“You’re so perfect,” he says against my lips. “You’re everything to me . . .”
But everything isn’t quite enough, is it?
Then he takes my mouth again, and I push harder, willing his cock to penetrate me through the thin fabric of my thong. But I know it can’t.
Another thing we’ve agreed to is no sex.
It just isn’t worth the risk. What would happen if I became pregnant? The odds are small, but they aren’t nonexistent. I’m not raising a child on my own.
But the restraint is acutely painful.
“Fuck, I want your cock. It’s so big and hard, I want you to shove it in my tight pussy and let me ride it until you shoot your come deep inside me,” I bite out, grasping at the base of his neck with my fingers, riding him so aggressively that the whole couch is scooting.
My wanton behavior has gotten worse, not better, since this countdown. There is no room for embarrassment. No room for holding back. Because there will never be a chance again. So, if I’m going to be disgusting and vulgar and slutty, I’m doing it all the way.
“Fuck Jules,” Mack groans. “You make it so hard. You make it so fucking hard.”
Maybe he’s talking about his erection. Maybe he’s talking about something else.
But my movements stop when an unfamiliar vibration sounds in the middle of the room.
“What’s that?” I look over and see that Mack’s phone is lit up with a message.
But who would message him? He talks to literally no one except for me.
He snaps his hips, bouncing me on top of his shorts again. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
But then his phone vibrates again.
I am worried about it. I’m worried about everything.
He rolls his head back, then reaches over to the armrest where his phone is and silences the notification.
“Well?” I say expectantly. “Who is it? Is it your parents? Your sister. Have you even told Delaney about your plans?”
He rubs at his brow, then scrubs his hand down his face. I take special note of the little webs in between the valleys of each of his fingers. Webs I’ll never see again.
“No, it’s not any of them. It’s . . . it’s some stranger. I don’t even know how they got my number.”
He lets his index finger ride up the middle of my sternum, then he absently drums one of my nipples.
My vision wavers, eyes growing heavy at the touch, but I shake myself back to reality. “Wait, you can’t hypnotize me like that! Why is a stranger texting you?”
In any other circumstances, a text wouldn’t be strange. But these aren’t normal circumstances. And he’s evading me on purpose.
He sighs, and the corners of his lips droop ever so slightly. “People text, happens all the time.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re lying. You’re hiding something.” I haven’t known Mack that long, but the time I’ve spent with him has been so achingly intimate that I find myself reading his every little microexpression.
He pauses, a flicker in his jaw. “Fine. I’ve been getting threatening texts.”
My lips part in shock. “What!”
He rubs his hands up and down my arms. “But I didn’t want to tell you because they don’t matter. They’re just nonsense, and they don’t mean anything. Even if they did, what difference will it make in two days? None of this matters in forty-eight hours. None of it. I didn’t want to worry you. Or spoil our time together. We agreed.” He squeezes my arms gently on either side. “Remember?”
I suck my teeth, feeling both irritated and terrified. Jason. He said there were protests, people who are out there in the world right now looking for others just like Mack. People who want to do him harm.
“What do the threats say?”
“Is this really how you want to spend our last days together, Jules?”
But I can’t let it go. The worry will not release from my chest. “Just tell me, and then I’ll let it go, I promise.”
Probably a lie. But I have to know.
“They said they’re coming for me and that when they find me, they’ll shoot me down.”
***
I creep heavily up the stairs to my apartment. I’m exhausted, but what’s new? An invisible clock counts down in the corner of my mind during everything I do.
At night, Mack and I curl up together, either on the steps of the pool or on his couch or in his tank, where he holds me so tight I worry I won’t be able to breathe.
But when I’m with him, I always can. The nightmares. The dreams. The breathlessness. Always gone with him.
But I must return to my apartment. I need the reprieve from the intense, acute emotions. If even just to check in. Mainly, I don’t trust Jason. He’s been acting so weird. Not to mention the little crab in my care, whose importance has increased tenfold in my life now that Mack is leaving.
When I open the door from the stairwell to my floor, however, I have instant regrets.
