Chapter Forty-Six Soundtrack: Friends by Chase Atlantic

We walk up the cobbled street to our apartment in the quiet humming evening. It's still light, blue and gold and half-hazy, and everything is in-between again, and as we turn a corner the back of his hand brushes mine and I want to hold it, but instead I let it swing away.

'Hey!' someone across the street calls. We met them at some conference, or gala, or pub trip, ages ago, and I guess they came for the premiere too, so somehow we're trapped in a conversation with this couple as we're walking home. Clearly, my displeasure shows because Nas murmurs in my ear, 'Smile, Eleanor.' I plaster one on.

What was I expecting, anyway? That he'd sling an arm over me and call me his? That we'd make love tonight in the lingering sunlight? Grow up, Ellie.

As we continue chatting to them, walking a few steps behind, the cool of the air makes me shiver. And so does the warmth from Nas's body as he steps closer. There's his hand on the back of my neck, ghost-light.

'Have a great one!' he calls as the conversation finally ends, but I don't care. I just keep my back perfectly upright, not leaning in or pulling away, trying not to spook him.

'Thank God,' he whispers. 'I thought I'd have to ravish you with an audience.'

I snort. 'Have I told you today that I hate you?'

'Tell me again. I like it.'

I turn to laugh and my hands fall against his chest. For this moment, we're just a young couple, happy after an evening together, touching like it's nothing.

I know his face so intimately that I imagine it now instead of seeing him. I overlay atop his face the thousand other days I have seen: exhausted, jubilant, bearded, bruised, behind glasses, without them, smirking, smiling. A kaleidoscope of Nas.

I try to forget him, though I know him so dearly. I try to just look at him. I want to see him exactly how he is.

'Can we go home?' I ask, and he takes my arm and takes me the final few steps to our door.

As we cross the threshold and climb the stairs, neither of us speaks, and once the door clicks shut behind us, we stand for a moment in the entrance of our apartment. It's a narrow, high-ceilinged living space, with only a worn couch and a drooping plant to fill it.

'How's the ear?' he asks.

'Oily.'

He steps towards me with a mischievous smile and, without looking away, leans in to kiss my earlobe. 'Mmm. Oily indeed.'

'That was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.'

'That can't be true.'

'I honestly don't know if I can get over it.'

He rumbles with laughter against me. 'I've been thinking that for years, though for different reasons.'

'What-'

Nas interrupts me with a kiss. His hands slide down my back, one pressing against my waist and the other stroking my neck to keep me close as he kisses me, harder and harder, sucking on my lips and pressing me into him. I'm enveloped in the warmth of him. Our legs tangle together and I nearly trip.

He tastes so familiar. Like Nas, yes, but also... but also like me, because we're sharing the same toothpaste. We taste the same.

I trace a hand along his cheek and he shudders into my lips.

His mouth traces down my neck, nipping my collarbone, and I go tense and loose all at once.

My ear has popped. I can hear again. 'Oh my God.'

He lifts his mouth to purr, 'I've never been called that before.' And, because he can sense how infuriating that was, he kisses me again to stop my protest.

Something hard pushes between my legs. It's not enough to distract me from his taste, his warmth, but in the back corners of my mind, I realise that we're alone, in an apartment, with no one to interrupt us. We're adults, of course, but somehow it feels illicit, like we're about to be caught kissing in my mum's basement.

Of course he's hard. For God's sake, he ate me out this morning. But the reminder of it is startling, even as deep within me, something purrs to life. I'm as terrified as I am aroused.

His kisses slow, taking his time, tasting my lips. Maybe he can tell I'm thinking and wants to stop my mind from whirring.

The fingers on my back begin to make slow, lazy circles. He swirls around my spine and I press closer into him, groaning into his mouth, arching to press my breasts against him. His other hand traces down my side, outlining the strap of my bra.

And then, finally, he reaches the hem of my shirt and slides his hand under it. I can feel his calluses against my back and it's enough to make me gasp as he travels higher and higher, towards my breast, and lightly circles my nipple above my bra.

'You're so beautiful,' he whispers. 'I think about this all the time. All the time. You have no idea.'

'I do,' I whisper back, nonsense, all nonsense, because I'm not thinking anything at all. 'I know, I know.'

I grind against him and he hisses. It's enough to snap his self-control and he moves his hands only to pull my shirt over my head. His joins it on the floor. Now we're pressed, skin to skin, and he makes quick work of my bra.

'Eleanor?' He whispers into my neck.

I grunt, which is pretty articulate, considering that my entire body is vibrating.

And I guess he wasn't waiting for a response - that maybe he just murmured my name like an incantation - because he's moving lower and lower down my chest, into my shoulders, tiny delicate kisses as if he's mapping me.

'I wish... When you look...' I'm trying to say something about how I'm normal and jiggly and no one would look twice at me, and he looks like a literal deity, but his hands move against my thigh and suddenly none of that matters at all.

One hand presses into my breast, moving up, stroking slow circles around my nipple: the other climbs my leg, languorously, tugging at the waistband of my pants, and still between my legs I feel the length of him, somehow even harder now.

I know life is about appreciating the little things, but that's not the case right now. This is not a little thing at all.

My hands are... somewhere? I have lost awareness of my limbs, to be honest, because he's finally dipped a finger into my pants and I'm so wet that it's audible.

Is it weird to be moving this quickly? A tiny ringing in the back of my mind warns me: I will regret this. When I have space for feelings other than want, regret will come crashing, crushing, back.

'We should stop,' I gasp.

'Yeah.'

'Can we stop?'

'No.'

Well then. That's that.

I tangle my fingers into his hair and pull him back onto the couch with me. We collapse onto each other and he tugs me until I'm above him, straddling him. I grind against his length and he rewards me with a groan.

He brushes his fingers down my stomach, across the scars that only my doctor has seen. When he's touching them like that, I don't feel ashamed or unbeautiful. I feel simply like Ellie.

'Do you...' He lifts his hands from me. He looks uncomfortable for the first time. 'Are you on the pill?'

Oh. Shit.

He sees it on my face.

'No, sorry, I... it's been a while,' I admit.

And his little smirk reveals how smug he feels. He'll be my first in years.

'I don't have a condom either,' I tell him.

His face drops. 'Me neither. I'll... let me go buy one.' He tries to scramble out from under me and we end up even more tangled.

'Nasir. It's gone midnight. Nowhere will be open.'

'There must be... like... Uber Eats or something. Someone in this city must be selling a condom.'

'It's okay.'

I press gently down on his chest and he stops squirming. 'Do you want me to finish you?' I ask, because I'm polite.

He laughs. 'Nah. I'm gonna have nightmares about this.' And then, seeing my expression, he rushes to add, 'Not this!' He gestures to me, still straddling him. 'This situation. Stopping.'

I was right. The guilt is already there, squirming into my chest. I feel like a divine force, not just our idiocy, stopped us from having sex. Clearly, I wasn't meant to. Clearly, it was wrong.

He pulls me down into his chest. He can't see my eyes flicking back and forth, darting to the ceiling as if the answer will be there. How could I be so careless?

Nas strokes my hair as I think.

'This was happening really fast, anyway.'

He laughs darkly. 'If you say so.'

'What...?'

But he doesn't respond, just rubbing circles onto my hair, my back, and slowly the shaky arousal drains away and exhaustion replaces it. The last thing I hear, before I fall asleep with him, is him murmuring, 'Night, El.'

*

happy sunday! i was so nervous about the last few chapters because this was the first smut i've ever written. please let me know what did / didn't work: i'm writing some more spicy chapters this week so will take all your feedback on board. 

and thank you as always for reading!