Chapter 8 #3
"Fine," Patrick says, and the word cracks across the middle.
Hearing him break on one syllable does something chemical to me.
My fist speeds up on its own, and Patrick stops pretending to scroll at all.
His gaze pins me through the camera while his body starts answering Theo openly—a roll of his hips I can read off the sway of his shoulders, his throat taut above the open collar.
For once in my life, I get to watch Patrick lose.
His mouth goes first. It opens on a breath and stays open, air leaving in clipped bursts.
Then the posture, that planted, immovable frame folding forward over the island until his forehead nearly drops out of frame before he forces himself back upright.
His hand comes up, fist pressed against his lips, beard rasping over his knuckles.
He doesn't hide any of it. He doesn't look away, either.
My balls draw tight, the edge rushing up early, so I slow my fist and hold there, riding it, because losing this view one second before I have to feels unacceptable. Patrick catches the change immediately. His eyes go darker, and he gives one small shake of his head.
It might mean don't stop. It might mean don't wait. My body ratifies an interpretation without reading it and speeds up.
Under the counter, Theo works faster. I can hear it now, relentless, and Patrick's other arm disappears below the island. A hand in those curls, I'd stake the season on it. His whole frame pulls rigid, and against his knuckles a Polish word breaks loose.
Two syllables, dragged over gravel, wrecked beyond translation.
I need that word. The need arrives absurdly specific and lodges itself beside everything else tonight has taken from me: the spelling, the meaning, whether he says it every time, whether Theo has collected the full set, what it sounds like against skin instead of knuckles—
Patrick comes.
His eyes close and his control simply leaves, two full seconds of it, shoulders jerking.
The fist at his mouth catches a sound that arrives anyway, deep and ruined, while whatever Theo is doing below the frame wrings another helpless jolt out of him.
It's the most unguarded I've seen him, and I’ve spent years studying him for weaknesses.
Then his eyes open, find mine and hold.
The eyes are what finish me. Dark, blown, fixed on me like I'm the last thing worth watching. My orgasm slams up my spine and I'm coming over my fist and stomach in hot pulses, holding his stare through every one of them. The only sound I surrender is a single broken breath.
For several seconds, nobody moves in two states.
The spreadsheet glows between our faces, patient. Somewhere inside it, a vendor is still waiting to hear about vase storage.
From below Patrick's counter comes a voice, wrecked and triumphant. "Tell him I said hi."
Patrick closes his eyes, one slow blink of a man gathering his estate, then runs a hand through his hair, squares his shoulders, and tugs the henley straight at the collar. Under four seconds, start to finish, and he looks prepared to discuss insurance certificates with the federal government.
Infuriating. Impressive. My spent cock gives one exhausted twitch of agreement.
He glances at the spreadsheet. "So. We're aligned on the vendor."
Cum is cooling on my stomach and my sweatpants are somewhere around my thighs. "Send the recap email."
His mouth curves by one restrained degree. "Will do. Goodnight, Wallace."
The call ends and my apartment drops into silence.
For a while I stay exactly where I am, one hand sticky, the other resting beside two neat piles of notes.
The shared screen died with the call, and my reflection sits in the black glass instead, accusatory, pupils blown wide, the overall look of a man who has recently been through something and would go through it again.
The math does itself while I clean up.
Three times now. The first was an accident.
The second came with an invitation and plausible deniability built in.
Tonight had neither. I identified what was happening, stayed, took my cock out, and then unmuted the mic specifically so that two men in Milwaukee would hear what they were doing to me.
There’s no way to change that equation. Believe me, I've tried.
And through all three, the only skin I've touched is my own. Patrick's hands and Theo's mouth are ninety miles away and have never once crossed the distance, and nobody, in twenty-eight years, in any bed, at any proximity, has ever gotten me this far gone.
I close the laptop lid. My reflection disappears. The fact stays.
Later, cleaned up and horizontal on the couch in the dark, I open my phone.
The call link came in at seven fifty, in a new thread containing both Milwaukee numbers, and at the time I filed that under efficiency. It's becoming clear that I file things wherever they'll affect me the least.
At the bottom of the thread, the empty message field waits.
I tap it. The keyboard pops up, and the cursor blinks.
I let it blink.
For now.