All Damn Day | Post Malone

Chapter 20

Austin
He can't stop thinking about her.

He's tried all day, has had plenty of distractions to help him. But every time his mind wanders towards something else, all it takes is a blink to see her beneath him, to feel her heat around him, to see the fire in her eyes as she surrounds him. He sees other parts of her, too-like the innocent shape of her lips, or the sweet flutter of her eyelashes, or the adorably embarrassed shade of pink painted on her cheeks that afternoon-but he doesn't focus on those parts because they don't make sense to him. He's used to the primal stuff, the stuff that turns him on, and these other things are hitting him differently. Oddly. They're touching a different part of him, a part that's been dormant since Ash. Though even with her, he never really noticed shit like this. That had been part of the problem, apparently.

He wants to see her again, to talk to her-Sophie, that is. He has no desire to contact the other one, which is why he's been avoiding his phone like the plague.

But he doesn't want to think about that.

They'd left things with a goodbye this afternoon. A kiss. In the moment it had felt like the thing to do, like the inevitable end of their short-lived arrangement. They both were aware of the fact that it was meant to be a one time thing, a single night intended for her introduction into this foreign world.

That was before, though.

Before he knew what they were capable of together. Before he knew he could still feel the things he'd been afraid were long gone for him-- curiosity. Intrigue. Passion. He'd been stagnant for awhile now, stuck in this rut of his own making. And she'd come along in a soft blur, existing as a sideline haze before coming sharply into focus.

He couldn't even remember what he'd been focusing on before, not so much as an echo of what his mind had been on yesterday. His memory is wrapped up in golden peach skin and pink lips, and there's a buzzing in his stomach that reaches beyond simple arousal. It's strange yet titillating, and it almost feels like it's pulling him in her direction, like a tug somewhere deep in his gut guiding him.

But he can't follow it now, can he? They'd said one night, one experience, one time. And what kind of asshole would it make him to demand more from her? He didn't want to spoil the experience for her, no matter how much he ached to feel the things he'd felt last night.

No matter how much he hated laying here in his bed alone.

Fuck.

Out of all the things he'd considered when deciding to do this, the potential of forming any attachment to her hadn't been one of them. A dickish thing to admit, probably, but that didn't make it any less true. He'd wanted to help her, mainly. He'd also been curious, of course, of what it would be like with someone so soft, so vulnerable as she was, if that didn't make him sound like a fucking predator. He'd only ever known the harshness of sex, the sharp edge of using it to either avoid, fix, or distract. He'd never used it to connect, not really, and the realization of that made a pit form in his stomach, no matter how unintentional that fact had been. For as much as he'd felt used in the past few years, he was beginning to think he'd used people just as much. Maybe not intentionally, but still, it made him wonder if he was as good a person as he used to believe. If he'd ever actually been capable of seeing people the way he, himself, longed to be seen.

He'd eventually connected with Ash, obviously--he wasn't completely fucking heartless--but their first time (and their second, and their third, and well into their dozens, if he were being honest) had been fueled by something superficial, something selfish, on both their parts. Their visions of each other were clouded by toxic plumes of ulterior motives--her with his fame, him with whatever the fuck he'd been longing for at the time--and so while they'd grown close enough to call it love, he had a sneakingly ill feeling that it had been something else altogether.