It’s the least-aggressive encounter Leo and I have ever had together. One might almost call it pleasant.
I don’t know when I stopped hating him. I didn’t mean to. The realization slowly came over me that hating him wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was a festering rot, eating away at me from the inside.
That’s not to say we’re friends. But I don’t seem to have the energy to burn with fury in his direction. Not with boxing five days a week and Cat in the evenings. My focus has shifted.
I hurry back to my room, having no intention of being late.
I dress and comb my hair in front of the mirror hanging on the wall.
Bram lounges on the bed practicing tricks with a battered deck of playing cards. His black hair has grown all the way down past his shoulders. I don’t know if he’s cut it once since Freshman year. The scar across his eye makes it look like he’s squinting in a suspicious way. Which he usually is.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
“Out,” I say.
“I gathered that. Where?”
“Gonna study,” I say vaguely.
I look at my reflection, stone-faced. I resemble my father. Which means I probably look like my Aunt Yelena, too. They were twins, after all.
I wonder if Leo sees his mother when he looks at me.
Probably not, since it was hate-at-first-sight with both of us.
But perhaps there was an alternate reality where we could have been friends.
I’ve been plagued with thoughts of what could have been, all my life.
How do people accept the one and only path they find themselves on?
No one else seems to suffer this endless anger at the hand fate has dealt them. Not even Bram, who looks like he’s about to push Mufasa off a cliff.
“I’ll come to the library with you,” Bram says, tossing down his cards and making as if to get up from the bed.
“No,” I say rudely.
Bram scowls. “What’s the deal with you lately?”
“You’re the one acting strange,” I say dismissively. “Pretending like you study.”
Bram is still throwing a few choice curses in my direction as I grab my bookbag and exit our room, without him tagging along.
I don’t mind bringing my books. Cat and I do study sometimes, when we’re finished with our other activities. And despite what she said, I’m not sure how many other activities there will be tonight. She can’t be more than half-healed.
Still, once I’ve climbed the fire-blackened steps of the Bell Tower, carefully avoiding the gaps in the stone, I set up my portable speaker so we’ll have music, and I light the dozen half-melted candles.
Do It for Me — Rosenfeld
Spotify → geni.us/bully-spotify
Apple Music → geni.us/bully-apple
Then I pull out my contracts textbook, settle myself on the pile of cushions I stole from the Keep, and begin to read. Only two weeks remain before end of term exams. I still intend to place first in my year. It will take all my focus to beat Anna, not to mention Ares, Isabel, and the other academically-inclined Juniors.
I’m so absorbed in contract law that this time Cat does manage to sneak up on me unaware. Her stealthy shadow crosses the curved stone wall and she stands before me, firelight dancing on her glistening black curls. Her skin glows copper bright and her dark eyes shine.
“There you are,” I growl. “Why are aren’t you naked yet?”
Obediently, Cat begins to strip. Once she’s down to her socks, I order, “Leave those on.” I’ve come to like those knee socks even better than full nudity.
“Turn around,” I say.
Cat rotates slowly on the spot, assuming that I want to examine her.
And I do—but not for the usual reason. I’m tallying up every cut and bruise on her slender frame, assuring myself that there’s no crucial injury I hadn’t yet seen.
Cat spins gracefully on the ball of one socked foot. Her naked skin has a rosy glow, as if she’s some unearthly creature summoned from the fire. A fire sprite bewitched and put under my control—until I loosen the collar from her neck.
“Come here,” I say in a low voice.
Cat sinks down to her knees and crawls over, keeping her eyes fixed on mine.
She’s become so much more comfortable around me that she really does move as sinuously as a cat. She lays her head in my lap, curling up next to me.
“Stroke my cock while I read,” I order. “Don’t put it in your mouth.”
I want it in her mouth, of course, but I’m taking my time.
Cat plays with my cock using both hands, like it’s her toy. She strokes the shaft gently with her fingertips, then cups my balls and gently tugs. She dances her fingers around the ridge separating head from shaft, and rubs light circles around the tip.
Her touch is exquisite. She’s very good with her hands, probably from all her time spent painting and drawing. I’ve seen her sketchbook—she’s quite talented. But what I told her was true—she would have been wasted at art school. The more I get to know Cat, the more I see that her talents are far more varied than charcoal and paper could fulfill.
I keep studying. Cat’s touch makes the words float through my brain, light and ephemeral. My eyes unfocus from the page, and instead I watch the flickering candlelight, my whole body warm as that flame.
“Don’t speed up,” I order, leaning back against the cushions.
Cat continues stroking her hand up and down my shaft, increasing neither the pace nor the pressure. Her hands are delectably soft, and her touch gentle. The pleasure increases even though the pressure doesn’t. I feel right on the edge of climax, but it’s not quite enough to tip me over the edge.
“Just like that . . .” I groan. “Don’t change a thing.”
Cat continues to stroke me, steady and unhurried. In fact, she seems to be enjoying the sensation of the smooth skin of my cock against her palms almost as much as I am. Her eyes are half closed, her breathing steady.
She sighs. Her warm breath against my cock makes me shiver. The orgasm begins.
It’s no ordinary orgasm—I feel the waves of pleasure, and the deep satisfying sensation, but not the accompanying contraction of my balls. I don’t actually ejaculate. It’s just the climax, no cum comes out.
I groan all the same from how good it feels. My head lolls back and my toes curl up.
When it’s over, Cat examines her hands, mystified.
“Did you . . . cum?” She asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“But . . . where is it?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Keep going. Same pace.”
Cat keeps stroking my cock, just as light as before.
In the aftermath of the orgasm, her touch is almost too intense. Each stroke of her hand seems to run over bare nerve. But it’s still intensely pleasurable, and I begin to experience that sense of building again, as if the orgasm reset and is starting over. My cock has stayed hard the entire time—in fact, it might even be stiffer now than it was before.
“Keep going,” I moan. “Exactly like that.”
Cat obeys. She seems intensely curious to see what will happen. We’re both in uncharted territory.
Sure enough, the climax builds and builds until it tips over once more, Cat carefully maintaining just the right level of stimulation. In fact, this time she squeezes the head of my cock slightly harder as I cum, which increases my pleasure without forcing the ejaculation.