“Look at me,” he says again, this time in a demanding tone.
And so I do.
I look at him. I look at him when my legs start to shake. I look at him when my mouth drops open and I arch my back. I look at him when I reach the peak and can’t repress the moans anymore. I come undone while we’re looking into each other’s eyes and… as stupid as it may sound, that’s how I know that I’m in trouble.
That there is no going back.
The memory of his fingers moving recklessly inside me as I shudder throw the truth I spent weeks denying right in my face.
I’m in love with him.
I’m in love with Haze Adams.
I fall in love with the one guy everybody told me to run from. Yes, fall. Not fell. Because I’m still falling… every second, every minute, every single time he looks at me.
Let me fall. As far, as long, and as hard as it takes.
Because if this is what falling feels like…
I’ll fall for the rest of my life.
I come back down to earth, and the calm after the storm—ironic considering the raging thunder outside—settles around us. I glance down at his boxers that are clearly tighter.
“You were… That was…” I tumble over my words.
Haze smiles at my inability to speak and kisses me again, his tongue caressing my lips as his hand traces along the curve of my hip. With my body still trembling, I try and reach for the breath leaping away from me.
All I want to do is give back. I want to make him feel this way. Thinking that I won’t be able to do to him what he just did to me hurts. It’s a lot to live up to. What if I’m just not that good?
Brimming with lust, I grip his hair through the kiss as he moans into my mouth and gets on top of me. I fight the urge to remove his boxers. He didn’t even have to take my underwear off to make me beg. I don’t want to imagine what he could do to me if we lost the clothes.
I know how this is going to end if we keep this up, and I want it. I want him. Of that I’m sure.
I’ve never wanted something more in my whole life, but I can’t give away something so precious to me without the promise of a tomorrow. I can’t sleep with him unless I know that I won’t be just a friend when I wake up in the morning.
“Haze, wait…” I exhale, my legs still shaking.
His face turns into a mix of confusion and worry.
“I want this. I really do, but… what does this mean? W-what are we?” When they fall out, the words aren’t the only thing that leave me. He does, too.
He doesn’t move a muscle, but I can feel him mentally pulling away from me, his mind traveling, once again, to a faraway place he’ll never let me explore.
“Why are you doing this?” His face twists in irritation, and his features harden.
There are a lot of things I expected him to say after what happened, a lot of ways I expected things to go wrong, but this… this, I did not expect.
He speaks again. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Winter. Why can’t we just be us?”
“Are you serious?” is all I can utter. He can’t be doing this right now. Not when I just trusted him in such a personal way. Not when I let him touch me like that.
> He gets off me. “You know how I feel about you. I want you and you want me. Simple as that. Why do we have to put a label on it? Why can’t we just enjoy this?”
Heartburn.
“I… Because it’s important to me. What? Do you think I do this often? That I go around doing things with people for fun? That’s not me, Haze. I don’t do no strings attached.”
He becomes irritated, the guy who whispered in my ear while I came apart a few minutes ago vanishing with each painful second that goes by. I can’t speak. I just stare at him in shock. So if I hadn’t brought it up, we would’ve slept together. He would’ve taken the privilege without the commitment.