The Glass House by Suki Fleet Read Free Book Online

surreptitiously wipe his hand on his trousers, and I grinned. I didn’t know why.
    God, I was so confusingly happy he was here. Happy and relieved that he didn’t seem to hate me. Happy and relieved he was okay after scaring me like he had.
    “You’re not a coward, Sasha… I mean it… and you didn’t fuck anything up…. I did that all on my own.”
    “You came all this way to tell me I’m not a coward?” I said incredulously, raising my eyebrow.
    “Yes… and no…,” Thomas huffed. “I guess I didn’t want my birthday to end like that. Sixteen is a milestone. It should be memorable for the right reasons.”
    Yeah, he was sixteen now. It was weird that he was younger than me. I felt like he should be older. Yet I was older by a whole year. I’d had to redo a year at school because of stuff that had happened in Brighton—I’d missed a lot of schoolwork. It was my own fault, though. And even though I should have been a year ahead, I was still failing everything.
    “I don’t really know how to do this, but… do you mind if I ask you something?” Thomas seemed uncomfortable. His eyes avoided mine. He looked at the floor, his long eyelashes sweeping down, so dark at the roots and almost blond at the tips. I wondered if they felt as silky as they looked—I’d never been close enough to anyone to touch their eyelashes. I wondered if his skin was soft, if he smelled as good up close as my brain seemed to think he would—because at that moment I was convinced he would smell like the best thing ever—all fresh air and hot chips. A smile stole across my lips. I stared at the intricate map of dark freckles below his ear, the way the tendons of his neck stood taut like the pillars of some fantastical structure. I was looking so closely, I started a little when Thomas looked back up right at me. My heart stuttered. I couldn’t avoid his eyes, and deep in the center of me, I felt a jolt of something I’d never felt before—a rush of warmth and heat that flared so forcefully I felt light-headed—the starting of a fire. Almost abstractly I realized I was getting a hard-on, and I blushed.
    I was blushing , for fuck’s sake.
    “If it’s…,” I stumbled. “If it’s about John Greene, I should have just told him to fuck off.”
    I was desperately trying to dampen down the heat, but the fire was flaring within me, my cock was swelling, and my trousers were becoming tight and uncomfortable. I wanted to shift, but I didn’t want to make it obvious. I was mortified I had an erection with Thomas sitting next to me so close. I barely had any sexual drive normally, and I couldn’t work out what switch had suddenly been flicked, and I needed to. I needed to turn it off!
    Thomas sighed. I kept looking at his mouth, the fullness of his lips. They looked so fucking soft. And my desire was all wound up with the protectiveness I’d been feeling a few minutes ago. Protectiveness for Thomas. I wanted to make him feel good—happy. I wanted to take care of him, even though I could barely take care of myself. My head was a tangled mess, but fuck, it was the first good mess I could remember feeling in a long time.
    Hesitantly I brushed the tips of my fingers against his. I wanted to hold his hand again, but I couldn’t go further than this almost accidental touch.
    Thomas brushed his fingers back against mine, and without even looking, took my hand in his. I shifted closer so our knees were touching. I was not in any sort of control of myself.
    “Sasha… God, this is going to sound really stupid,” Thomas said with a groan. But I was barely paying attention as his thumb stroked the back of my hand in an almost hypnotic motion. “I really didn’t expect you to buy me a present.” He winced. “But when I saw you standing outside the house before the party I… I thought I saw you holding something… but then you never gave it to me, so I figured it wasn’t a present or anything… but I don’t know…. I feel stupid