Damn Near Beautiful

Tongues licking. Teeth biting. Hands scrambling, grabbing everything, everywhere, in an effort to feel more, to touch more, to just get closer.

Eli ripped his lips away from Jack’s just long enough to suck in a breath, the sound of his heaving lungs echoing in the dark room. Jack was still pulling at his pants, his mouth ghosting over Eli’s bare chest, wringing out a loud groan from somewhere deep in Eli.

“J, this doesn’t mean we’re getting back together.”

“Yeah, I know. I hate everything about you.”

“Good. Because I hate you too.”

Their lips crashed again, teeth knocking together, Jack pulling roughly at Eli’s pitch black hair. It was painful and hard and unplanned and so damn near beautiful that Eli never wanted it to stop. He hated that fact, but loved the way Jack’s waist flared out to delicate little hips. He traced his fingers over them, over the tattooed birds he knew were there. He loved that it was his idea to mark the red-headed boy’s pale skin with the birds that Jack so adored, loved that Jack had agreed. But he didn’t love Jack, not anymore.

Eli kept telling himself that as their tongues twisted together, as their shoes were kicked off, as Jack’s sharp, little nails scratched red lines down his back. He hissed out a breath of pain, because damn did it hurt but it felt so fucking good.

“Do it again,” he demanded, but it came out more breathless than he had intended.

“Fuck, Eli. You’re such a little perv.” But Jack did it again, digging his nails in even harder this time.

Eli backed them up, tripping over the coffee table as they tried to get to the couch. They bumped into a side table, and the lamp on it went crashing to the ground.

“Oh, my God. You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

Eli’s roommate came barreling down the hallway, flipping on the living room light as she did so. Her blonde hair was stuck out in odd angles and she was wearing what were quite possibly the ugliest red plaid pajamas either of the boys had ever seen.

“Listen,” she snapped. “I understand that you guys have got some issues to work out, and fucking each other’s brains out seems like the best solution right now. But some people have a psychology midterm in the morning. So go be loud and annoying somewhere else.”

She stomped down the hallway, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

“My place, Eli?”

He just nodded back, teeth chewing on his kiss-reddened lips. They ran out the front door and to the apartment next door.

“J, this doesn’t mean we’re getting back together.”

“Yeah, I know. I hate everything about you.”

“Good. Because I hate you too.”

Eli kept repeating the words in his head, trying to believe in them.