11
WEDNESDAY night found me in my room brooding. I was feeling increasingly confident in my professional abilities, but not so confident in my social skills.
For one thing, Kage had been distant to me all day. I had a feeling it was because I had run out on his invitation to hang out after dinner the night before. It had definitely come off as rude. I knew that. But everything was getting too confusing for me, and I’d had to get away from him.
It hadn’t helped much that I’d gone straight to my room and fantasized about him, but he didn’t know that part. All he knew is that I said no.
Practice had been intense, like he was driving himself— and me in the process— even harder than usual. He’d barely spoken to me except to order me around. Hell, even Marco had noticed the difference in Kage’s demeanor, and he kept giving me dirty looks like it was my fault.
I suppose it was.
After practice, he had slammed out of the gym without a word. Then Marco had followed suit, leaving me standing by myself in a place I barely belonged.
So now here I was. Another night with just me, the hand, and acres of free porn choices on the internet. I climbed out of the shower, dried off, and padded naked to the bed, where I already had my laptop setup and ready to go.
I knew the fact that I had showered and planned a night of porn was problematic. Next, I’d be having one of those inflatable dolls over for dinner in my kitchenette. But I’d worry about that after I came and was wallowing in post-wank shame. Right now, I had a hot date with the internet.
I pulled up my favorite free site and scrolled through all of the categories: Big Boobs, Facials, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Water Sports, BDSM, Blondes, Brunettes, Redheads…
Of course, nothing seemed like it was going to hit the spot. It never did. The problem was, I had an itch that none of the videos on this particular site were going to scratch. I knew why, because it had been a long time coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.
There had been plenty of warning signs, plenty of vague urges tamped down with a swift efficiency that only the human mind had the power to pull off. We humans were masters of hiding from ourselves when we wanted to, carefully skirting those darker places in the corners of our imagination, chuckling to ourselves as we passed safely by. Closing our eyes and pulling the covers up over our heads, thinking No way, buddy. There’s no monster in my closet.
But there was a monster in my closet. It had been okay as long as I could keep my head down and skirt those dark places, dodge those close bullets, go over to my girlfriend’s place and fuck the ugly thoughts away. But the last few weeks had been different, because now the monster was right smack dab in my face.
He was a rough-hewn, muscular, hundred-ninety-pound monster, and he meant business. No way could I ignore the overwhelming presence that was Michael Kage.
No sense denying it now, cause porn don’t lie.
You can lie to everyone. Your parents, your friends, your preacher, your girlfriend, even yourself… But when you click that play button, your heart rate doubles, your dick gets axe-handle hard, and you come like a freshly-tapped fire hydrant… that’s truth right there.
And my truth was that I had been jerking off to advertisements for a long time. You know those rotating gifs that tease you with the best shots from the pay sites?
Well, one time I accidentally clicked on the gay portion of my go-to porn site. I’d clicked right back out again, but the damage had been done. Now the all-powerful advertising engine knew what I craved, and it was relentless. It showed me men sucking other men’s dicks, hairy asses getting pounded bareback, twinks getting creamed in the face in group orgies. The fact that I had favorite ads was even more damning.
Yeah, I’m ashamed to say that I could sometimes hit pay dirt within ninety seconds simply by watching those gay banner ads.
Why the hell would a person do that, you ask? For me, it was simple.
As long as I didn’t click, I was straight.
I dropped the towel from around my waist and fisted my hard cock, checking out the ads the website was so graciously serving up for me. I started to move my hand over my full erection, tentatively at first, barely skimming the surface of the flesh. I was a preteen again, exploring the joys of masturbation for the first time, and lord have mercy was it ever good. Brand new sensations flooded my system. Only they weren’t new; they just felt new every time.
I knelt up on my knees on the bed, got a full-access grip on my dick and squeezed. I looked at the largest ad on the page and groaned out loud as my favorite part flipped past— a little blond baseball player on his knees, his tongue snaking out and tasting the strands of white coming at him from both sides. Str8 Turned Out, it said. I wondered what the two other guys looked like— the ones unloading on him. Were they muscular? I hoped they were athletes, too. I always imagined they were big, hot, muscular baseball players who just caught this little guy in the showers. But you could tell by looking at him, he was definitely up for it. He wanted their big cocks, needed to feel them in his mouth.
Yesss, I thought with a groan. He needs that so much.
I leaned down and clicked on the ad for the first time. Suddenly my laptop screen was full of vaguely suggestive images of men and a huge button urging me to pay to come inside. Thirty bucks a month, dammit! And there was absolutely no satisfaction on this page. I needed to see the full video of that baseball twink sucking two monster dicks, and I was going to have to find my credit card to do it. Why the hell hadn’t I done that ahead of time?
Because I’d never paid for internet porn before.
I rolled off the bed and went to grab my wallet off the bedside table, and that’s when I saw that I had a text message and missed calls on my cell phone. I swiped the surface of my phone and discovered that it was none other than Kage who had been burning up my phone.
Oh, the irony.
I quickly returned his call, all too painfully aware that I was doing so naked— and with a raging boner.
“Hello?” he slurred happily into the phone. “Jamie. What a nice surprise. I was just thinking about you.”
“Kage? Are you… Where are you? It sounds loud.”
“I’m at a party,” he said, his slurring making it all too clear that he’d had a few too many drinks. “In a hotel room. Been calling you. Need you.”
My heart jumped up into my throat.
“You need me?”
“Yeah, I can’t—” It sounded like he dropped the phone, and there was laughter. A woman’s laughter that instantly raised my hackles.
“Who is with you, Kage?” I don’t think I disguised my irritation in the least.
His laugh that came across the phone was deep and slow, and I felt it down to my toes. My still-hard dick twitched, and I stifled a groan.
“Focus, Kage.” I said through clenched teeth. “Why did you call me? What do you need?”
“Ohh, fffuck,” he slurred. “I called you?” He paused, as if in thought. “I think I wanted you to come get me.”
“I’ll be right there.” With fucking bells on, baby. “Where are you? Which hotel?”
“Ummm… where are we?” he asked his female companion. She mumbled something I couldn’t hear. “We’re at the Alcazar, Jamie. Suite three-fourteen.”
“You’re here? I don’t understand.” He didn’t say anything, so I told him, “I’ll be right there. Let me get some clothes on.”
“Are you naked?” he asked, his voice sounding high-pitched and playful. I couldn’t help smiling.
“Uh, yeah. I just got out of the shower.”
I tucked the phone between my shoulder and my ear, hopping from foot to foot as I pulled on my boxer briefs and a pair of shorts. Then I put on the first clean t-shirt I could get my hands on. I slid my feet into my sneakers without socks, stuffed my key card into my pocket, and hurried from the room. The elevator seemed to take forever as I listened to the irritating sounds of partying over the phone line. Laughter and music, the shuffling of Kage’s phone as he moved, and that annoying woman’s voice.
What the hell was he doing, anyway? How would he be when I found him? The thought of him being in a compromising position of some sort set my teeth on edge. I couldn’t get to room three-fourteen fast enough.
“I’m here,” I told Kage over the phone as I banged my fist on the door of the suite. “I’m knocking on the door right now. Let me in.”
“Thass my boy,” I heard him tell someone. “Open the door. No, it’s not the cops.”
When the door swung open, I was assaulted by the mingled scents of alcohol and weed. There was some cigarette smoke mixed in there, too, and I was hoping like hell Kage hadn’t been smoking cigarettes. He’d probably never forgive himself for that.
“Jamie,” he called from across the room. “I’m over here.”
What I saw made me boiling mad. Most of the party guests were packed on the floor around the coffee table in various states of undress, and Kage was right in there with them.
“What the hell is this?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Strip poker,” the glassy-eyed woman next to Kage told me, scrunching up even closer to him to make room. “Wanna join in?”
“No, thank you.” I glared at Kage, who had apparently lost everything but his boxers and his socks. “You. Get your clothes on and let’s go home.”
It was irrational of me to be so angry. Kage was a grown man, and he could get drunk and play strip poker if he damn well pleased. I knew it, and still I was acting like a pissed-off father.
Or boyfriend.
Kage just looked up at me through slitted eyes and grinned. I’d never seen him like that, and I had to wonder how much alcohol a guy his size would have had to consume to be that smashed.
“Why would you do this to yourself?” I asked rhetorically, as I searched for his clothes. I grabbed his shirt and shorts off of the sofa behind him, and his sneakers from beneath the coffee table. “Come on. I tucked his clothes under my arm and reached down with the other arm to help him up. Thankfully, he accepted my help and staggered to his feet.
“Thank you for coming,” he slurred, draping his big body over me, his arms around my neck. I thought we’d both topple over, but I managed to remain standing long enough to get him to step into his shorts, trying to ignore the subtle dangling movement behind his boxers.
“Don’t worry about the shirt and shoes,” I told him. “Let’s just get out of here.”
The woman who had been sitting beside him threw me a pouty look. “You taking my sexy fighter? He was supposed to stay here tonight. He promised he’d show me how to wrestle.”
I laughed humorlessly in her direction. “He’s not gonna be showing anybody anything tonight.”
I slammed out of the room with Kage still draped over me, but now he’d moved around to the side and had one arm around my shoulders. It was breaking my heart to see him so out of control, for more reasons than one. I could barely even look at him.
I took him to my room, because I couldn’t locate his key card in his pants, and he couldn’t seem tell me where it was. Hopefully, no one from the party would find it and break into his penthouse. That was too much of a disaster to contemplate.
“Go lie down on the bed,” I told him as I went to the kitchen to fix him some water. If there was one thing I knew about hangovers, it was that water was the best way to avoid them. Fortunately, the refrigerator was stocked with bottles of filtered water. The last thing I needed was for Kage to start a drunken tirade about the horrors of drinking tap water.
“Ooh, someone’s been a bad, bad, bad boy,” Kage slurred from the bed, and as I rounded the corner, my heart stopped. He had woken my laptop from sleep and was staring at the gay porn website I’d been trying to join.
I pulled the laptop from in front of him, took a look at the sign-up page, and felt like the biggest asshole in the world when I dropped my jaw and acted like it was the first time I was seeing it. “What the hell is that? Guess it was one of those pop-ups. See, that’s why I hate free porn sites. They inundate me with pop-ups for things I’m not even remotely interested in.”
“Yeah?” Kage asked with a drunken smirk. “Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know… like what you saw.” I couldn’t even say the word gay in his presence. “And like underage girls and BDSM and stuff.”
“So no handcuffs for Jamie. What do you like?” He seemed suddenly far too sober. I was about ready for him to pass out.
“Um, I like…” I faltered, unable to come up with a single thing that I liked.
Kage laughed. “That much stuff, huh? You’re a wild man.”
I huffed. “Well, what do you like, since you think I should be so forthcoming?”
“Forthcoming,” he repeated with a laugh. “You crack me up, college boy. Okay, if you must know, I like dark hair.” He smiled and closed his eyes, laid back on the bed, looking like he was conjuring an image in his imagination. “Big brown eyes that melt your soul every time you look into them.”
I swallowed and suddenly had a little trouble breathing.
“Athletic body, long legs wrapped around my waist,” he continued in his slurry voice. “Smart, funny, sexy… glasses. Where are your glasses?”
I cleared my throat. “I thought we were talking about porn.”
“Oh yeah, porn.” He smiled again without opening his eyes. “I imagine we probably like about the same things in that area. Pretty close, anyway.” His voice trailed off, and he got quiet.
I didn’t dare prompt him for any more conversation at that point, because I got the feeling he was trying to turn the focus back onto me. Best to avoid that at all costs. Instead, I removed the laptop from the bed and worked the covers down. Kage helped me a little by scooting around as needed.
“You want to get rid of those shorts and socks?” I asked— innocently, of course.
“Yeah, but I need your help.” He peeked at me out of one eye before closing it again.
Trying to be as emotionally removed as a doctor examining a patient, I pulled off first one sock then the other and tossed them on the floor. Then I hooked my fingers into the band of his shorts and began to shimmy them down his hips. I had to work them over the bulge in the front of his underwear, noting in a very clinical manner that either he had the largest soft dick of anyone I’d ever seen, or he was at least partially hard. But then, he was drunk. He couldn’t be held accountable for anything, including the state of his dick, right?
My fingers accidentally trailed down the outsides of his muscular thighs, the hair tickling my fingertips. I took a deep breath as I hovered over his prone body and caught the distinct scent of his manliness— a hint of sweat mixed with warm musk. Passion bloomed in my belly, unfurled and spread through me like wild vines. I had the ridiculous urge to bury my face in him and just breathe. His scent was driving me crazy.
I slid his shorts the rest of the way down his legs and threw the covers up over him before I did something to embarrass myself. Then I undressed down to my boxer briefs and burrowed down under the covers on my side of the bed. I stayed as far away from him as I could, afraid of what would happen if I caught his scent again. It took me forever to go to sleep. By that time, Kage had long since begun the labored breathing of a drunken slumber.
The next morning, I woke to the sounds of him getting dressed.
“Hey,” he said apologetically, looking like the hell he must have been feeling. “Sorry to wake you. And sorry about last night. I have no idea what I might have done.” He shrugged and offered a half-hearted smile.
“You were fine. Don’t worry.” I laughed. “You didn’t do anything embarrassing.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for myself. Maybe he wouldn’t remember the porn site, and maybe he had been too far gone to notice how long it had taken me to get his shorts off, or how I’d scented him like a bloodhound.
“Whose shirt is this, anyway?’ he asked, pulling the plain white t-shirt over his head.
“It’s not yours?” I giggled. “Oops. I have no idea.”
“Well, I guess it’s mine now. Meanwhile, someone has one of my favorite Under Armor shirts.”
“I’m so sorry. I was just in a hurry to get you out of there. You were playing strip poker, and you were down to your underwear. It was an emergency situation.”
“Emergency, huh?” He rounded the bed, coming to stand over me. Then he shocked me by leaning down and giving me a hug. “Thank you for coming to get me. I’m really ashamed that I called you, and I promise it won’t happen again, okay?”
“Have you lost your damn mind? If you get into a jam again, you’d better call me. I’m not mad, okay? I’m here for you.” He was still hugging me, and I wrinkled my nose and pushed him away. “And you’re right, that is definitely not your shirt. It doesn’t smell like you at all. Take it off.” As soon as I realized what I’d said, I started backpedaling. “I don’t mean literally take it off. I just mean I wish I’d grabbed the right shirt. Now you smell like cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. And some other guy.”
He raised a brow at me, looking as cocksure as he could through the haze of what had to have been a massive hangover, and pulled the shirt back over his head. Then he strutted over to the trash can in the kitchen, balled it up, and threw it in. “Happy now?”
He stalked back over to the bed, reminding me of a panther the way his muscles moved beneath the flesh of his increasingly tempting upper body. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. He climbed onto the bottom of my bed and crawled up toward me, sending my heartbeat skittering out of control. Then he climbed roughly on top of me and covered my face with his chest.
“Does that smell right? Huh? Do I smell like myself?” Knowing from our sparring that I couldn’t handle being tickled on my sides, Kage went straight in for the kill. He tickled like he fought… one-hundred-percent invested.
“I can’t breathe,” I screamed in a voice muffled by the press of his chest. “Help! Marco!” I don’t know why that was the first name that came to my lips, other than the fact that I thought if anyone in the hotel could drag Kage off of me, it would be him.
“You think Marco can help you? He wouldn’t stand a chance against me. Nothing can save you now.” He burrowed in even harder, tickling me until I was just a trembling heap unsure of whether I was laughing or crying. For a split second, I thought maybe I felt his lips brush the side of my throat in something like a kiss.
“Please… please…” I gasped, my thrashing limbs useless against his superior weight and strength. Even through the pleasure-pain, I felt the blood rushing to my cock, filling it out between my legs, making me all too aware of the slide of skin and the way my hips were bucking against his. Feeling his cock against my cock, and the rub and the friction. My legs wrapped themselves around his waist, my ankles locked together, and I rode his movements like a desperate bull rider just trying to make it through eight seconds. It was excruciating. Glorious. Shameful.
“Please…” I cried again, this time with a different meaning altogether. In that moment, I needed him so much it was scary. I felt like I would do anything.
Everything.
He laughed against my ear, his breath teasing the sensitive flesh there. “Please what, Jamie? Tell me I smell good.”
“You smell good. You smell great.”
“Yeah? You think so?” he asked, feigning surprise, as if my compliment hadn’t been the least bit coerced. He finally stopped tickling me, and my whole body seemed to spiral down into the covers, tingling from the aftermath of Kage’s sensual onslaught.
“Yes,” I sighed, panting hard to catch my breath, relaxing by body, my arms and legs falling open and limp. I was too weak to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “You smell fucking awesome, Kage. Now get off of me.”
He did as I asked and climbed off of me, but he still wore the smug expression of victory. He had every right to wear it. The guy had just broken me in every way I could think of, and he didn’t even know it.
“Why don’t you give me a couple of hours to get showered and feeling better, then we’ll go grab some lunch.”
“Yeah?” I grinned.
“Yeah. But give me time, because I’m pretty hung over right now. Gotta go get some of Marco’s magical hangover cure.”
“What’s that?”
“Ancient secret recipe.” He felt around in the pockets of his shorts. “Have you seen my key card?”
“Nope. You didn’t have it on you when I picked you up.”
I know, because I felt every inch of you.
“I must have dropped it at the party. Everything’s a blur after I got there. I swear I didn’t think I drank that much.”
“You were definitely hammered,” I told him with a straight face. “You really don’t remember anything?”
“Not really. Funny, I don’t even remember how I got there in the first place.” He frowned and furrowed his brow. “Oh, well. No sense crying now. I just need to go get that key canceled and a new one programmed before someone figures it out and steals all of my shit.”
After he left the room, I showered and got ready for our lunch date. Then I watched the clock for a couple of hours, swapping from the bed to the sofa, wishing I could skip all of the down time and get to the good stuff already.
I chastised myself for trying to rush time. Hell, I was living on borrowed time as it was. School started back at the end of the summer whether I liked it or not, and this new life of mine here in Vegas with Kage was beginning to feel way too comfortable. Already, I was wondering how I would be able to say goodbye.