Page 46 of Creatures Like Us

“You want me to stay with you, huh? You want me to kiss you again?” I let go of the pressure on his throat as I dive down and capture his mouth, biting down hard on his lower lip.

That makes him panic, at least a little bit. He squirms under my hold and whimpers into my mouth.

“You want me to choke you?” I press down on his throat again, reveling in that power he’s giving up to me. “I think you do.” I slide my hand down between our bodies and grab his clothed crotch. “Your dick says you do.” All the while, I ignore my own rock-hard erection—how it aches with every shift of our bodies.

Noah tilts his head back, whimpering.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” I ask, my tone as cruel as he was when he left me alone in the bath, unrestrained. Fucking humiliating is what it was, and he deserves retaliation. “Or do you want it the other way around? Want to fuck me instead?” I bear down on his crotch, grinding my ass against it. “Would you like that?”

“I-I don’t know,” Noah says. “I think?…”

“What? What do you think?” I yell, barely recognizing myself. I feel crazed, barely aware of what I’m doing. Drunk on him and how wretched we are.

“I think?…?I just want you to hold me.” His voice is shaking, and his eyes glaze over with tears.

“Fuck,” I mumble. The out-of-control anger hisses out of me all at once, and a pang of guilt rips my chest open. “I’m sorry, Noah.” I let go of him, landing on the bed by his side.

Noah lies still as a corpse, staring up at the ceiling. I do the same, stewing in my guilt.

After a while, the side of his hand meets mine in the darkness. I stretch my fingers over his, whisperingsorry, whisperingI shouldn’t have.Noah turns his hand over, and I put my palm over his, our fingers entangling.

I hear his breath hitch. I can almost hear his heartbeat. Or maybe it’s mine.

I don’t know how long we’re silent after that. It feels like minutes; it feels like hours. It feels like I have to say something, and in the lack of anything else, I ask him a question that seems fitting, given the sort of people we are.

“What do you think happens after we die?”

Noah opens his mouth. It’s so quiet I can hear his dry lips parting. “Your body goes still, and your mind knows peace at last.”

“Sounds kind of nice. Want me to send you there?” I ask in jest.

“Maybe later. When you leave.” He says it so plainly. So matter-of-fact.

My chest tightens, and I can barely get another breath into my lungs to ask, “Wh-What are you saying, Noah? That you want me to kill you when?…?if… I leave?”

“If you won’t, I’ll do it myself.”

No.

No way.

I pinch my eyes together, clenching my jaw. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”

“What?” Noah glances at me, blank-faced again. Seems like the only time he’s showing me proper emotion is when I’m touching him.

“You can’t just say stuff like that to me. God.” I bury my face in my sleeve and let out a heaving sob.

“Why are you crying, Goldilocks?” He grips my hand tighter, but I rip it away, glaring.

“You really don’t get it? You think you can make me stay here by guilt-tripping me like that? By threatening to kill yourself if I leave?”

“It’s not a threat,” Noah says plainly. “A threat would be something that would affect you, wouldn’t it? Something that would hurt you.”

“Don’t you think you dying would hurt me?”

“Why would it? You hate me; you said so yourself.”

“I don’t hate you.”