Page 101 of Loverboy

Jasper’s breath was hot on my neck as I stared up at the ceiling, my arms wrapped around him. My nails dug into his back slightly, and I squirmed beneath him, irritated that he’d stopped kissing my favourite spot.

“Yes,” I said breathlessly.

“But you still came to my work.” He nipped at my skin, and I sucked in a breath.

He knew it wasn’t because I didn’t trust him, and he teased me about it anyway.

It was my stupid fucking brain. I’d created a scenario in my mind, one where he wasn’t at work and instead was with someone else. It played out from start to finish, and by the end, my nervous system was convinced it had really happened, and I needed to see him to be sure it wasn’t real. But I couldn’t admit that.

“I needed to see you.” I settled for a half-truth.

I felt the way his lips curved knowingly against my neck, the soft rumble of laughter in his body vibrating against my fingertips. Even though he was scolding me, he didn’t seem the least bit upset. I worried that the novelty of my obsession would soon rub off, and he’d stop thinking it was cute. I was bracing myself for it.

His lips trailed along my jaw until they found mine, his hands slipping under my shirt and drifting over my stomach while he kissed me. I shivered as he worked his way higher, the fabric bunching over his wrists. His thumbs grazed my nipples, stroking over the pointed tips of the metal bars that went through them. The contact was fleeting, and he moved on quickly, leaving me aching for more as he sat up to tug my shirt the whole way off.

This part never got easier. I closed my eyes and waited for him to continue, to let me get lost in the feel of his attentive hands and mouth and forget about all of the ugly marks on my skin. And he did. I breathed a sigh of relief as his lips returned to my body, starting at my navel and working his way up to my collarbones.

His fingers ghosted up my arms; only for once, he didn’t breeze past the evidence of my pain. I tensed as his thumbs smoothed over the damaged skin almost apologetically, my heart leaping into my throat.

When he started to kiss the scars, my chest stuttered.

“Don’t,” I pleaded.

He paused.

“I need to see you, too.” His voice was low and smooth. “All of you.”

I felt the way the bed dipped beneath us as he moved, leaning over me and reaching for something on the nightstand. My stomach twisted with worry, and I couldn’t help but steal a peek at him, one eye opening in suspicion.

“What are you doing?”

“What I always do,” he said simply. “Taking care of you.”

I froze when I saw it—my camera in his hands, the lens pointed at me. I instinctively hugged myself, rubbing my upper arms in an effort to hide them from view. It was always me taking the photos. Being on the receiving side of it, lying beneath him, was terrifying.

Jasper kept the camera steady in one hand and peeled my arms away one by one with the other. I wanted to tell him to stop, that I wasn’t brave enough to do something like this, but when I opened my mouth, he cupped my chin and stuffed his thumb inside, pressing down on my tongue.

The shutter clicked.

“Seriously?” The insistent press of his thumb muffled my voice.

“What can I say?” He smirked. “I like seeing you with your mouth full.”

He pushed down harder and made me gag before sliding his thumb out of my mouth, smearing saliva across my cheek. He handed me the camera, and I watched in silence as he lowered himself, nudging my legs apart, his fingers curling into the waistband of both my sweats and underwear, pulling them down slowly.

My cock bobbed against my stomach, the tip already glistening with precum. I was so embarrassed by how hard I was already that I almost forgot he’d given me the camera, a scrap of control in a situation I felt wildly vulnerable in.

A shudder rolled through me as he trailed open-mouthed kisses over my thighs, his lips touching every scar he found. He lingered at each one, and as he moved between them, I pressed down on the shutter button, over and over, committing every press of his lips to a memory card that couldn’t lie—not the way my head would.

I was on the verge of fucking crying by the time his fingers wrapped around my neglected cock, his thumb circling over the weeping slit and wetting the rest of the swollen head, making me whimper.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmured.

“Shut up.”

“You want to pretend you hate it so badly, don’t you?” He ignored me entirely, dragging his hand up and down my length with excruciating slowness.

My grip on the camera tightened reflexively. I did hate it. I hated the way sweet words made my chest tighten, my stomach twist, and words suddenly elude me. My first instinct was to reject it, to push it away, because I felt deep in my bones that they couldn’t be true.