Page 137 of Oleander

“Jude,” he murmured as I reached for the button of his jeans. “You sure?”

“Just let me do this okay, we’re going to fucking do this,” I said as I moved down his body, tugging off his jeans.

“You’re not gonna hear me complaining.” He laughed, breathless as he began to undress.

I sat back and did the same, pulling my shirt over my head before standing to take off my jeans.

Finn’s body was long, limber, and lean with dustings of dark brown hair where Caspien was completely hairless. Soft and lightly muscled where Cas was delicate edges and lean angles. I pushed all thoughts of Cas away as Finn turned over and pushed himself up on all fours and presented his arse to me.

“There’s lube and condoms in the drawer.” He gestured vaguely to the bedside table. I guessed the decision about who was fucking who had been decided, and I pulled open the drawer. “Fuck, hurry up,” he said impatiently as I rolled the condom over my dick which was, despite the alcohol and drugs, extremely fucking hard.

I thought about Adam The Rower saying he was going to finger me open before fucking me and I squeezed the lubricant over both my fingers and my dick, before sliding my pointer finger at Finn’s hole. It was so fucking warm in there, burning hot, and my dick pulsed.

“Christ, yes, fuck.” Finn gasped, arching his back up and out and into me. He looked good like that, really good, and I wanted to be inside him more than I cared about opening him up so I was glad when he begged me to do just that. “Just fuck me, Jude, just do it—”

I slid inside him in one single slow thrust, falling onto his back to kiss and nip at the nape of his neck.

“Finn, shit.” I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the tumult of pleasure that was racing down my spine, through my balls, to the head of my dick. We stayed like that a second, mainly so Finn could adjust to me, before he began moving himself in short, shallow thrusts back onto me.

“You feel...” He panted. “Holy fuck, you’re so fucking big, Jude, fuck.”

“Sorry,” I breathed against his neck, and he laughed.

“I’m not,” he said, turning his head to kiss me on the mouth. “Now fucking do it. Split me open.”

Finn was as good at being fucked as he was at giving blow jobs; loud and incredibly enthusiastic and as I fucked him I felt hope rise in my chest so big I could barely draw breath. He hadn’t ruined me. Cas hadn’t ruined me. I could do this. I was doing this.

But then Finn pulled away so that I slid out of him and turned onto his back to bring us face to face, and I saw a look in his eye that I recognised. A want and desire that went beyond what we were doing now. One that harboured hopes and dreams of its own, ones I knew I couldn’t fulfil. It was the same look Ellie hadgiven me. It shouldn’t have surprised me, he’d told me already –I care about you, surely you know that?– and yet it did. But hearing and seeing and knowing it were entirely different things, and I understood with a horrible certainty that this was how I looked at Cas.

“What’s wrong?” Finn asked, blinking. He leaned up to kiss me, sucking hard on my lip as he brought me inside him again. “Look, I don’t care,” he whispered.

I pulled my head back, separating our mouths, and held myself very still.

“I don’t care,” he said again. “It’s Cas, right? You think you’re in love with him or something?”

It was the wrong thing to say at completely the wrong time.

“I...I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I told him.

He smiled, reassuringly. “There’s nothing’s wrong with you, Jude.”

But there was something immediately wrong with me, at least. My softening dick slid out of him. Finn sat up, hair mussed and cheeks pinked, a dawning hopeless realisation on his face.

I moved to sit next to him on the bed. I felt wholly sober and very, very alone.

“I’m sorry,” I said, covering my face with my hands. “Fucking hell. I don’t know why I’m like this. I’m a mess.”

Finn was quiet for a bit. Then he said, “I happen to think you’re pretty great, actually. I think Caspien the Cunt likely just fucked you up a little bit, that’s all.”

I looked at him. “Christ, this must be the worst sexual encounter you’ve ever fucking had.”

He grinned. “Actually, guys cry over their exes all the time just before fucking me. It’s like a skill I have.”

“Another one? Like guessing the subject from the college thing?”

“Exactly.” He laughed. Then he gave me what looked like a sorry sort of smile. We were quiet a long time after that. Just the sound of street noise three floors below.

“We messed around a little bit a few summers ago,” I offered, some interminable amount of time later. “It was never serious, not for him. He was seeing Blackwell the whole time.”