Limerence (Famous Young Things): Chapter 18

If I don’t overthink it, then I can breathe. Felix in my bed, Felix in my clothes, Felix in my kitchen. He’s leaning against the counter, grey sweatpants low on his hips as he scrolls his phone.

The sex had been great—more than great; it had been transcendent. But this here is something else. It’s not something I’d prepared for, and I can hear Hana and Gretchen’s voices in my head telling me to centre myself: five things I can see, touch, smell. Trouble is, all I can smell and see is him. And when he comes close and peers over my shoulder into the pot of instant ramen bubbling away quietly, I want to pull him to me and kiss him senseless again.

I’d chosen ramen because it was quick and easy, and I knew he ate it because he’d eaten it with Charlie de Vere last week.

“Do you like spice?” I ask him.

When he doesn’t answer, I turn to find a perfectly shaped eyebrow raised suggestively at me.

He says, “You spat in my mouth earlier and had me warm your cock, that was pretty spicy, Savini.”

My cock twitches as I smile. “I mean in your food.”

“I like spice.”

I use some Gochugaru from the cupboard above my head and sprinkle it over the bubbling noodles, add some soy and a little lemon juice, and turn down the heat.

“Drink?” I ask as I move to the fridge.

“Water’s fine.”

I use the tap for this because it’s the only good thing about living in England. Ok, second good thing.

He takes the glass and wanders away from me into the living room. There’s a low wall between the kitchen and living room so I can still see him from where I am by the cooker. He goes to the bookshelf I’d spent last weekend building and filling with the only personal items I brought with me: photos I’d taken over the years of my brothers, Porzia, and some from the farm last year.

“This your family?” he asks as he studies the one of my sister and I at her wedding.

“Yeah. That’s my sister, Porzia.”

“The one who got you into ballet?”

I’d mentioned it at the interview. He remembered. It makes me stupidly pleased that he remembered.

“Yeah, she was good too. She just decided she liked boys better.”

“Relatable,” Felix says. “You took these?”

He lifts one in a wooden frame to study it closer. It’s of my dad outside the farmhouse, sleeves rolled up, looking wrinkled and weather-beaten. The sun is setting behind him, his eyes half closed against a bolt of sunlight.

“Yeah.” I grab two bowls from the cupboard and start spooning in the ramen.

“They’re really good.” He sounds genuine.

I come around into the living room and hand him a steaming bowl of noodles.

“Thanks, I like taking pictures. Kind of a hobby, something that has nothing to do with ballet.”

He eyes the noodles as we move to sit on the couch, him at one end and me at the other, strangely formal given what we just did next door.

“So, what, it’s like a hidden talent or something?”

“Not sure I’d call it a talent. It’s just something I like doing. Capturing memories like that, so they’re exactly how I remember them in my head.”

“You can tell. That you enjoy it, I mean.” He looks at the one on the coffee table of my sister and Auro, the day after he was born. That your nephew?” He gestures at it with his fork.

“Yeah. He’s about eight months old now.”

“Cute.”

“What about you? Any hidden talents?”

He sucks a forkful of noodles into his mouth, thinking as he chews.

After he swallows, he says, “I can hold my breath for three minutes.”

“Okayyyy. Like underwater or…”

“Depends,” he says. “Incentive is important; if I’m choking on cock, I could probably go until I pass out.”

I laugh, even whilst imagining moving across the sofa and forcing my dick down his throat to test it out. He lifts his head to smirk at me before tucking back into his noodles. “These are really good.”

“I’ll teach you how to make them. You literally can’t go wrong.”

“I bet you I could.”

He wolfs them down quickly and then sets his almost empty bowl down and picks up his water, draining the glass. Then he sets that down and gives me a long contemplative look.

“So,” he starts. “I need to know you’re not going to tell anyone about what you saw in that conference room.”

I stiffen all over. Then I set down my bowl and take a slow drink as I consider where to go with this. There are things I need to know.

“How long have you been fucking him?”

A crease forms between his brows. “That would be none of your business.”

“Before tonight, I’d have agreed.”

“No, it still isn’t.”

“Ben said he’s known you since you were a child.”

I see him blink, bewildered, then understanding dawns on his face. Slow, and then all at once very quickly. He sits up straight and shakes his head vehemently.

“No. It’s not that, I swear to you it’s not that. I was an adult, Savini. It was—fuck sake—it was after I got back from Russia, alright. My father and him are something like friends. I say like because my father doesn’t have any of those, not really. And they know each other well, which is how I know him. But nothing happened until I got back from Russia. I was 19, and nothing when I was underage. I swear on Ava’s life. Christian is a decent guy, one of the good ones, I promise.”

He’s being truthful. I’m certain of it.

“Fine.”

He studies me. “If this gets out, it could ruin him.”

“Why? You’re both consenting adults.”

“He’s not out. He has a high-profile job; in the fucking government—my father’s party. My father would likely…” He shudders. “Fuck, I don’t even want to think about what he’d do, honestly. I mean, I do think about it, about my father finding out, about the heart attack that would likely ensue from it, and okay, I’ll admit it gives me this perverse kind of excitement, but I wouldn’t want that for Christian. He doesn’t deserve it.” He shakes his head again. “He’s been good to me.”

Felix’s father does seem like the sort to try and ruin a man for something like this. Not to mention how he’d deal with Felix himself.

“Are you in love with him?” I ask for no sensible reason. I expect him to tell me it’s none of my business again. But he doesn’t.

“No,” he answers immediately. “It’s not like that. We just enjoy each other’s company. His wife died and he’s been sad, and well, I help him with that.” I see him regret saying that out loud the moment he does.

“Therapy is a thing that exists.”

“Yeah, well, sex with me is more fun and a lot less expensive.”

I smile because he’s not wrong. We’re both silent for a few moments before I say, “Okay. I walked into that conference room and saw absolutely nothing.”

He sags with gratitude. “Thank you.”

I nod before standing, lifting his bowl, and carrying them both through to the kitchen.

“Well, I should probably get going,” he announces from behind me.

I turn to give him a look. “It’s barely 5am.”

“I’ve done the walk of shame earlier than this. Besides, they were going out dancing after the meet and greet, so Aves will be dead to the world and won’t know what time I got home.”

I want to ask him to stay. Desperately. But I can’t. I’m likely another orgasm away from confessing everything, and the longer he stands there looking rumpled and fucked out and wearing my clothes, the closer I get to blurting it all.

“Mind if I use your shower real quick?” he asks. I have to swallow at the image that provides. Felix wet and fully naked in my shower.

“Go ahead.”

I suppose there’s a chance I’m imagining the inviting look in his eye—it isn’t beyond what my mind is capable of when it comes to him—but when he draws a look down my body and back up, his tongue licking out over his bottom lip, I know I’m not.

“Cool, thanks,” he says and disappears toward the bedroom again.

Heart thumping behind my ribs, I rinse out the two bowls and the pot and set them on the drying rack. Then I head for the bathroom.

He’s already in the shower, wet and soaped up as steam fills the small bathroom. It takes him less than ten seconds to notice me standing by the door, like he’s been expecting me. He slides open the glass door and moves over to give me space, and I slide out of my shorts and climb in beside him. There’s a very determined look on his face before he springs forward to push me into the tile and kiss me hard. Reaching between us, he slides a slick hand over my dick and begins to stroke so that I’m hard almost immediately. Then he’s wrapping a hand around us both, tight and perfect, in his fist.

“I still hate you,” he says against my mouth. Holding his head in both hands, I pull back to look down between us.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“This is just biology, sweetheart.”

“I think technically this is called chemistry, sweetheart,” I say as I lean in to kiss him again.

“Fuck…” he says when I slide one hand down his body to play with his hole. “I can still feel you in there.”

“Good.”

“Can you eat me out again?”

“Say please.”

“Fuck you. Please.” He’s laughing even as I drop to my knees and force him around. His ass, that perfect full ass complete with tattoo, is wet and dripping, and as I lower my mouth, I decide that I’d be quite happy to fucking drown here.



After, dried and dressed—he’d moved gracefully around my bed picking up items of discarded clothing which he’d shaken out and pulled on—we stand awkwardly on opposite sides of the room. The sun has started coming up, and the light from it casts a low amber glow over him, which makes him look like the golden prince he’d embodied on stage last night.

“So, obviously no one can know about this either,” he says as he slides his phone into his back pocket. By no one, I think he means Ava.

“You want us to go back to pretending we hate each other?”

“I wasn’t pretending.” He smiles with one side of his mouth. “But yeah, if we could just go back to the status quo, that would be brilliant.”

“Dunno, now I know what you sound like when you come it’s going to be real hard to un-hear that.”

He rolls his eyes, but he looks rattled. It lights me up inside. With a shake of his head, he moves for the door, but I reach out and grab him, pulling him back and into me.

“We should absolutely do this again,” I breathe against his ear.

I feel his whole body tremble, curling into me.

“We absolutely should not.”

“Give me one reason why.”

He turns his head to look at me. “Ava.”

I open my mouth, close it again, and let him go.

“I’ll talk to her, apologise.” I probably shouldn’t say this, there’s a risk he’ll be angry about it, but I also need him to know. “I’m not interested in her like that. I never meant to… I’ll talk to her.”

He stares.

“Also, I hate you.”

This time, I roll my eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, princess.”

“Stop fucking calling me that.”

“Okay, beautiful.”

He looks rattled again, cheeks pinking as he shakes his head. “I’m out of here.”

“Let me know you get home okay.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

“Felix,” I say when he’s by the front door. He stops, looking back over his shoulder. “I had a really… nice time.”

He looks a little surprised, like he expected me to say something else. His eyes and mouth go very soft for a moment, and I can almost imagine he’s about to say something similar in return.

But instead, he says, “Fuck you, Savini.” Then pulls open the door and walks out of my apartment.