kept spamming my phone with text messages both imploring and aggressive. Even turning it on silent didn’t help matters, especially when none of those texts were from Casper.
By the time nine o’clock came around I’d heard no word from Casper and far too much from Isabel. With a frustrated sigh I swiped my phone off the desk and shoved it in my pocket. After dressing in some jogging bottoms and a hoodie, I ducked out of my room and made for the one place I could properly clear my head.
The roof.
*
I looked out over the dark grounds, the weak illumination of the windows doing very little to puncture holes in the darkness. I swung my legs back and forth over the edge of the parapet. My phone was still vibrating with nonsense from Isabel. She was practically begging me to and talk to her privately, away from Casper and his manipulation. Oh, the irony! I was tapping a rhythm with it on my thigh when a heard the creak of footsteps on the ladder behind me. I ignored it. Glancing back down at my phone I saw three new messages from Isabel;
‘Avery please just talk to me! I can’t help it if Casper is ignoring you but you don’t have to be an arsehole like him!’
I rolled my eyes and backed out of my messages. The last one I had sent had been to Casper.
‘I’m on the roof. I love you.’
The night air was cool and tickled the back of my neck as I leaned forward, my stomach dropping as I looked down between my feet at the ground somewhere down there. That was the solution to everything though, really. It would be so easy to push myself a couple of inches forward, off the edge, and drop down to the gravel below. The only thought that grounded me was not seeing Casper again. I couldn’t hurt him like that.
“You know you really shouldn’t send me texts like that.”
I jumped and glanced over my shoulder and saw that Casper had followed me, not Isabel. “What do you mean?” I asked my voice echoing inside my head as Casper crossed the distance between us and settled down on the ledge, facing the opposite way.
“Telling me that you love me and that you’re on the roof sort of gives a rather impending-death sort of vibe,” he stated as he adjusted himself on the edge.
“Fuck! Sorry, I didn’t realise,” I mumbled, dropping my head into my hands. Casper didn’t reprimand me for my choice of seat, but I daresay he wanted to. I could read it in the stiffness of his body and the way he kept opening his mouth to say something before clamping it shut again. “Why did you come here anyway?”
“Why did you text me where you were if you didn’t want me to come?”
I gave a small smile. Leaning softly to the side I felt his shoulder against mine. “Fine I’ll give you that. You still didn’t have to come.”
“I was worried you were going to do something stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Like what you’re doing right now; can you please get off the ledge? It’s freaking me out.”
Glancing at him I couldn’t help but feel a little flutter of warmth in the recess of my mind. It was nice to have someone worried about me for all the right reasons. Yet, I still felt empty. Heaving a sigh I raked a hand through my hair and shuddered. “I wouldn’t do that, you know,” I murmured as I wrapped my arms around my waist, “I know I’d regret it when it was too late.”
“Then get off the ledge,” he urged. “Please, Avery?”
Something in his voice –maybe it was the fear or the fact that he’d cared enough to come and get me, I didn’t know –but I leaned back and swung myself around so that we were both facing the concrete roof. Admittedly, I felt myself relax a little at the feel of something solid beneath my feet.
“So has she been harassing you?” Casper asked after a little while.
Snorting I nodded. “Of course she has. She’s barely stopped for the last few hours. Pretty sure she’s raping a thesaurus right now to come up with new, inventive ways to tell me you’re not good for me.”
Casper chuckled softly, “Yeah she’s been doing that to me too.”
“How did she get your number?” I asked, stunned.
“She didn’t, it was through Facebook. I’ve blocked her on every social media site so it should die down soon.”
“Mmm,” I cocked my head, “You should file a complaint. Harassment is hardly good for either of us.”
“So just tell Camilla tomorrow and she’ll deal with it.”
“Yeah well what about this?” I asked, holding up my phone that had just flashed with a new message from Isabel.
Rolling his eyes Casper took my phone. I didn’t object; in fact I leaned in, curious as to what he was going to do. He popped open the small cap and took my SIM card out. He popped the card into his mouth and started to grind his teeth before spitting it out over the ledge. It fell somewhere in the gravel with a faint skittering sound. The laugh that escaped me was both impressed and random. Casper couldn’t restrain his own small smirk as I leaned against him, chuckling.
“See? That wasn’t so hard was it?” he murmured as he dropped his chin against my head, his hand curling into the back of my jumper.
“I was thinking more of the fact that you actually chewed up my SIM card!”
He gave another deep chuckle before massaging the back of my neck. His fingers were still a little stiff. Reaching up behind me I linked our fingers together and sighed, “You’re not going to leave me are you?”
He shifted but didn’t loosen his grip on my fingers, “No, I don’t want to leave you. However, I do think we need to talk about what happened and why you didn’t tell me.”
Sitting upright I frowned, “What else is there to say? She claimed she wanted to talk to me and initially I was happy to vent about shit. I felt I owed it to her seeing as we hadn’t spoken a lot at that point. But as soon as I mentioned you she went on this tirade about you being a manipulating arsehole and that I could do so much better, and clearly I should be able to see that I’m hurting those around me.”
“Wow,” he deadpanned, “I can see why you were butt-hurt about it.”
Snorting I ran a hand over my face. “Pretty much. She started making a scene and ran out so I hurried after her and asked her to stop being a bitch and just tell me what it was really about.”
“And what did she say?”
My throat ran dry. This was the hard p
art. I needed to explain it to him without doubt creeping into my voice. He needed to see where my loyalties lie. “She told me that she had … rather strong feelings for me, and that my being gay wasn’t a problem, we could work something out, and she just wanted to be with me.”
“What?” he ground out, the ferocity in his rough voice making me jump.
“She said that I basically wouldn’t know unless I tried and we were already such good friends anyways. She sort of … um … well she k-kissed me.”
“Right,” he said, the distance in his voice made it feel as though a chasm had opened between us again. The urge to take his hand was suffocating me, but I held back. He needed to process the information and I wasn’t about to risk being flung off the roof. “Did you kiss her back?”
“No, I pushed her away and asked what the fuck she was doing.”
“How did you leave the argument?”
“She told me that she couldn’t be around me for a while and I agreed. I told her we shouldn’t speak over the holidays and then she said goodbye and walked off. I hung back a little bit and then came back here where you were waiting for me.”
He sat in quiet contemplation for a while. “I still don’t understand why you felt the need to keep it from me for that long.”
I shrugged awkwardly. “It wasn’t really a conscious decision. I just … I got in and I saw you there waiting and you just made all the emotional crap go away. It wasn’t important; I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t need to think about it at all. You were all that mattered and I wanted to just be with you.”
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath, a genuine smile pulling at his lips, “How the fuck did I land a soppy romantic?”
“Me?” is scoffed, startled, “I am not romantic.”
He rolled his eyes at me and shifted over a little, our thighs bumping together, “Sure you’re not.” He looked at me, his smile so bright and flawless in the dark gloom that it made my heart stutter. Feeling much better in myself and about the situation at least, I took Casper’s hand in my own and gave a little tug. “Come on let’s get inside before our balls freeze to the roof.”
Caspers Ghosts Page 39