Page 82 of Creatures Like Us

“No. No, I’ll do it. I don’t feel right without you, anyway.”

“Don’t feel right?”

He shakes his head, agitated, and he starts pulling at his fingers like he often does when he’s in this mood. “I don’t know?…?I feel wrong. Can’t relax. I can’t stop thinking about you, even if it’s just for a few minutes at a time.”

“It’s like that for me too.”

“Don’t you think that’s bad?”

“I don’t know, Asher.”

He looks up at me with pleading eyes, placing both hands on my knees. “Please don’t go into the woods again. Even if it’s just for hunting.”

“I won’t.”

“I want to be with you, always. Please don’t leave.”

I lift a hand to brush a strand of hair out of his face. “It’s okay. I want the same.”

I should feel relieved, I guess, that he feels the same as I do, but for some reason, my stomach clenches with worry. Worry becausehe’sworried. He’s unhappy, and if he’s unhappy, he’s just one step away from being sick of this. Sick ofmeand how dependent we are on each other. Sick of us.

He grabs the first aid kit where I left it on the sink and starts rummaging around in it haphazardly, as if he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for.

“Hey.” I place two knuckles under his chin and make him look at me again. “It’s okay. I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You can watch me and learn.”

“Okay.”

“In the meantime, I want you to think about if you really want this for yourself. I won’t do it just because you think you owe me this.”

“But Idoowe you this.”

“See, there we disagree.”

His jaw tightens, gaze slipping from mine. “I want you to do it to me—I do. But I’m scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared. Hey.” I grab his chin. Tears are streaming down his face again. “I don’t think we should do this tonight. I think you need some sleep.”

“No,” he says sharply and gets to his feet. “No, I’m okay. I want to do it, I do. Here.” He takes my hand and brings it to the crotch of his briefs. “I want it, okay? I want you to cut me, and I want you to fuck me after.”

I swallow thickly. “Okay.” I can’t deny that my dick twitches at the thought of being inside him that way again. He hasn’t let me do it, or rather, we haven’t thought to do it, since the day I almost disappeared.

He rocks his hips against my hand, letting me feel his erection. “Now hurry up. Let’s go downstairs.”

I finish cleaning my wound and patch it up with a sizable Band-Aid. Asher barely lets me wash my hands before he grabs me by the crook of my arm and leads me down into the depths of the house, into the depths of our desires.

By rights, we should be asleep, but we both know we won’t be able to find rest until we’ve seen this through.

I straddle Asher’s hips, naked, like we were last night. Desperate, like we were last night. He inhales a sharp breath, trembling underneath me, his hardness already pressing against mine. The knife lies on the bed beside us, scrubbed as clean as I could get it.

“You shouldn’t have cleaned it,” Asher says, a little sullen.

I shake my head, smiling. “I won’t treat your body like I treat mine.”

“Itreated you like that.Ididn’t clean it.”