A few tables down, I spot Alex, and it starts to make sense what Elijah’s doing here. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. Even if his friend dragged him to this thing, that doesn’t mean he won’t meet someone he connects with. I’ve told him from the start I’m not boyfriend material, but goddamn if Elijah doesn’t deserve the best fucking boyfriend in the world. He deserves someone who isn’t out of town ninety percent of the time, someone who can offer him more than I can offer.
Even if he doesn’t meet that guy tonight, he will eventually. One day he’s going to find someone who’s everything I’m not, who can give him everything I can. The thought tastes sour in my mouth, my stomach roiling and my heart giving an awful lurch.
“I need to get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 24
Elijah
“That was fun, right?” Alex says as we leave the speed dating event. “You got a lot of numbers.” He takes the pieces of paper out of my hand and counts them.
“You can have them. I’m not going to call any of those guys.”
“I know because you’re totally in lurve with Pax,” he gushes. “But it’s an ego boost to know all these guys want you too, isn’t it?”
“What? I’m not…that’s not…” My heart lodges itself in my throat, and I force a laugh. “I don’t…”
“It’s okay, your secret is safe with me,” he assures me, patting my shoulder.
He’s wrong. I can’t be in love with Pax. Love is not casual. Love will leave me with a broken heart.
It’s a twenty-minute Uber ride home, and all I can think about is how not interested I was in all the guys tonight. Some of them were okay—they were handsome, and some were even pretty smart and interesting. But none of them was Pax. And Alex might be right.
I trudge up the steps to my apartment, trying to think of an excuse to call Pax and beg him to come over after he’s done with his friends.
When I reach the landing for the second floor, I stop in my tracks.
“Pax?”
He looks up from his place on the floor, his back resting against my door. He gives me a wry smile, his eyes burning with an intensity I’m not used to seeing from him. He stands up, quickly closing the distance between us, pulling me into his arms. I stumble against him, grabbing the front of his shirt for balance.
“What are you doing here?”
“It turns out I’m a jealous, possessive idiot.”
“What?” I scrunch my forehead, trying to make sense of his words.
“Can we go inside?” he asks instead of answering my question.
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
He releases me, and I pull my keys out of my pocket. Pax stands close, his breath cascading down the back of my neck as I struggle to get the key into the lock. His hand rests on my hip, his thumb dragging back and forth along the skin just above the waistline of my jeans.
I finally manage to get the door open and stumble inside, my cock hard as steel from the intense energy sizzling between us. Pax is right behind me, shutting the door once he crosses the threshold, then grabbing my hips and pressing me against it, caging me in with his body.
“I saw you at the speed dating thing,” he says, his eyes wild and hot like a summer storm as he looks down at me.
“You were speed dating?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even. True, I was too, but the thought of him going there looking for someone else makes me feel sick and angry.
“No, I was at the bar with my friends. I saw you speed dating,” he clarifies through clenched teeth. I study him for a few seconds, trying to figure out exactly what’s happening between us. Is he angry? If he is, I’m fairly certain he doesn’t have a right to be, but maybe I don’t understand the rules of what we’re doing.
“Alex invited me,” I explain calmly. “I gave him all the numbers I got after. I didn’t want any of them.”
Pax lets out a breath, his jaw relaxing. “I already told you I’m being an idiot.”
“I don’t understand.” Now that he seems a little calmer, I reach out and put my hands on his chest, feeling the bunch of his muscles, the rise and fall of each breath.
“I know you aren’t mine. But seeing you with those guys made me feel fucking crazy. I’ve never felt crazy over anyone before, and I don’t think I like it.” Pax’s words are raw, hitting me right in the chest and making me want things I know I shouldn’t want.
“Make me yours,” I blurt. It’s not real, I know that, it’s nothing more than words in the heat of the moment. But I want it to be true. I want to belong to him.
“God, I want to fuck you, Einstein,” he groans, taking a step closer until my entire back is flat against the door and putting a hand on the back of my neck. His lips hover inches from mine, his body taut with restraint.
“Yes,” I moan. “Please, Pax. Please, I want it so bad.”
Pax
I groan as my restraint snaps, and I sweep him into my arms, pressing my lips against his. He cries out into my mouth, his arms looping around my neck, his tongue sliding against mine in a hungry, bruising kiss. We grope wildly, tugging at each other’s clothes in an effort to get undressed, only breaking the kiss to get our shirts over our heads. I chase his blush with my lips as it spreads down his throat and over his chest.
Before I discard my pants, I snag the just in case packet of lube from the pocket. Even before the speed dating incident, something told me I’d end up over here tonight.
With our clothes in a pile on the floor, Elijah turns around and puts his hands against the door, his round, biteable ass offered to me without question.
I step forward, letting my hard, aching cock rest against the swell of his ass cheek as I lick a stripe up his spine before lubing my fingers and spreading his cheeks.
I prep him more quickly than last time, not wasting time teasing while we’re both hard and panting. I stretch him with two lubed fingers, sucking and licking the back of his neck and shoulders, savoring the taste of his skin against my tongue.
When I pull my fingers out, he whimpers.
“Shh, I’ve got you,” I murmur against his ear before nipping gently at the lobe. “Turn around.”
He does as I say, turning to face me, his whole body flush with arousal, his cock hard and dripping, his eyes glossy with lust. He puts his hands on my chest, curling his fingers against my pecs and swaying toward me.
“You’re so sexy.”
“That makes two of us, Einstein,” I flirt, cupping his jaw and kissing him hard again, unable to get enough of him, unable to quench the burning desire in the pit of my stomach to somehow possess him.
Breaking the kiss, I stoop down and grab the back of his thighs, lifting him against the door again with ease. He makes a sound of surprise, grasping at my shoulders for balance. A deep chuckle rumbles from my throat, ending on a moan as the tip of my cock nudges between his slick cheeks.
“Oh my god, yes,” he gasps, wiggling in my arms, attempting to impale himself on my erection.
“Hold still, Nerdlet. You may not weigh much, but if you keep wiggling, I might drop you.”
“Then you can fuck me on the floor,” he concludes. “I don’t care where you do it, just do it.”
I drag my tongue along the pulse point in his throat, tasting the salty flavor of his sweat overlaying the sweetness of his skin.
“When did you get such a filthy mouth?”
“Probably when you put your cock in it,” he reasons, and I bark out a laugh.
“Jesus, Elijah, you’re something else.” My heart beats harder, that yearning in the deep inside growing more intense. If fucking him against the door doesn’t relieve it, then I may be completely out of my depth.
“Pax,” he whines my name, digging his fingers harder into my shoulders, his cock flexing between us as a pearl of clear precum trickles from the slit and rolls down his shaft.
I bite down on the tender flesh of his neck and thrust inside him. Elijah’s cry echoes off the walls of the apartmen
t and sets my skin on fire. I watch his face as I slide inside him, the tension followed by his eyes rolling back and his cheeks pinking from pleasure. Mine, a voice in the back of my mind chants. Every sigh, every expression, every tense and flutter of his muscles, they all belong to me. I know it’s selfish, but I want every part of Elijah for my own, for as long as he’ll let me have it.
I soothe his abused flesh with my tongue, filling him with my cock until I’m buried balls deep inside him, his channel hot and so fucking tight around me. It’s different than last time. There was something sweet about the night at the makeshift drive-in—this is nothing but heat and feelings I refuse to look to closely at.
He lets his head fall back against the door, the long, elegant column of his throat exposed, his chest rising and falling rapidly with harsh breaths. He clenches his legs around my hips, his hole flexing around me at the same time, dragging a deep moan from my throat as his inner muscles ripple around me.
“Pax.” He whimpers my name again. “Please.”
“You’re so pretty when you beg,” I praise, drawing my hips back and slamming them back into him.
I pound into him, pegging his prostate with every thrust, his cock rubbing against my stomach, making my skin sticky with precum. I dig my fingers into his hips, and the thought of claiming bruises on his skin makes my balls tighten. I bury my face in the crook of his neck again, sucking on his skin until I leave a mark and then kissing the spot sweetly while I continue to rut into him, driving us both higher with every flex of my hips.
My name falls from his lips over and over again, sounding like a prayer if it weren’t for the filthy gasps and moans that punctuate each utterance.
“Oh god, I’m…I’m…ungh,” he cries out, his legs constricting around my hips again, his fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to leave bruises of their own. His channel pulses around me as he soaks both our skin with his hot, thick release.
I thrust into him faster, harder, deeper, my lungs and muscles burning from the exertion.
“Fuck, Elijah. Fuck,” I grunt as my balls clench, and my cock starts to throb in time with his, pumping my orgasm deep inside him. The pleasure washes over me in long waves that feel like they’ll never end, the beast in my soul soothed for the single moment that Elijah couldn’t possibly be anything but mine.
When I can’t hold him up any longer, I set him down, my softening cock slipping out of him. He turns, bending to grab his underwear, and in the dim light of the apartment I can see a trickle of my cum running down the back of his thigh. I let out a muffled groan, and Elijah looks at me over his shoulder with a curious expression. But I don’t know what to say. How am I supposed to tell him that everything about him drives me absolutely crazy? What am I supposed to say about this gnawing fucking need in the pit of my stomach that fucking him only seems to have made worse?
Instead of saying anything, I stoop down to grab my own clothes, putting them on quickly as silence seems to expand between us until it feels like an infinite void.
“I’d better go,” I say once we’re dressed. Elijah adjusts his glasses and runs his hands through his wild curls.
“Of course.” He clears his throat and walks over to the door to open it. “Thanks for coming, I’ll, um…see you later?”
I grunt in response, stopping and pressing a lingering kiss to his cheek before walking out, refusing to allow myself the backward glance I desperately want.
Chapter 25
Elijah
I almost ignore my phone when it starts to vibrate on Friday night. My table is even messier than usual, covered in open textbooks and pages of notes. My eyes are burning, and my neck is stiff, but it’s still too early to take a break.
Even though Pax left my place abruptly last week, everything has seemed normal since then. We’ve texted and video chatted, joking and flirting. Well, Pax flirts, I try to keep up.
As soon as it stops vibrating, it starts up again, and I let out an annoyed huff.
“I told you I have to study,” I say as soon as I answer.
“I know, but you have to eat, don’t you?” Pax says, and I swear I can hear that cocky grin of his through the phone.
“No, I have too much studying to do to eat.”
“I’m not taking no for an answer. I promise I won’t distract you with sex. I just want to bring some food over and plop my ass down on your couch to get some work of my own done.”
My stomach flutters. He wants to come over, not to fool around but to sit in the same room and both work? Strangely, that feels more intimate than anything else we’ve done. There’s the unspoken implication that he…what? Misses me? Wants to see me even if it means we’re both fully clothed the entire time? I don’t understand what that means, and I’m not about to ask and make things weird.
“Okay, but seriously, you can’t distract me; finals are getting really close, and I need to be prepared.”
“I promise,” he assures me. “I’ll be there in half an hour with some takeout.”
“Okay, thank you.”
I hang up and bite my lip against the smile that’s threatening, mentally scolding the butterflies in my stomach to calm down. Pax and I are friends, and sometimes we fool around. Him coming over just to hang out doesn’t change any of that, even if it is really thoughtful.
As promised, he shows up half an hour later with burgers from a place down the street. I tilt my head up for a kiss as soon as he steps through the door, and he shakes his head and tsks.
“I promised no distracting sex; is that some kind of test?” he asks suspiciously, and my cheeks warm.
“No, just habit, I guess.”
He chuckles and loops an arm around my waist, dropping a quick kiss on my lips.
“I’m just fucking with you, Einstein. I m-starving; let’s eat.” He stumbles over his words, and I wonder if he was going to say something else.
My stomach growls as the smell of the burgers wafts up to tickle my nose. “I guess I’m pretty hungry too. Thanks for bringing dinner.”
“My pleasure.”
We sit on the couch and eat our dinner, talking about our week and joking around like we always do. It’s nice, and it’s more comfortable than I ever thought I’d feel with anyone other than Theo.
Once we’re finished eating, I get back to studying, and Pax pulls out his laptop and gets to work on whatever he brought with him.
“Are you going home for Christmas?” Pax asks some time later.
“Huh?” I ask, looking up from my textbook.
“Christmas?” he repeats. “It’s in two weeks. I was wondering if you’re heading home to Wisconsin to see your parents. I was about to book my plane tickets, and I wanted to see if you’d already booked yours.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t planning to go home. My parents are on some humanitarian mission thing in Africa, so there’s nothing for me to go home to.”
“Of course there’s stuff for you to go home to. Theo will be there. You can spend Christmas with my family.”
“I don’t want to impose,” I argue weakly. I haven’t been all that excited about the idea of spending Christmas alone, but I wasn’t about to invite myself to spend it with the Reynolds.
“Please, you’ve been Theo’s best friend since middle school; you’re practically family. In fact, if I show up without you and they all find out you’re here all alone for Christmas, I guarantee my parents and Theo will all kick my ass.”
“That would be a shame because it’s a very nice ass,” I tease, and Pax gives a surprised laugh.
“Holy shit, was that flirting?”
“Maybe.” A smile creeps over my lips, a happy little flutter taking up residence in my stomach.
“You’ll come for Christmas?” he checks, looking back at his computer.
“Sure, I’ll come,” I agree. “And now, I’m ready for a study break.” I get up from the table, waggling my eyebrows at him.
“I love study breaks. It’s what I was best at in college.”
Pax
I set my laptop aside, and Elijah crawls into my lap, and for the first time all week, the weight that’s been living in my chest lifts. After our heated encounter last weekend, I found myself thinking even more about him this week than I have been. It felt like something shifted between us, and I can’t put my finger on exactly what it was. Or maybe I’m afraid to put my finger on exactly what it was.
I run my hands up his back, under his shirt, loving the feeling of his smooth skin under my fingertips. He tilts his head down, brushing his lips against mine in a barely there kiss, his nose bumping against mine as his warm breath fans over my lips. Shifting his weight in my lap, he presses himself against my growing erection, and we both gasp quietly.
I need to feel more of him, want to soak up every inch of his body and devour it. Tightening my hold on him, I rise from the couch with Elijah in my arms. He gasps in surprise, and I chuckle as he scrambles to wrap his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist to keep from falling.
“A little warning would’ve been nice,” he complains as I carry him over to the bed.
“Where’s the fun in that?” I tease, nipping at his bottom lip and then soothing it with my tongue.
I drop him onto the bed and crawl on top of him, claiming his lips again. Elijah digs his fingers into my biceps and kisses me back with a hunger that sets my insides on fire with need and lust and more of those things I’m not ready to look at too closely. Dragging my fingers through his hair, I kiss him harder, deeper, pouring all those unspoken and undefined feelings into him.
“I swear to god, I’m addicted to you,” I murmur against his lips, dipping my tongue into his mouth before he can respond.
For once, I’m not in a hurry to get him out of his clothes, content to taste him and drink in the desperate little sounds he feeds me as he writhes beneath me. I trail my lips along his jaw and down his throat, savoring the flavor of his skin against my tongue.
Rocket Science Page 17
