Chapter 7 Noah
Noah
I push my palm up to the tiled wall in the shower and let the hot water wash over me.
I’m so fucked.
So colossally fucked.
Suddenly I feel so alone. When Torin tried to draw a bath for me up here I told him I didn’t need it, that I wanted time to myself, and that I was fine just showering.
I just wanted him gone.
But now that he isn’t here…
I can’t stand this, either.
I fucking hated that he kept nosing into everything tonight, but now I feel worse.
Am I safe here?
Roman says I am, but is it real?
My thoughts are bombarding me again, and if Torin were here, right by my side, I wouldn’t have to worry as much. Like a guard dog. Like something steady, to keep me from panicking.
Should have just told him to shower with me.
Nothing he hasn’t seen before, right?
I shove those thoughts from my mind and try to focus on the water. I’m just not thinking clearly because tonight was a shock.
A tiny rivulet of blood-stained water comes from my ribcage, and I realize it must have gotten on me from the back of Torin’s hand.
I linger in the shower for at least thirty minutes, until I can’t take the heat anymore and I have to go back into the real world.
I head back to my room feeling like a zombie.
I change into grey pants and a white tee, and then as I’m tossing my clothes into the laundry basket, something falls over in my closet, clinking onto the floor.
Oh.
It’s a whiskey bottle, only about a third full.
I must have put it there some night last semester in a drunken haze. I pick it up, feeling the heft of the thick glass bottle in my hand, watching the deep brown liquid slosh inside.
An impulse hits me.
I screw off the top, put the bottle to my lips, and the sharp, oaky scent hits my nostrils.
And just as quickly, a flood of shame hits.
No.
Not doing this.
Not what I need.
I pull away the bottle without taking a sip and I screw it shut, feeling a slow creep of restless energy sinking into my blood.
I don’t want to numb myself. I need to feel something. I need to feel like I’m alive, in a way I haven’t felt since… when?
I clench my fist tight.
Fuck this.
I step out into the hall and pad down the hallway straight to Torin’s bedroom door.
I knock on it hard, four times in a row.
Torin swings the door open.
And instantly I feel his eyes raking over my body.
I feel weak.
I hate that I really do feel safer in his presence, too, even though I practically feel like I had the breath knocked out of me just from looking at his gaze.
Jarring.
Frustrating as hell.
How does anyone fucking exist around you?
Torin’s hair is still slightly damp from his own shower, and he’s shirtless now as usual, wearing black jogging pants.
“Yes?” he asks.
I pause for a beat.
“Forget it,” I say as I exhale, turning to walk back toward my room.
My cock is starting to get hard.
Just because Torin fucking Jensen looked at me, I’m getting hard, because my brain is soup and I’m so fried that my own dick doesn’t realize that I’m not into men like that.
I walk back down the hall, gripping my bulge and feeling like I’m losing it.
I feel like I really am drunk, even though I didn’t have a drop.
The effect of Torin Jensen.
But I hear footsteps in the hall coming soon after. Torin follows me, showing up in my doorway a split second later.
He casually leans one tan, muscled arm on the doorframe, sizing me up.
“You knocked on my door.”
“I said forget it.”
He glances down toward my cock and for some reason I feel like he’s staring right at it, even though it’s clothed.
“You want me to watch you again?” he finally asks.
A lick of white-hot fire spreads through my chest.
Finally.
I’m feeling something other than terror, confusion, and churning thoughts.
I need that feeling… but I fucking know better, too.
“No,” I tell him firmly, glaring.
Lying to his face.
Suddenly I’m plagued with memories of every time Torin showed up at my family’s house in high school, and every time I had to see him over summer breaks during college.
All those years I spent hating him, dreading the day he’d become my stepbrother, and now he’s here at the edge of my dorm room looking at me like he’s waiting for me to beg for him.
It makes me sick.
I shouldn’t be turned on, but my cock hardens more at a rapid pace, so much blood rushing downward.
Just.
Fucking.
Chill.
It’s normal to get hard, because I have some dumb kink about being watched, and I’m just searching for any sensation after a horrible night.
Not because it’s him. God, fuck, I’d rather it be anyone in the world other than him.
Torin just bites his lower lip, studying me, so calm in the face of the all-out war happening inside my mind. “Is that the truth?”
My heart slams harder.
“What do you think?” I tell him.
He hums, glancing down toward my groin. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
I look lower and see that my erection is getting so hard that it’s now becoming obvious, even through these grey pants.
I swallow hard.
I don’t want to want it.
Torin’s eyes are half-lidded as he gazes at me. I keep noticing the glint of the metal from his nipple ring, reflecting in the lamp inside my bedroom.
Piercings. Just another little kink I have, another Kryptonite nuisance for my cock.
That doesn’t have to fucking mean anything.
All of this is just a game for him.
“You want to try that again, and this time, tell me the truth?”
“Nope.”
His eyes regard me like he’s pulling me under some sort of spell.
“So… you don’t want to stroke your cock until you can’t stand it anymore,” he says, and his low voice is too appealing when he talks like that. “And you don’t want to come all over yourself while I watch you, the entire time, and you have all of my attention centered on your cock. Right?”
I swallow past a suddenly dry throat. I feel like I can barely breathe, and I tip my head upward, looking at the ceiling.
“Hate you so much,” I whisper.
“I’m not doing it unless you say the word. We’re stepbrothers now. You can tell me things—”
“Fucking psycho,” I mutter. “Quit calling me that and pretending you’re not trying to mess with my mind.”
“Is it working?”
My cock throbs.
I look at him again and I know that I want something, but I have no idea how to say it.
“I just…”
Just leave.
Please, God, make this easier for me and go?
I hear the sound of other people coming up the staircase.
Right now, my door is wide open, and Torin’s in the doorway watching while my massive fucking boner is basically on display for anyone who walks by.
“Say it.”
“Get the hell inside,” I say in a low tone, stepping over toward the door.
He stays firmly planted in the doorframe.
I’m too close to him now. I catch his masculine scent and I can’t handle the fact that I’m starting to enjoy it so much.
I wish he wasn’t shirtless.
I wish he didn’t have that stupid fucking barbell, or that scent, or that look in his eyes like he’s trying to unravel me. His hair looks golden in the low light, and the way it’s swept over to one side seems so effortless.
He pushes his hair to the other side of his face as I’m watching him. The way it moves reminds me of how much I always like playing with girls’ hair, braiding it for them while they lie down in my bed, just-fucked.
This is nothing like that.
The guys coming down the hall are laughing now.
They’re probably steps away from rounding the corner and seeing Torin.
Torin just looks as calm as ever.
When he speaks again, he drops his voice to a low tone and speaks slowly.
“Answer the question. Do you want to come for me, Noah?”
Don’t tell him the truth.
Don’t tell him—
“Yes,” I hiss, hot shame searing into every inch of my body.
No.
No, no, no, God no, why can’t I fucking lie?
Torin steps inside right before someone else comes down the hallway. He turns to close the door behind him with a click, and he locks it.
“Take your cock out.”
I exhale, feeling like I’m about to plunge lower on a roller coaster.
He strides inside confidently, like some sort of vampire that’s finally been invited in.
He’s looking over my body again now, like he’s trying to figure out exactly how he’s going to mess with me next.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” I tell him in a warning tone, finding some shred of confidence inside me, too.
Now that the door is shut and locked, and now that I’ve made the colossal mistake of telling Torin the truth, I’m less guided by fear and almost want to fight him.
“Why? It’s making you too hard?”
I reach out to push him again, just like I did earlier tonight.
This time Torin seems ready for it, though. He grips my wrists the moment my palms land on him, and he clenches around them, cuffing me with his fists.
He starts stepping me backward, bit by bit, until my ass hits the set of dresser drawers behind me.
He shoves the front of his body up against mine.
So much warmth.
So much contact, with his hips against mine.
“Maybe I’m just hard at the idea of finally getting to shut you up,” I tell him. “I need to come tonight, and it has nothing to do with you.”
He tips his head to one side. “So you’re saying you just want to use me?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“I’d like it if you were, Noah. You talk all this shit about wanting to find love, but I think we’re a lot more similar than you think. Admit you like how it feels to completely fucking use someone, solely for your pleasure.”
“Not a bone in my fucking body that’s similar to you,” I utter.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Well, there’s at least one—”
I move suddenly and try to shove him again, but he clenches his hands tight on my wrists another time and stops me, bumping me back into the set of drawers. It rocks a little behind me, and I swallow hard.
He’s using his knee to work its way between my legs a little, pushing his way around, like he’s trying to prove he can.
Why is it so difficult to breathe around you?
“You saved my ass tonight, but that doesn’t mean you have free rein over me,” I tell him. “If you try to make my life a nightmare, I’m going to do it right back to you.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
“Don’t know yet. I have all summer to figure it out.”
He releases his grip from my wrists all at once, but refuses to pull his gaze from my eyes.
“Ever since I got here, you have a chip on your shoulder the size of a fucking country. I save your goddamn life and you’re still going to act like this?”
I pause for a moment.
How am I supposed to respond to that?
He’s been the one with a chip on his shoulder, not just this summer but from day one, when he walked into my dad’s house with an ego that’s never gone away.
I’m so fucking angry at him.
At everything he does to me, and how nothing I do seems to affect him at all.
An impulsive flash hits my blood.
Maybe I do want to use him.
Maybe that’s why he’s exactly what I need right now: something meaningless, easy, and soulless.
So maybe I should do whatever the fuck I want, and quit overthinking it.
I move my hand up and my fingers land on his nipple. I give it a pinch, feeling the metal of the barbell and toying with it. My cock throbs, fueled by the sheer knowledge that I’m no longer holding back from touching him wherever I want to.
“When did you get this?” I ask him, my voice coming out in an almost combative tone.
“When I wanted it.”
“Never had any piercings when you used to come over and swim in our pool.”
I run my fingers over it again and I love how his nipple tightens under my touch. His head tilts backward, just a little.
“Didn’t know you made a habit of looking at my body back then, Noah.”
I pinch him tight again. “Does it hurt?”
“It feels fucking amazing, frat boy. Do it harder.”
As I’m tightening my pinch he catches me off guard.
I feel his hand close around the bulge at the front of my pants, and the sudden sensation floods my body with heat.
I moan involuntarily the moment he grips around my cock through the fabric. I can feel my cheeks going hot and I should be embarrassed, but it feels too good to care right now.
I swallow, averting my gaze for a second before I can meet his eyes again.
“I like piercings,” I finally admit to him. “When girls have them, I mean.”
“Seems like you like a lot of things that I have.”
I drop my hand from his chest right away.
I’m working too hard to try to remain normal.
Nothing about this is normal.
I feel the defenses rising in me again, like I’ve suddenly remembered I’m still in an unfinished battle between us.
“I don’t like you,” I tell him. “I just need to get off, and my dry spell is making me fucking insane, apparently. Quit acting like it’s anything different.”
He squeezes my cock again and the warmth is unbearable.
I want to fuck into his fist. I need to come so badly it’s a deep ache in my chest, and Torin’s eyelashes keep moving as he looks over me.
His jawline, his hair, his fucking cheekbones. It’s all too much.
“Then quit talking,” he says.
Before I can say anything more, Torin closes the space between us again.
His cock is up against mine, separated only by the fabric of our pants. I can feel the outline and the warmth of his erection.
He leans in close and my heart skips as I see his eyes this near to mine.
His lips brush against mine.
You can’t fucking kiss me.
I can’t breathe. I can’t even think.
No.
Fuck no.
The moment stretches out until it feels like it’s going to snap, but when he ruts his cock up against mine again, my mouth involuntarily drops open against his.
He doesn’t hesitate as he catches my open mouth in a kiss.
And suddenly, all at once, his tongue is on mine. In my fucking mouth.
The breath is stolen from my lungs as I feel the slick heat of it that surges downward and makes my cock throb.
His lips.
On mine.
And I need more so fucking badly.