Suffocating without him, I grab his jaw and bring his lips back to mine, moaning when his tongue slips back into my mouth and his hips grind against me. He fries every neuron in my brain, making my closed eyes roll back in my head. “Joel,” I gasp, tightening the circle of my legs around him, fitting him where I want him most.
His lips break from mine again when he pins his forehead to the bus behind me, the stubble on his jaw brushing against my cheek. “Dee, if you’re not ready for this . . . you need to tell me now. And you can’t be doing that fucking thing . . . with your tongue.” His hips twitch forward reflexively with the memory, and he groans when the hardness in his shorts grinds between my legs. His fingers tighten around the bottoms of my thighs, and his forehead is still resting on the bus when he says, “God, I’m such an asshole.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, combing my fingers over his buzzed hair while I wait for my heart to stop pounding out of my chest.
He turns his face into my neck and kisses the spot under my ear like he can’t keep his lips off me. “I wanted to get to know you.” His tongue slicks over my skin and makes me hold him tighter. “I just don’t think I can keep my hands off you anymore.”
“So don’t,” I say, tilting my head back to give him better access to my neck. He kisses a trail lower and exploits the spot above my collar bone. My back arches, and he returns the pressure. “I missed you,” I breathe.
Joel pulls away to study me. He searches my eyes and then my lips like he’s not sure where the words came from or if I’m the person who said them. I start to feel self-conscious—like I’ve said too much with three quiet little words—but then he kisses me again and makes all my worries disappear. He kisses me until I’m completely, utterly lost.
“We need to get to the bus,” he says, and I nip at his moving lips.
“Okay.”
He sets me on my feet, and the whole way to the bus, he keeps turning around to kiss me and touch me and devour me with half-lidded eyes. By the time we actually get there, my bra is unclasped, the button of his shorts is undone, and my lips are tingling from his unforgiving kisses. On the bus, we fall onto the bench seat, and Joel settles between my legs. I’m moaning against his mouth when his lips drop to my neck. The leather bench is sticking to every inch of my exposed skin, and his hand pushes under my shirt, and he’s so heavy—God he’s so heavy—and the air is too thin, and my lungs are too thick, and I can’t breathe, oh my God, I can’t breathe—I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!
“Dee?” Joel asks, his voice muffled by the blood surging in my ears, threatening to make my vision go black. He yanks me into a sitting position, and I bend over while sucking in useless breaths that go straight to my head instead of my lungs.
“Breathe,” he coaches, increasing the pressure of his hand on my back so I’ll bend even lower and place my head between my knees.
Air enters me in a gasp and leaves in a sob. Tears sting my already watery eyes, and I stay bent over just so Joel won’t see them.
“Are you okay?” he asks me, quietly like he knows I’m not.
All I can do is shake my head, hating myself for falling apart in front of him. Again. But Cody’s face was in my head, and his hand was under my shirt, and—
“I’m sorry,” Joel says, rubbing my back soothingly. “I didn’t mean . . . I shouldn’t have—”
When I sit up, he looks even more broken than I feel, which makes me hate myself even more, which shouldn’t even be possible.
“We don’t have to do this,” he says, his hand still glued to my back. When I stand up, he lets it fall away.
“I can’t believe he ruined sex for me,” I say, too upset to keep my thoughts to myself. Cody has stolen sleep from me. He’s stolen my appetite. He’s stolen my confidence. Last Wednesday, I saw a guy that looked like him on campus and ended up throwing up in a bathroom stall.
He’s stolen everything.
“Dee, if you’re not ready, we don’t have to—”
“I want to!” I spin around and wipe an angry tear from my eye. Just one, and then there are no more tears to cry. “I want to, but it’s like he broke me, Joel.”
As I stare down into Joel’s concerned eyes, my heart aches with how much I miss him. I miss being more than friends with him. I miss having him in that way that makes me feel like I know him better than anyone else could ever possibly know him.
“Do you know what I want more than sex right now?” he asks, his fingers reaching out to curl around mine. “I just want to hold you.”
Another tear escapes the corner of my eye, and then another.
“Come here,” he says, gently tugging me onto his lap.
I straddle him, and his arms wrap firmly around me. Our chins tuck into the crooks of each other’s shoulders, and I hug him close, quiet tears dripping onto his golden skin.
“You’re not broken,” he assures me, and I wonder why he’s still bothering to stick around. Why he’s holding me closely when he should be pushing me away. There are plenty of girls outside who wouldn’t end up crying when he tried to take their clothes off.