15. Max
Max
D raven had never seemed like a very cuddly person, and being in his bed was no different.
He may as well have taken a strip of duct tape along the center of his king-sized bed, marking a line which he didn’t want either of us to cross. Like two kids forced to share a room, stuck together, at odds.
Earlier, I’d draped a leg over too close onto “his side,” and he’d gently shoved it away, turning to the other side and facing away from me.
So much for pillow talk.
Apparently, he was plenty fine with calling me beautiful while he face-fucked me, but my goddamn shin touching his knee in bed was strictly forbidden.
Infuriating fucking cowboy.
I pulled in a slow breath, watching the slanted shadows coming in across the wall, dim evening light filtering in from the slats in the blinds. Draven’s sheets were premium and softer than anything I’d ever felt, and the mattress was the perfect amount of firmness, but…
I couldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t fucking try to sleep.
My body was comfortable, but my mind was spinning like a top.
Normally I prided myself on being an excellent sleeper, and I’d always bragged about being able to nod off within five minutes and snooze like a baby.
Tonight that wasn’t going to happen.
My asshole was still sore, for one, aching a little from when Draven had pushed the tip of that second finger inside me, without any warning or any lube. We’d rinsed off after we got back inside, and he’d brought his soap-lathered fingertips to my hole again in the shower, stroking over it gently.
Now, thinking of that an hour later in bed, my cock was slowly chubbing up again.
Fuck.
I turned over, facing toward Draven’s side of the bed.
All I got was an eyeful of his back. He was facing the other direction, toward the opposite wall. Above the line of his satiny grey sheets, the top of his back peeked out.
Bare. Smooth, in the pale light.
The tattoo on his shoulder blade wasn’t one I’d been able to stare at much in the past, but the light from out back came in across it now. It was so abstract that until now, I’d never known what it was, exactly, but I could make out the shape now.
It was a huge stylized rearing horse with long, looping reins. The reins went up to his shoulder and around to the top of his arm, curving almost as if they were a snake. The lines looked beautiful on his skin.
Beneath one edge of the loop, there was a date tattooed. February 7th. On the top of the opposite side of the anchor was another date, October 26th. That ink looked fresher, less faded.
What is the story behind those?
I shifted my naked legs underneath the sheets, my mind wandering blindly, like I was in the forest at midnight without a flashlight.
There was so much I didn’t know about Draven.
So much history about him that he may never tell me.
He’d told me one dark story about his past, but what about all of the other things that he wasn’t willing to tell me? What if there were things that were so much worse?
And why was he so concerned with my e-stalkers, enough that he would invite me to sleep over when he clearly didn’t want me anywhere near him?
A surge of anger bloomed out from my chest, all at once.
Fuck this.
I wasn’t going to let myself lose sleep over someone as confusing as him, and I wasn’t going to share a bed with someone who apparently didn’t even want to touch another inch of me.
I slid my legs off the end of the mattress and sat up to get out of bed, the mattress shifting slightly as I changed positions.
But right as I moved to stand up, a strong arm looped around my waist.
He yanked me back into bed. I fell onto my back, and he kept an arm draped around my waist, the weight of his forearm resting on the bottom of my stomach.
“The fuck?” I murmured.
“Stay here.”
He was facing me now. From my peripheral vision, I could see him, his eyes pinning me in place just as much as his arm was.
“What if I was just getting up to piss? Or I wanted to grab a glass of water?”
“Is that what you were doing?” he said. “Or were you trying to leave?”
I pulled in a breath and sighed. “Maybe I was trying to leave. What’s it to you? I thought you were already asleep, anyway.”
“Not asleep,” he said.
Finally, the invisible line between us in bed had been breached. Draven moved his arm downward, stroking it along my still half-chubbed up dick, and I swatted him away.
“Ignore that,” I mumbled.
“You like me pulling you back into bed, huh?”
“Was hard before that,” I tossed back, but when I turned and saw that it had made him smile, I realized I’d only made the situation worse.
But he removed his arm a moment later. I missed it, which I hated. I shouldn’t have liked him being all controlling and possessive, but as usual, it was some sort of strange catnip to me.
Just like it had been all night.
Like when I’d let him graze over my prostate.
Or when I’d stuffed his cock in my mouth like some desperate slut.
He still hadn’t let me kiss him, though, and it was starting to piss me off. I wasn’t afraid of seeming gay anymore, certainly wasn’t afraid of doing gay things. I didn’t care if it meant I was bi, or if it was a discovery I should have made a long time ago.
I just wanted to know why apparently, he was too good to kiss me.
I turned over to face him in bed. He was still watching me, his eyes tired, but still half-open.
“Get some sleep,” he told me. “And no, you’re not allowed to go home.”
Frustration built inside me like a quiet, brewing storm. He still had all the control. As usual. And he wasn’t going to let me in on anything.
I turned over, now, facing away from him again.
He could get an eyeful of my back, now.
I focused on falling asleep, trying to think of nothing, letting the world fall away.
But right as I was starting to close my eyes, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder blade. Draven started rubbing slow, firm strokes on each side of my spine, then pushing the heel of his palm gently against my lower back.
I hummed under his touch as he massaged me. Every muscle in my body that had been tensed up slowly began to relax.
He stroked my back until the world started to melt away.
I drifted to sleep under his touch, more relaxed than I’d been in a long time.
I woke to a buzzing sound so loud I shot up in bed, half worried that someone was taking a fucking chainsaw to something outside.
“ Mmh, ” I hummed under my breath as the buzzing came to an abrupt halt, rubbing my palms over my eyes and squinting in the copious sunlight now filtering through the blinds.
The wide-open blinds.
It couldn’t be a minute past eight in the morning. Why the fuck ? —
The buzzing—no, grinding —suddenly started up again, and I frowned as I tossed off the covers, standing up on the hardwood.
I could tell it wasn’t a chainsaw, now, but I still didn’t know what the hell Draven was doing.
I was still naked as I padded out to the kitchen, furrowing my brow as I found him in there, holding some contraption and glancing over at me. The kitchen smelled potently of coffee and some sort of fresh, grassy smell emanating from somewhere.
“Morning. Nice cock.”
I looked down. Yet again, I was mostly hard, this time just from natural causes. Morning wood couldn’t compete with whatever sound Draven’s contraption was making, though, and I was rapidly deflating.
I glanced at the clock above his stove and saw that it wasn’t even eight yet.
“Seven fucking fifty-one,” I grumbled. “What is that sound?”
“Coffee grinder. Or do you mean the other sound?” he asked, tapping on the top of a giant machine that had green liquid in it. “Was also making some cold-pressed green juice.”
He was already fully dressed. He had on one of his favored black work shirts, the sleeves rolled up to expose the firm strength of his forearms. He had dark denim jeans on, and he looked so awake and put-together that it almost made me mad.
“Fucking loud.”
He was still watching me, his eyes scanning my body from my cock to my face again. “Don’t worry. I’ll have a hot cup of coffee in front of you within five minutes, and all will be better.”
“I only drink iced coffee. Cold brew.”
Draven made a face. “These beans are from Italy. Their flavor profile is a lot better hot.”
I leaned on the wall, the wood surface cool against my skin. “You order your couch from Italy and your coffee from Italy?”
“You’ll like it. I promise.”
“No I won’t,” I protested. “I don’t like hot drinks. I don’t like being woken up to loud noises. I don’t like seven fifty-one in the morning .”
He set down the coffee grinder and stepped over toward me. He laced his hands around my waist, pulling me close and catching me off-guard.
It almost looked like he was moving in for a kiss, but I knew better. He leaned in, burying his nose in my hair for a moment before dipping lower and licking along my neck.
He hummed. “I did leave a mark,” he said, running his fingertips over a spot on my neck.
“You were sucking it hard enough,” I muttered.
Before I could say anything else he was moving even lower, licking my nipple and taking it between his teeth. I pulled in a sharp breath of air, my skin breaking out in goosebumps at the sudden sensation.
I couldn’t stop my cock from responding to his unexpected touch.
The problem was that he’d gotten so close that my cock was now mashed right up against the top of his thigh. He felt it and then glanced down, giving it a tight little tug before moving away.
Fuck you, Draven .
All of that sensation, given out of nowhere, then yanked right away.
“Fine. You don’t have to like hot coffee. I’ll order in some cold brew for you.”
I palmed at my cock, wishing it would go down.
“No. I’m out of here.”
“To where?”
“Red Fox. They always have good cold brew, and they have real food.”
“You’re going to the diner?” he asked. “The diner that’s about thirty feet away from the spot your stalker was in last night?”
I gave him a plain stare. “Yep. I am. And I’m not going to stop living my normal life because of freaks on the internet.”