Page 34 of Creatures Like Us

He trails his knuckles along my bicep and the sharp bone of my shoulder, then up to my hair. He sinks his fingers into it, massaging my scalp like I did to him in the bath.

I shudder again, and I’m hard through all of it. The discomfort is constant—a stirring heat, a pressure begging for friction. My breathing deepens, but I try my best not to moan.

“You like that, don’t you?” Asher asks, his breathing as labored as mine. “Did you like doing it to me?”

I give a brief, breathy noise in reply.

“I like your hair,” Asher continues. “It’s cool, but it makes you look a little scary.”

“It does?”

“Only when it hides your face. You shouldn’t hide your face.” He gathers a few strands that have fallen in front of my cheek and slides them behind my ear.

That simple action, paired with the words, is enough to make me want to cry again. It’s the strangest feeling—to be rock-hard and on the verge of tears at the same time.

“Turn around.”

My heart jumps in my chest, but I do as he says. He turns around as well, so I’m spooning him this time. I take great care not to let him feel the hardness between my legs.

“Do it to me. I want to feel?…” He lets out a deep sigh, and it sounds like surrender. “I want to feel something.”

I reach a hand tentatively out to touch his hair, his blond curls supple against my fingertips. He sighs again, and when I dig my fingers in harder, deeper, he makes a sound between a moan and a sob.

“Are you okay?” I ask, withdrawing my hand.

“Yeah, just?…?It feels good. I haven’t felt good in a long time. Keep going.”

I massage his scalp, stroking him slowly, carefully. The side of my hand brushes the shell of his ear, and I travel further down, stroking my thumb down the curve of his jaw.

He shivers all over, like I did. “That tickles.”

“Sorry.”

“No, keep going.”

My breathing deepens, and the pressure between my legs won’t relent. I want to touch him further, slide my hand under the hem of his shirt and feel his beating heart like he felt mine, but I don’t. I drag my knuckles down the line of his throat instead, and he jolts like I shocked him.

He turns around, I pull back, and for a few moments, all we do is stare at each other, lacking the sense for words, for reason.

He licks his dry lips. “Well? How about that cigarette?”

A little reluctant this time, I rise to go upstairs. I linger for a while to let my erection recede before I return, a packet of cigarettes and a lighter in hand.

Asher sits upright on the bed. He has that hungry expression on his face that he always gets when I bring him a smoke.

“Fuck yeah,” he mumbles as he puts a cigarette between his lips and flicks the lighter.

That set of words does something to me, as does his expression when he sucks the smoke into his mouth, holds it in his lungs, and exhales. The scent tickles my nostrils.

“We need an ashtray, Noah,” he says. “Can’t keep putting it out on the floor. This place is enough of a mess as it is, don’t you think?”

“You’re not supposed to smoke.”

He rolls his eyes. “Not this moralizing shit again. It turns me off.”

Turns him off? Does that mean?…?whenever Idon’tmoralize, I turn himon? No, that can’t be what he means. He got hard yesterday, but it was just a fluke. Surely he didn’t get hard just now, like I did?…?My eyes flicker downward, but I don’t dare let them linger long enough to see.

Frowning, I sit next to him on the bed. “What’s it like?”