Page 58 of Cut Off
In my head, she comes for me first. She always does.
But then—she wants more. She looks back, eyes wild, and tells me exactly how she wants it. “Fuck me now.”
I don’t waste time. I push inside, filling her in one savage thrust, and she takes it—she wants it—she rocks back against me, greedy for every inch. Her ass collides with my hips, the slap of skin-on-skin echoing off the bathroom walls. I ram into her, again and again, knowing exactly how she needs it. Deep. Relentless. Like I’m trying to ruin her for everyone else on the goddamn planet.
She arches, and her head tips back so her hair’s plastered to her spine and she’s moaning my name. Not the polite version—she orders me, grinds her hips, tells me when to angle just so, and I’d do anything for her.
I’m pounding into my hand so hard, the wet crack of it bounces around the shower stall. My muscles lock tight. Red burns behind my eyes. I’m so close.
She cries out—bossy, greedy, desperate for more.
Iexplode. Not “oh, that’s nice” and done. No, we’re talking the kind of orgasm where my cum hits the opposite wall. Then again, and again—more than I ever thought possible. It’s raw, convulsive, and I have to brace myself on the wall to keep standing.
Eventually, the world goes fuzzy at the edges. My ears ring. I exhale so hard my ribs hurt.
When it’s over, I look down at myself—still half-hard, still twitching, and I feel like the world’s most pathetic cautionary tale. I grab some soap and scrub down the scene, but all it does is remind me how much I want to do this for real. My balls ache. My muscles ache. My heart—yeah, that too.
This? This is my life now. All the longing, none of the actual sex.
I shut off the shower and towel off with enough force to exfoliate a rhinoceros. I stare in the mirror—a guy with too much muscle and not enough finesse.
God, I’m a disaster.
I need to find a self-help book.
Eventually, I yank on sweatpants and stomp out into the hallway. The house smells like coffee. No voices—peaceful, but not in a good way. Last night was a shitshow, but also… kind of incredible? Eli actually reached for me in a moment of panic and let me stay with him instead of telling me to fuck off. And Zoe—she made it seem like less of a disaster, somehow. She always does.
I can’t let another night go down like that, though. Eli deserves better.
I need a plan, and it can’t be me buying my way out of this problem.
I’ve got to go full dad MacGyver and fortify his entire sleeping situation against the monsters in his brain.
I hit the linen closet first. Every blanket I own—donated from my mom when I moved in, which means it’s a hodge-podge of striped, flannel, and the weighted one Zoe ordered off the internet after reading an article about sleep therapy—goes over my shoulder. Next, pillows. I’m talking enough to cushion a hockey brawl. I raid the living room, the guest rooms, and even yank the pillows off my own bed.
The stuffed animals come next, a haul of shit Zoe “accidentally” bought in bulk last week. There’s a dinosaur, a bear in a hockey jersey, three generic woodland creatures, and—for reasons known only to Zoe—a plush hedgehog holding a tiny microphone. I set the bear and the hedgehog at the entrance to Eli’s room.
I sneak into the garage while Zoe and Eli are in the kitchen, and I hear her calling him “Chef Supreme” and I can’t believe I got so lucky getting her to be my nanny. And let’s be honest: the only thing helping me with my sanity right now. But I’m not going to overthink that.
I dig out the camping headlamps I bought two years ago but never used. Back in Eli’s room, I tape those suckers to the ceiling, along with the string of LED stars Zoe picked up, and boom, we’ve got mood lighting.
At one point, I catch a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror to see that I’m shirtless with sagging sweatpants, but I’m grinning. If my college teammates could see me now: Jonah Holt, NHL tough guy, constructing a glittering fortress out of throw pillows.
But here’s the thing: I actually want to win this one.
I work fast, building the “roof” over his bed with two extra-long hockey sticks. I drape the blankets, arrange the pillows, wedge the flashlight guards in strategic locations. By the time I’m done, it looks like the secret headquarters of a nine-year-old superhero.
Perfect.
The grand finale: a box of glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling overhead. I stand back and admire my work, and for the first time in weeks, I feel like maybe I’m not completely screwing this up.
Now the moment of truth.
I creep downstairs, where Zoe and Eli hunch over the kitchen counter, deeply involved in what appears to have been a pancake war. Flour dusts Eli’s cheek, syrup on the counter, and Zoe’s glasses are slowly sliding down her nose as she cackles at something he just said. The sight nearly knocks the wind out of me. This is what I wanted. This is the whole point. I wait for them to finish eating their breakfast for supper before I interrupt them.
“Hey, Chef.” I nudge Eli’s shoulder. “I need your help with something upstairs.”
He looks up, wary, but there’s a spark of curiosity. A win. “What?”
