Page 5 of Edged
“You haven’t ruined anything.”
“But I’m pathetic?” He sniffled, a choked-off laugh in the back of his throat.
I shook my head, readjusting my grip on the back of his neck. The bottom of his hairline tickled against my fingers, and I shifted my hand up to hold him there. Owen gasped, sighed, and leaned into me like he was made of putty.
“You’re not pathetic,” I assured him.
He closed his eyes, and I counted the tear tracks that slicked down his cheeks and neck. I should have been embarrassed that he’d overheard me and Mandy, that he’deavesdroppedon us, but my body reacted quite the opposite. I was turned on, wondering about what it would be like to have shared those moments with him instead of her and even back then, I knew how wrong that was.
I knew it was selfish and unfair. But I knew I couldn’t stop it either.
“Even thinking about it makes me hard,” he muttered, trying to pull away from me again, but there was no way I was going to let that happen. I didn’t know what else had to be said between us, but I knew we weren’t done yet. “This is embarrassing.”
“Owen.” I grabbed his free hand and shoved it between my legs, raising my hips off the couch to push my erection against his palm. “You’re not pathetic.”
He squeezed his eyes closed, keeping his hand on my cock even after I took mine away.
“I hate you for loving her,” he admitted.
“I think I do too. I wish you…” I paused, sucking in a breath to stop myself from saying something that would have hurt either of them. What was there to say, really? Why didn’t you tell me before? Why didn’t you say something when I could have done something about it? Why didn’t you give me a chance to not break all of our damn hearts?
“I wish I had said something too.” He finished the sentence for me, because he knew me as well as I knew him. He knew what I was feeling, what I was thinking. He always had. “But I don’t know if it would have made a difference.”
“It would have made every difference.”
“I’m hard,” he said again, the syllables desperate and pained. “Archie, this hurts. It hurts.”
Fresh tears slicked down the slope of his nose and I brushed one away with my knuckle. His eyes were still closed, so when I licked his tears from my skin, he didn’t see. That taste was mine. It would be my secret for the rest of my life.
“I’m sorry.”
“Everything hurts right now, Archie.” Owen fell into me, one hand still around the back of my neck and the other curled around my cock. He’d gone from touching to gripping, the half-circle of his fist better than anything I’d felt in my life, even through my jeans.
“How can I help you? How can I stop it?”
It was the least I could do, considering everything was my fault.
“I know you don’t think of me the way you think of her,” he said.
I wanted to correct him. I needed him to know that just because I hadn’t in the past didn’t mean I wasn’t now. Didn’t mean that my erection was for anyone besides him and the truth between us.
“But…”
Another knowing silence passed, the connection between us fundamentally ingrained in our marrow. How had I been so ignorant to Owen’s feelings for me? Worse, how had I missed mine for him?
He opened his mouth to finish the sentence, to add one more confession to the pile, but I couldn’t let him do it. Not because I didn’t want to hear it, but because I already knew it so I did the only thing that felt right in that moment.
I kissed my best friend.
With my chapped lips and open mouth, I licked my tongue around the backs of his teeth, doing my best to quiet the moan he offered up in reply. Owenmoanedinto me, he sighed, he groaned, he went weak against me and then he kissed me back, spilling the physicality of his love back onto my tongue for the first time in our lives.
Owen kissed me like he would die if I didn’t let him into my mouth, and what an incomparable and heady feeling that was for me to experience for the very first time. I knew it was wrong to compare him and Mandy, but she’d never kissed me the way he kissed me. And more than that, I’d never felt the way Owen’s lips and tongue and hands made me feel in that moment. I found myself glad for the fact I’d come to him instead of staying with her because there was no way I could have given her the thing that was so very rightfullyhis.
“Please.”
I didn’t know if that was Owen or if it was me, but our clothes were off and his cock was thicker and harder than the last time I’d seen it. He moved frantically, all flailing arms and limbs on the couch, the warm crackle of leather beneath us as he made room for me between his legs. My dick poked at his entrance and I cursed under my breath, feeling the resistance from that tight and unpenetrated ring of muscle.
I didn’t know anything about being with a man beyond the innate knowing that Ineededto be with Owen.
