let me.”
He was playing dirty. With that command in his tone, he knew I had little choice but to obey.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. I always had a choice. I could harden myself in quite a different way than the tent that had formed in my pj bottoms. Swipe aside his words like a wasp zooming around my ears, even.
But I didn’t want to, and after all that had happened, I was too tired to resist my urges.
So I nodded and walked to the couch and sat, head in my hands, waiting for Rex to join me again. Listening to him in my kitchen, the quiet rattling and the hum of the microwave.
I’d have to get a kettle sometime. I kept meaning to, but it wasn’t like I accidentally wandered down the kettle aisle for fun. I wasn’t that old. Yet.
Who the hell am I? Who do I want to be?
I had no idea. It wasn’t just Rex who had shattered those delicate but desperate visions I’d chased to Dom Nation tonight. It was seeing Isaac. And it was meeting Seb. And watching men do things—things I wanted to do—without an ounce of the shame that dripped through my chest like seawater in my lungs.
And… more than anything… it was the minutes, or hours, or maybe decades I’d spent on my knees, giving over my body for a spectacle. A display, yet an invisible one. Where I didn’t matter, only the position I’d adopted, and the humiliation they’d all witnessed.
I’d loved it. Christ, it made me hard again just thinking about it. My breath caught with the rough need that throbbed through me, still thick and unsatisfied.
I shifted, keeping my elbow on my knee, forehead in my palm. I wrapped a firm hand around the hard line of my shaft. Sparks shot through me, and I couldn’t breathe.
My blood thrilled with fear and need in equal measure. No—the fear drove the need. I squeezed myself, very carefully, my senses suddenly focused keenly on the whereabouts of my guest.
Would he like this? Watching me? Or would he call me pathetic? Would I like that?
If only there were an easy answer: a checklist I could follow. An order of events that made sense.
Instead, I kind of wanted to cry, which was utterly bizarre when I was also holding my own throbbing hard-on as sparks slipped into my brain. Shutting off the common sense, whispering to me that this was a good idea. That I needed it, and after everything I’d done tonight, I deserved it.
That if Rex saw me and he was disgusted by me, he might punish me worse than ever.
Oh, fuck. My cock jumped in my hand, and as much as I dug my fingers into my scalp and choked back my breathing and tried to think of anything else, I couldn’t.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. My pulse pounded in my ears, taboo and all the hotter for it.
I should be trying to get rid of this, not indulge myself. I fought with everything I had against the urge to slip my hand in my pants and jerk off until I came in my own pants right here, like some perverted loser.
It was probably only a couple of minutes. Then I heard the footfalls approaching, and I quivered with anticipation, hardly daring to move.
Fuck. If I let go now and sat up, it would be too obvious. I’ve made a mistake. Why did I do this? My own shame only made me grow harder, and I whimpered softly.
I hardly dared to peek through my lashes, but all I saw were Rex’s feet again—this time, in socks and not his shining boots.
His steps suddenly halted, just a few feet away. I heard him catch his breath like he’d noticed what I was doing. Covering myself—squeezing myself—riding the line between obscene and considerate, between desperate and ashamed.
My whole body burned and trembled. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, two times—no, three times—like it was a ritual. I caught myself rocking forward and back, into my own hand, and went still again, all my muscles tense.
But Rex didn’t throw the cup of tea at me or yell. He didn’t scoff or laugh.
None of the reactions I’d desired came to pass—and none of those I’d feared.
With two tiny clinks, Rex set the cups on the table nearby. And then he sank to his knees in front of me, his hot palms resting against my shoulders.
So startled I nearly launched myself upright, I jolted and stared at him, my