Chapter 8
Sev
A rush of cold hits my body, and then a rush of warmth.
There’s no pain at first, just the large swath of changing sensation: the chilly water, then the heat of… something.
Some warmth at my side.
I’ve been drinking, but not enough that I don’t realize that I need to get to the surface. Once I float to the top of the water and open my eyes I see it, and everything becomes clearer.
Blood.
Did I hurt someone else in the pool, after Knox pushed me in?
The pain comes the moment my arm is out in the air, raised up from the water. I look down and see the long strip of red on my forearm and then it all makes sense.
“Fuck. Fuck,” I hear from the edge of the pool and I hear a crash of water beside me as someone jumps in.
The adrenaline in my veins finally starts to fade.
I turn to see Weston behind me in the water, and a moment later, his arms are underneath mine, and it’s like every torrid sexual fantasy I’ve been having for the past week is suddenly thrust right in front of me.
My days have been nothing but a blue of misplaced desire, seeing Weston on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in Sellwood’s class and having my thoughts become a heavy blur of memory.
As if I could drag him off to a dark, moonlit room again and have my way with his smooth skin, his stupidly soft hair, and his hard, leaking cock.
Even now, as he’s panicked and pulling me out of the water, I’m rabid for it.
He needs to be fucked.
I need him again, shaking on the bed for me, reduced to a heap and covered in my cum.
It’s never been so clear to me before.
“Weird way to treat a guy if you’re trying to flirt, Sheriff,” I murmur at him. “Are you following me around?”
I’m trying for a light joke but there’s panic in his eyes. He’s trying to swim over to the shallow end of the pool while carrying me, and I kick my legs a little to help him out.
“Are you okay, Sev? Tell me where you are.”
Oh.
He’s worried about me.
Checking to see if I’m unconscious.
Be more fucking adorable, Weston, I beg you to try.
“Hmm… Japan?”
“Holy fuck.”
“Kidding. I’m in the Onyx House pool you pushed me into because of your giant, throbbing fucking ego, Knox.”
We finally make it to shallow enough water that we can stand. He still doesn’t let go, his arms tight around my torso.
“Is your head okay?” he asks. His eyes dart around, looking me over and still panicking.
I lift my arm up and show him the gash.
“I didn’t hit my head. I’m sure you gave me a pretty new scar right through my lily tattoo, though, and I’m going to need an apology for that.”
“Right. Okay,” he breathes. “I’ve seen too many people get bad concussions or worse, and I… fuck, I’m sorry. I have gauze inside. Come on.”
I hum, looking over the long cut now that it’s out of the water. “I’m fine, Weston. It’ll stop bleeding. Eventually.”
“Get the fuck inside. I’m wrapping it up. Don’t need you getting an infection.”
He finally lets me go but watches me like a hawk as I step out of the pool, holding up my bleeding arm.
I scan the backyard around us. A few groups of people are watching in shock, pointing out how much blood got into the pool, but after I get out of the water, most people seem to be back in their own little worlds now that they know I’m not dead.
I don’t see the guy I punched.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the fucker ran away from the house the moment Wes conveniently shoved me in the pool.
After what I heard him say about my cousin, he better be fucking far away from here.
I was by the pool talking with a girl who was thinking of majoring in mechanical engineering when I overheard some stranger saying something homophobic about Niko.
I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let that go unpunished.
“Come on,” Wes is barking at me, ushering me into the house. “I’m going to wrap that up, and you’re going to explain to me why the fuck you were starting yet another fight in my house.”
“Wes, you would have punched the guy, too. Guarantee it.”
“I don’t get my rocks off with violence.”
He shoves open one of the back doors and both of us drip water as we walk through the house. Naturally, Wes is concerned about that, and he pauses at the linen closet to put down a few beach towels on the water we left behind.
The pain isn’t bothering me anymore.
Instead, I’m observing Wes like I’m watching an animal in the wild, filming a documentary.
He looks like he’s completing each task like it’s the most important thing he’s ever done, focused and intense. He isn’t smiling, but there’s still something serene about his face, even in the face of chaos.
Like he needs to keep his emotions under complete control at all times.
They’re all right there, though, if you look closely enough. His true feelings always make their way into his expression, through the small furrow at the center of his brow or a flush on his face.
Your walls aren’t as ironclad as you think they are.
He brings me down the hallway to one of the first-floor bathrooms. There’s a full first aid kit there, and after pulling my arm down into the sink and giving it another rinse, he absolutely blasts it with antiseptic.
I hiss as it hits the wound.
It’s not as deep as it looked at first, but alcohol always stings. It doesn’t go far down, but it’s definitely going to leave a scar.
“Stay still.”
“Frat Dad,” I mutter.
He coats the edges of the wound with a petroleum salve. He takes care to wrap it slowly and deliberately, first with cotton padding and then with gauze.
His lashes are still a little wet from the water.
His face relaxes, finally, as he works on wrapping me up, and he gently bites his lower lip, focusing like it’s rocket science getting the gauze fastened properly.
Fuck.
That mouth. Those lips.
God, it’s like you were made to suck my cock. And I need it again.
I want him again enough that it bothers me on a deep, visceral level. My cock starts to harden under my pants but they’re still soaking wet.
“Talk,” he finally says as he’s taping it closed, giving me a pointed look.
Don’t want to talk.
Want to fuck your pretty mouth again.
“Your eyes are so blue,” I tell him.
Maybe I am a little drunker than I realized. He frowns at my comment and glares at me, which only highlights how pretty his eyes are in contrast to the grim look he’s trying to give me.
My cock is only getting harder as I watch Wes reach up to put the first aid kit away and the muscles of his arms flex. His pecs are visible through his wet shirt, too, and I feel like a fucking animal looking at him now.
“Why did you punch that guy?”
I pull in a long breath and reach for a clean towel on the set of shelves in the bathroom. I bring it to my wet hair and scrunch it all around, then I hand it to him.
He dries off his hair a little bit too and it ends up looking shaggy, damp and messy, like he just came back from the beach.
“Unblock my number and maybe I’ll tell you why.”
“Fuck off, Sevan.”
“Unblock me.”
“That picture was… wild.”
“Did you dislike it?”
He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is lower.
“Of course I did.”
A blush lands on his cheekbones and I can’t control how much my cock responds to that.
He liked it. He fucking loved my picture. And for some reason my dick is becoming more and more obsessed with the fact that Weston cannot hide his desire for me.
Well. My body, at least. He isn’t exactly the biggest fan of the rest of me.
He finally speaks. “You have a good cock. You’re obviously aware of it. Stop changing the subject.”
I groan, looking at Weston’s wet T-shirt as it clings around his hard nipples.
“I punched that guy because he said something homophobic about my cousin. I know you don’t like violence of any kind, and I know you’d rather go through life all neat and peaceful and rigid, but if someone is talking shit about my cousin behind his back, I’m sorry, Weston, they’re going to be punched. ”
He frowns. “Someone was being homophobic to Niko?”
I nod. “They said that they love his Instagram photos, but that he’ll never make it as a model if all of the women know he takes it up the ass.”
“For God’s sake, women love Niko.”
“They sure do. After that the guy was making some crass comments about ‘things gay men do,’ and when he said some heinous shit at the end, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Who was this guy?” Weston asks, suddenly very serious.
“Don’t know. He had dark brown hair, a beard. Wish the fucker hadn’t run off after I decked him.”
“We can find out who that was. I’ll ask around. He wasn’t from one of the societies, right?”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
I wait for Wes to launch back into being pissed at me for starting a fight, but he doesn’t do it.
Apparently there are things that even the Sheriff can’t allow. He’s not upset at me for the punch anymore.
Instead he just cleans up everything in the bathroom, then quietly regards me, like he’s being cautious around a rabid dog.
The image of Wes as a child, bullied and ostracized in school, floats through my mind, and I can’t get it to go away.
“What?” he murmurs as he notices me staring.
“Just looking at you.”
He flips me off. “Why?”
“That wet shirt is starting to make you look awfully chilly, Wes,” I tell him before reaching out and giving his nipple a pinch.
He swats my hand away fast.
So I reach back and do it again on the other nipple and I’m shocked when he actually lets out a quick laugh.
His smile is like a tiny glimpse of sun after months of grey. It almost makes me wish I could get him to smile more, even if his scowl is starting to grow on me too.
He clutches his hand around my wrist but he doesn’t push my arm away this time, instead just holding it steady.
“Can’t believe you’re that mad I didn’t text you back,” he finally murmurs.
“Didn’t say I was mad. Just that I want you to unblock me.”
I pull at his wet shirt in a few places.
Teasing him, just a little.
He eyes me like a hawk as I fuck with him a little more and give him a squeeze on his hip.
And then he’s looking at my lips.
His gaze lingers for quite a while on my mouth.
“I’ll unblock you if you quit sending me that many stupid texts,” he finally says, his voice dropping into a lower register.
I can’t be imagining it. The way he’s looking at me stirs something hot in my chest. Like he’s radiating an electric field between the two of us, crackling and alive.
I see it in his eyes again and I realize that it’s not my imagination.
“Weston,” I say softly.
“What?” His voice is quiet, too.
I tread carefully, like I’m trying to win over a scared stray puppy.
“You want to kiss me.”
His eyes flare, almost imperceptibly.
I had meant for it to come out as a question. But it ended up sounding like a statement of obvious fact:
Of course you want to kiss me.
He falters, then gives me a practiced, disgusted glare. But I see a ruddy blush land at the base of his neck, this time.
“I’m allowed to be curious. I’ve had my lips on your cock, so why is it a big deal if I want them on your mouth?”
“I know,” I tell him. “If you are going to try to kiss me, though, at least do it out in the middle of the party? It would be very satisfying to make a whole lot of women jealous—”
He blinks, something shifting in his gaze.
Like the fear is claiming him again, and he’s scared of how much he’s admitted to me.
“You need dry clothes,” he says in a low tone. “Then you can head home.”
Not going to happen.
Please, just be real with me.
You don’t want me to head home at all.
“Sounds good,” I tell him, calling his bluff. He nods, then turns and pushes open the bathroom door, the sound of the party rushing in.
I follow him upstairs.
Neither of us say anything as we head up, and he leads me to a door that must be his room.
I hover in the doorway, waiting as he roots through a dresser drawer and finds clean sweatpants and a long-sleeve, folding them into a neat stack before coming back to hand them to me.
The current between us may as well be a fucking electrical storm in the air, filling the space between us like it’s alive.
“I’ll unblock you,” he says as he pulls out his phone, “because I know you need access to me so badly, Sev.”
Say what you fucking want, Wes.
Say it.
I know you feel this, too.
I refuse to budge. I’d rather edge him like this, knowing he’s just as hard as I am right now as he looks down at his phone screen.
“Well,” I say. “Good night, then. I’ll quit bugging you.”
I’m only a few steps down the hallway before my phone buzzes in my pocket.
When I pull it out and see Weston’s name on the screen, it feels like I’ve just won a game I didn’t know I was playing.
But it also makes my heart happy.
I like seeing Weston come out of his shell.
There you are.
I’m sorry.
For pushing me in the pool or for almost kissing me?
I know if I turned around and went back to his doorframe, he’d be right there inside his room waiting.
There’s no reason to text like this, but I humor him anyway.
Torturing him, while I torture myself at the same time.
Who said I was going to kiss you? Not going to force you into something you wouldn’t let me do.
I would have let you.
…
With consequences, obviously.
What is that supposed to mean?
If your tongue was in my mouth I’d make you put it on my cock, too.
He’s typing a reply.
Slowly.
I watch the little dots on the screen come up, then go away, then come up again a few times.
I should sleep.
Did you start touching yourself the moment I walked down the hall?
Sevan. Omg.
Are you still stroking your cock *right now*?
He’s slow to respond to that one, too.
Wouldn’t you like to know?
That’s a yes.
My cock throbs. I duck into the bathroom nearby and change into the sweatpants and long-sleeve he lent me, and I’m practically shaking with how much I want him. My cock is an incessant ache now. I hum under my breath, reaching down to grip my erection through the sweatpants.
I text him back.
You know, earlier tonight I kept looking around and I couldn’t find a single person at this party who I think would take my dick as eagerly as you did. It’s starting to bother me.
Maybe you should do something about that. I have to turn my phone off. Hope you have a good night.
Nothing and no one in here is going to sate the craving that’s running deep in my veins right now.
I’m already walking back toward his door before I have a moment to curb my impulse. My veins are full of the wicked fuel of adrenaline that I usually only get at Zenith nights. Like I’m hunting. Like there’s some pure, raw need in my blood that I won’t hesitate to fulfill.
I knock on his door before turning the knob, and I find that he didn’t bother locking it at all.