Chapter 4
FOUR
Asher Montgomery
Theo enjoyed prepping himself, and for now, I allowed it without complaint.
I couldn’t tell him that I wanted to do it myself. That I wanted to watch his face twist in pleasure as I opened him up for me. It was true I needed money for rent and tuition, but part of why I asked him about creating content together was as an excuse to get closer to him.
Maybe it made me manipulative or an asshole, but I enjoyed making videos together.
I felt guilty, so I didn’t ask for more than I needed. No part-time job would get me the same kind of money we made together. It shocked me when our first released video made a thousand dollars in a week, even after all the fees from the website.
I had set a quarter of the payment aside for taxes, but one video made enough money for a month of rent. I felt proud when I had sent the money to Theo.
Theo, despite being rich and excessive, was everything I dreamed of in a man.
He was effervescent, beautiful, and slightly theatrical.
Several inches shorter than me, he had a slender frame, and something about his stature made me want to protect him.
He also happened to be the most confident person I had ever met.
Spending time with Theo turned out to be easier than I expected, enjoyable in a quiet, sneaky way.
His only real flaw was being best friends with Beckett Harrington.
Maybe I was unfairly biased, but Beckett fit too neatly into the mold: the trust-fund grin, the parties that never ended, the way he treated women like interchangeable glasses at an open bar.
No matter how often Theo defended him, I could see the seams in Beckett’s good-guy act. They were frayed.
Theo was different.
He pretended not to notice when my movie picks drifted into obscure, subtitled territory, but he watched them anyway, passing me the bowl of popcorn he’d seasoned exactly how I liked it.
He remembered things I mentioned once in passing, a snack, a drink, a brand, and they would appear later in the kitchen, no comment attached, no look that asked for gratitude.
He never wielded money like a badge or spoke down to anyone because he could afford not to care.
And I knew, even though he never said it out loud, that part of my rent was quietly being handled by him. He had offered the room for free. I’d insisted on paying something. He let me keep my pride.
Selfless. Attentive. Kind.
And I had about five minutes before I got to fuck him again.
While he worked himself open in the bathroom, I turned my attention to the room.
Everything we needed lived in the closet, tucked away in a chest that looked harmless enough.
Toys. Lube. A tripod. The camera. From the hallway, it passed for a guest room, neatly made bed, blank walls, nothing to linger on. Appearances did a lot of heavy lifting.
I set the tripod at the foot of the bed and mounted the camera we’d bought specifically for this, nudging it until the frame caught exactly what it needed to.
Our phones stayed within reach for quick point-of-view shots, brief cuts we could splice in later, but most of the footage came from the camera.
I adjusted the angle again, mentally tracing where we’d end up, how far the frame could wander without losing us.
We’d filmed a few times at Theo’s summer place, but this would be our first in the apartment.
We’d agreed on a storyline, nothing elaborate, just close enough to the truth to feel natural.
Same names. Same dynamic. He’d introduce me as his new roommate, mention money, and let the implication hang there.
Acting had never been my strength, so I was grateful our content didn’t require me to pretend to be anyone else.
Even if we stretched the truth a little.
With the lube on the nightstand and the camera already rolling, I stripped down to my boxers, knowing Theo would come through the door looking the same.
It was how we started all our videos. No one wanted to watch us undress slowly, or so he claimed, and I never questioned it.
We were making money. Obviously, he knew what he was doing.
I sat on the edge of the bed and waited, though it barely counted as waiting.
Thirty seconds later, he strolled in, smiling as if this was exactly where he wanted to be.
Theo was always at his happiest when he was about to get fucked.
I liked to think part of that was me, but maybe he just enjoyed having someone inside him. I couldn’t blame him for that.
If I were him, with options like his, I wouldn’t have picked me either.
“Camera’s rolling,” I said, jerking my chin toward it. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Theo reached for the book on the nightstand, the one with the cracked spine and folded corner he’d been working his way through long before it became useful to us.
He lay on his stomach across the bed, settling in as if it were his own room instead of mine, one leg bent, the other stretched out.
He pretended to read, eyes tracking the page, but I knew his attention wasn’t fully there. Mine certainly wasn’t.
The story we sold was easy enough. I was the roommate who came home from class restless and keyed up, undone by the sight of Theo sprawled across my bed like that, familiar and tempting in a way that felt almost unfair. It was meant to look impulsive, inevitable.
The truth sat heavier in my chest.
I’d memorized the slope of his back, the way his weight sank into the mattress, the quiet comfort he carried with him without trying.
Wanting him had stopped being a sharp, sudden thing a while ago.
It lived in me now, constant and low, threaded through shared space and borrowed time.
The storyline gave me an excuse, a reason to finally move closer rather than standing there pretending I hadn’t already crossed that line in my head a hundred times.
It might have been silly. It might have been staged. But the wanting was real.
I lingered by the door, giving him a few seconds to read, or pretend to, before following the loose outline we’d agreed on.
Then I crossed the room and stopped at the edge of the bed.
He kept his eyes on the page, playing his part, but I watched the small tells anyway: the way his shoulders shifted, the pause before he turned the page, like he was waiting for me without admitting it.
I climbed onto the bed slowly, letting my weight sink into the mattress beside him, and leaned over his back. The space between us disappeared too easily. I angled my mouth near his ear, close enough to feel his warmth, but spoke clearly enough for the camera.
“What are you reading, roomie?” I asked, voice low and soft.
The external mic would catch my question, but that wasn’t why my voice dipped.
Being that close to him always did something to me, making the act blur at the edges. Script or not, there was something dangerously familiar about hovering there, about pretending this was the first time I’d wanted him instead of just the latest.
“Just a cute little hockey romance…with a lot of sex,” he responded with a giggle.
The book, which now had a corresponding television show, was well past cute.
“Oh yeah? And are you picturing yourself in this story?” I questioned.
“Maybe…but not with the main character,” he admitted.
I leaned down and caught his earlobe between my lips, tasting salt and the faint tang of cologne as I sucked gently. His breathing hitched. I traced a path down the warm column of his neck with my tongue, feeling his pulse flutter wildly beneath the skin.
“Who are you thinking about?” I murmured, my lips brushing against the sensitive hollow where his neck met his shoulder. Goosebumps erupted across his skin as I continued my descent, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the ridge of his spine, each vertebra a stepping stone leading me lower.
“You,” he said, his voice rough in a way that felt only half-acted. “That’s why I came to your room and sat on your bed.”
“Mostly naked,” I added, letting my eyes linger too long on the line of his back before drifting lower, following habit more than script. “What was the plan?” I asked, keeping my voice level, casual enough for the camera. “You looking to get fucked?”
“Yes.”
He moved then, slow and deliberate, arching just enough to press back into me.
It was probably meant for the shot, for the angle, but my breath caught anyway.
The contact sent something sharp and familiar through me, heat and want tangling together before I could separate them.
I’d watched him stretch out on my sheets like he belonged there, book in hand, boxers riding low, the small details etched into my brain long before we ever turned the camera on.
The dimples at the base of his spine. The ease with which he took up space.
Fake scenario. Real reaction.
My body answered before my head could remind me this was supposed to be just content, just another take. Wanting him like this had stopped feeling like part of the act a long time ago.
Theo was good at this. Sometimes too good.
The way he played it made the scene feel less like acting and more like a memory I hadn’t lived yet.
In my head, my roommate had wandered into my room in nothing but boxers and a book because he wanted to be noticed, because he wanted me to look up and catch him there, sprawled across my bed like an invitation he could pretend was accidental.
That belief made everything easier. It grounded the scene, giving me something real to lean into.
Every move I made, every pause, every choice felt natural because it was exactly what I would have done if the camera hadn’t been there.
If this hadn’t been content. If it were just the two of us and the quiet truth sitting between us.
The script helped, sure. But the wanting didn’t need direction.