Chapter 4
Tai
Golden hues of sunlight gleam through the windows as I pry my plastered eyes open.
The throbbing in my brain feels like a drumbeat muffled underwater, and my mouth is painfully dry.
I catch sight of the half-empty bottle of rum on the dresser and am surprised that, all things considered, I feel mostly okay, even if I’ll never look at a banana the same way again.
“Good morning, sunshine,” a deep baritone rumbles from the doorway.
A tiny smile creeps onto my lips. I roll over to find Connor standing there with an iced coffee in each hand and a brown bag of something that smells deliciously greasy. “Hungry?” he asks.
“Fucking starving,” I say, my voice raspy with sleep as I sit up and let the blankets fall off my torso. My hair hangs limp and tangled in front of my face, so I push it back with both hands, suddenly aware that I must look like a complete disaster.
Connor is bright-eyed and energetic, coated with a sheen of sweat and dressed in gym clothes, while I’m sitting here looking like I crawled out of a swamp. His eyes move across my face before drifting down my chest, then widen as he takes a step closer.
“Dude, you are burnt!”
I snort. “Last night you pilfered fruity booze, now this morning you call me dude, but you’re still claiming you’re not a frat boy? Is that the narrative you’re sticking with?”
He huffs a soft laugh and drops onto the bed beside me, setting the food and coffees on the nightstand.
When he twists to face me again, his attention settles on my stomach, and I silently preen like a little peacock under his gaze.
It’s not like I have much to flaunt. I’ve always been thin and sleek rather than toned or heavily defined.
The muscles are there, they just… don’t like to show off.
Not like Connor, whose body carries bulges and contours across every stretch of skin imaginable.
He stares intently at my torso for a moment, then, with his bottom lip caught between his teeth, he reaches out and drags his fingers over my reddened stomach. His skin is chilled from the iced coffees, and the sudden shock of cold sends a jolt through my entire body.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
Goosebumps ripple across my belly as my cock twitches to life beneath the sheets, only inches from his wandering hand. For a few heartbeats he continues tracing the skin of my abdomen, until he suddenly yanks his fingers away and flushes deep red.
“Sorry, uh… you’re just… really pink.”
“Nothing to be done about it now,” I reply, my voice coming out low.
Right as his eyes lift to meet mine again, my stomach lets out a loud, undignified rumble.
The tension instantly dissolves as we both crack up.
The sound clears my head enough to serve as a much-needed reminder that crushing on a straight man is never a good idea, no matter how delicious he may be.
The mattress dips under his weight as he shifts, leaning over to grab the bag of food. “You remembered that I’m vegan, right?” I ask, fighting to keep a straight face. “The coffee is black?”
Connor freezes, his eyes darting upward like he’s trying to remember if he screwed up. The genuine look of panic on his face is too much. A laugh slips out of me as I reach over and lightly smack his arm.
“You ass,” he grumbles, shaking his head. He sets the bag down and turns toward me, a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. “You really had me thinking I’d have to throw the whole thing out and start over.”
“I had you going, though. You should’ve seen your face.”
“Yeah, you’re a funny guy,” he mutters, but there’s no real bite to it. He narrows his eyes slightly. “Pretty sure we said no lies last night. Or am I making that up?”
“I didn’t lie. I just asked a question. That’s not the same thing.”
Connor huffs and shakes his head. “Sure it isn’t.”
Without missing a beat, he shoves my shoulder—harder than he probably means to.
I let out a surprised laugh as my back hits the mattress.
He climbs over me right away, hovering there with an attempt at a stern expression that doesn’t quite land.
“What happened to those rules we put into place last night? Am I remembering those wrong?”
“It was a very innocent question,” I insist, biting back another grin.
“Innocent my ass,” he murmurs, the corner of his mouth twitching.
The low pitch of his voice combined with the way he’s positioned over me sends another rush of heat straight to my already interested cock. Inwardly cursing, I shift my hips slightly, trying to hide the very obvious reaction.
He inches closer with a smirk. “Something tells me you’re not innocent at all, are you?”
The hand beside my head shifts, and the pad of his thumb drags slowly along the edge of my jaw in a tiny, back-and-forth motion. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it, but it’s enough to make my entire body feel like it’s about to combust.
All those internal warnings are obliterated by the touch.
Logic flies straight out the window and disappears over the ocean as my mind floods with vivid, uninvited images of him kissing a slow, deliberate path down my stomach.
I wonder what he might do if he discovered exactly how hard I am for him.
Would he keep going lower? Wrap those plump lips around my cock while those warm hazel eyes stay locked on mine?
My entire body buzzes with tension as I close my eyes and breathe deeply, screaming at myself to get a grip on these intrusive thoughts.
Connor shifts above me. A spike of panic shoots through me as I realize my cover is about to be blown, and not in the fun way I was imagining.
But he only grins, lifts himself off me, and offers his hand, pulling me up to sit as though he didn’t just edge me without even trying.
He drops onto his own bed across from me, and I quickly make sure the blankets are arranged to hide my problem.
“You’re kidding though, right?” he asks as he grabs the bag of food. “Because I’m afraid we can’t be friends if you don’t eat meat.”
“Oh yeah? Eat a lot of meat, Connor?” I tease as I unwrap my breakfast burrito. The playful banter helps calm me enough to push past that moment of insanity.
He shoots me a dry glance. “Does it look like I eat a lot of meat?”
I take a big bite of the burrito and groan, suddenly ravenous now that I’m fully awake. “You look like you have to eat small children to meet your daily protein intake, honestly.”
Connor is in the middle of taking a sip of his coffee, and he snorts hard, covering his face as he bolts for the bathroom. When he returns a moment later, he’s wiping his bloodshot, watery eyes with the back of his hand.
“I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours and you’ve already made me blow coffee out my nose. Not cool, man.”
I try not to appear too pleased as I eat. “We said total honesty.”
“Oh, that’s the game we’re playing, huh? Well, you snore like a fucking freight train.”
“Shit,” I groan, embarrassment heating the back of my neck until it’s boiling. I never thought I’d be thankful for this sunburn, but at least it hides the splotchy blush creeping across my skin. “I forgot to warn you. Sorry, I’ll grab you a pair of earplugs today.”
“Nah, it’s fine,” he says easily. “The apocalypse could happen in the middle of the night, but if I’m asleep, I’d snooze right through it.”
“Did you just…” I blink at him, half-laughing. “Did you just compare my snoring to the literal end of the world?”
He smiles around a giant mouthful of food, barely keeping his lips closed, and somehow it’s ridiculously endearing. “If the shoe fits,” he replies once he swallows.
We finish our breakfast in casual conversation that feels surprisingly easy.
It doesn’t escape my notice that my anxiety takes a backseat whenever Connor is around.
The racing thoughts that normally flood these quiet moments are completely absent in his presence.
There’s just something about him that’s peaceful.
He carries a kind of happiness that’s serene in its own chaotic way.
“What are the big plans for the day?” he asks once we’ve both finished eating.
My loose sweats droop low on my hips as I stand and stretch.
When I straighten up, I catch Connor’s eyes glued to me—more specifically, to my stomach, where the thin trail of dark hair disappears beneath the waistband of my pants.
Thankfully, my earlier situation is under control, because otherwise I would be in serious trouble.
His eyes flip up to mine, looking guilty as hell as a deep crimson flush spreads across his face.
“Tan line,” he blurts. “I mean… I was, um, looking at your stomach because it’s burnt and I could see…
there’s… a, uh, line. Is it… do you need aloe or…
anything?” His hand scrubs through his hair, and in the sunlight, I realize it’s a deep brown, not black like I assumed last night.
“No, chippoke,” I answer. “I’m fine.”
He nods, but still looks distracted as I head into the bathroom to handle my morning routine.
When I come back out fresh-breathed and showered, Connor is in the same place, sitting on his bed with rigid posture.
“You never answered my question,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes.
“What are your plans for today? Did you want to, uh, hang out again?”
The words tumble out of him and I just… stare for a second.
He rushes through the rest of his words, taking my silence for something other than the charmed surprise it is.
“I mean, I shouldn’t assume you don’t have plans or that you’d even want to spend your day with me. I just thought… last night was…”
When my hand lands gently on his shoulder, he sucks in a sharp inhale and his eyes fly up to meet mine. “Last night was fun,” I say softly, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze that he leans into. I release him and move over to my bag to rummage through my clothes.
“Pick your poison.” I pull out a pair of swim trunks and some shorts, holding one up in each hand. “Lounge by the water or check out the on-site theater?”
His smile returns, brighter than the sun itself. “Ocean first, movie later?”
“Sounds like a perfect day,” I reply, ducking back into the bathroom to change.