Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

harder.
He didn’t. He pulled it out and laid me flat on my back, drawing my legs up to drape over his shoulders. His gaze held mine as that foil sound finally came. He held it while he pushed my legs higher and moved against me.
He held it as he pressed his cock up against my hole, as he breached me and buried himself deep, deep inside.
I couldn’t decide what I liked more, feeling El inside me or watching him roll his hips, his body bumping hard against the back of my thighs as he slid in and out of me. I’d never felt so exposed and vulnerable and yet so powerful and safe all at the same time.
It felt, really, like sex was supposed to be.
He stayed over at my house again the night before my mom was due to arrive, and this time we had sex until we literally couldn’t anymore. I fucked him over the back of a chair. He blew me on the couch. We rubbed against each other in the shower and nearly killed ourselves slipping on the wet tiles, then got out and finished the job on the mat, me behind him again as MoJo watched with her head cocked in confusion from the door, making us laugh. We kissed and blew each other in the bed. And as a sort of last hurrah in the morning, El bent me in half and made love to my mouth with his as he pumped inside me one last time.
He lay in the bed after, sated and smug as he watched me getting dressed.
“Bring your mom by the shop,” he told me. “You can decide when you get there whether or not you want to tell her I fucked you up the ass before you went to the airport.”
I smiled to myself as I fished through my jeans for my wallet and keys. When I stood, though, I froze as I saw El sitting up in bed, holding Stacey’s ring in his hand.
“What are you doing?” I asked, probably a little sharper than I should have.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I was going to appraise it for you. Figured you’d need a down payment for those vet tech classes.” When I didn’t say anything, the smile at the corner of his mouth died. “Unless, of course, you want to check if Stacey wants another go.”
He was angry, and I knew he had a right to be. What reason did I have to hold onto the ring, especially now? Even if I did, how awful did it look to say no, I didn’t want to hock it just yet, when I had to say that to the man I’d made almost constant love to for three days?
It looked awful, yes. Yet the idea of that ring leaving my bedside, of everything being that completely utterly over— not just my relationship with her but my whole heterosexual life as I’d known it—felt ten times worse than the cold I could see creeping into El’s face. I held out my hands, placating. “Please—you’re right, I should sell it, and I will. Just . . . not today, okay?”
“Sure.” El tossed the ring back in the dish by my beside, hard enough that it bounced twice before it clattered into a resting place. He pushed himself out of bed and reached for his clothes. “Come on, MoJo. Time to go home.”
“El.” I reached for his arm, but he moved away from my touch and pulled his shirt on in one deft motion. “El. Please. Come on. This is still new to me. I’m still not sure exactly what I am.”
I wasn’t sure it was possible, but he closed up even more at that. “Whatever.”
“Give me a day, even. Just a little time to wrap my head around it all.”
“Take as many days as you want,” El shot back, and stepped into his jeans.
Panic and fear whipped up like wildfire, and the chipmunk stood in the middle of the blaze, unsure of what he should be worrying about first. “I thought you said I should take my time. That we could go slow.”
“Absolutely.” He grabbed his bag and whistled. “MoJo, come on, girl.”
I followed him into the living room, panicking full-on now, jealous of the dog as he cuddled her close and let her lick his face. He was still rigid, clearly not intending to spare even one more glance at me. “If we can go slow, then why are you so mad?”
He sighed but didn’t turn around, didn’t look at me. “I’m not.” He did look at me then, and he gave me the most flimsy, fake smile I’d ever seen from him. “I’ll see you later.” Then he left.
I stood in my living room a long time, feeling like I should go after him, feeling like I should apologize, feeling like I had to do something, anything, to make his anger go away. To get him back. To get us both back to where we’d been. Except if giving up the ring was the only way I could do that—well, I just