Page 50 of The Fake Divination Offense
I snap back against the seat, body gone to unyielding steel as he grabs the headrest behind me and his knees spread over my hips.
My first reaction, brain still sluggish through that melted gold, is to say, “You’re going to hurt your legs sitting like that,” because he’s so small, and my thighs aren’t exactly thin thanks to my half-giant ancestry with near-daily glute and hamstring drills.
Alexo whimpers, his eyes glued to my lap. “Happily. Your thighs are a wet dream.” And before I can rattle my way through sensibility enough to fully appreciate that, he’s kissing me again.
A triumphant, relieved mewl trills in my throat and I attack him, tongue thrusting into his mouth, chasing that flavor I’m already addicted to. He rocks with me, and I may not greedily push him for answers, but here? Here, I will be greedy, I will take and take; but he’s giving just as fervently, meeting all my needy moans with little cries that fuckingruinme.
My hands dart up under the back of his crop top, following each knobbed ridge of his spine until I splay my hands on the wings of his shoulder blades, feeling,feeling, he’s letting me do this. He rocks against me, that dancer’s body malleable to the point of implausibility as he fluctuates his hips and grinds on me, and my sense of awareness whites out, nothing but apples and his soft skin and the aphrodisiactasteof him.
His legs spread this way has me thrusting up unconsciously, the barriers of my sweats and his baggy jeans thin enough that I can feel the drag of his hard length against mine. He must feel me in turn, because he slurs a curse into the seam of my mouth and a tremor goes up his thighs.
“Orok,” he whines, and I chase the reverberations of it in his mouth, biting at his tongue, dragging it between my lips with an ardency that has him squirming in my lap even more. He’s all motion, constant, rippling waves that churn and froth against me—his hips gyrating and his torso swaying and his fingers scraping for purchase in my beard so he can position my jaw how he wants it.
I try to be stationary for him, let him work this dance on me, but I’m insatiable, too, and when he grinds down on me with renewed desperation, I nudge his head to the side and clamp my teeth on his collarbone. Right where he had that gold shimmer the night of his song at the bar, I kiss and lick and he thrusts down against me with a liquid plea.
“Please, I—”
“What do you want?” My hands grip his narrow waist, not tohold him still, but to feel the rhythm of his movements, to try to follow his wriggling flow.
“I want. I want—I don’t know, Iwantyou.” His eyes are heavy-lidded, and the car’s barely illuminated by the gray haze that permeates this neighborhood, but I can feel the heat coming off his face, know he’s flushed. I want to see, want to know what his skin looks like this way, but he moans weakly and my chest crushes with leonine need.
I thrust my hands down his body, intending to get ahold of his ass and help him grind down on me, get that last little bit of perfect leverage.
My fingers dip beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Alexo sucks in a serrated breath and snatches my wrists off him. “Wait! Wait, wait—”
I rear back, hands palm up, my already panting breaths scraping hoarse. “I’m sorry, I’m so—”
His fingers pinch on my wrists. “Stop. Don’t apologize. You’re perfect.” Each word comes through a constricted throat, his own breaths still ramped up high, and the fog is lifting. Not just lifting—it’s entirely blown away, a switch-flip so jarring I catch up in jerks and pulls.
He’s still on my lap. But he’s holding himself up now, not seated fully on me anymore. And he’s clinging to my wrists, keeping my hands back, like he’s afraid I’ll grab him again. Or maybe he’s pinned here, delayed in his reactions like I am. Processing, beat by beat.
I have only one second to note the way his face collapses in the dark—heavy, aching sorrow—before he’s scrambling off me, back into the passenger’s seat.
“Alexo—”
He whips a glare at me. “Don’t,” he snaps, and I sink back, hands still up, unthreatening, in surrender.
He winces, that flash of anger getting overridden by the emotions that stack up in his eyes: grief, regret, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.
I’ve seen how majestic this man is when he’s happy. That’s all heshould ever be,happy, and yet something’s keeping him caged. It’s costing him something to let me see this.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “I’m—I’m sorry. It isn’t you. I swear, Orok.”
I reach for him, but hesitate. “Can I touch you?”
He grunts an empty laugh that cracks apart and he tugs his fingers through his hair. “I’m a mess. You don’t want me. You don’t want to be part of this. It’s easier when it’s fake, okay? Let’s just let it be fake.”
I rest my hand on one of his forearms. He doesn’t flinch, so I tug until it falls, then dip my fingers under his chin and twist him to look at me.
“Is that what you want?” I ask. “For this to only be fake?”
Please, no. Gods, I don’t think I can.
He laughs again, manic this time, high and creaky and distressed. “You have no idea how much I want something real.”
“I told you, I’ll take whatever you want to give me. We can go at your pace. I won’t touch you like that again unless you tell me to.Youlead this.”
