Rowan #2
“When Luka...interrupted you.”
“I see,” I said. I had known, of course, that Luka had informed Reggie, but I hadn’t expected him to bring it up. “You weren’t the one who walked in.”
“And it wasn’t Luka’s fault either. If the system had been operating correctly, it would never have happened. And yes, you did activate privacy mode. I checked the logs.”
“I didn’t think my credibility was in question.”
Reggie smirked. “Unlike everyone else here, I know what you do for a living, and anyone who audits people at their jobs knows that the first place you look for mistakes or a misremembered event is the people involved. It was nothing personal.”
It was odd to be known as an auditor by the people who ran Arete without it raising red flags. But Hannah had sworn up and down that the best way to get through this subterfuge was by sticking as close to the truth as I could without outright admitting why I was here.
“So the problem was the system, and I’m glad the incident didn’t put you off developing a relationship with Luka.”
It had been close. When he had walked in, and I’d recovered from my shock at being witnessed in such a private moment, my first reaction was rage and indignation.
I had been prepared to get up, put my clothes on, and march, if not out of the resort altogether, then to Reggie’s office to demand a new Guide.
Except it didn’t take long to realize that what I’d seen on Luka’s face had been genuine shock, and panic as he fled the room.
It took me a couple of minutes to compose myself and think beyond my emotions.
Luka wasn’t the most capable or experienced at his job as far as I could tell, but neither was he pushy, invasive, or prone to crossing lines.
He also hadn’t been blatantly incompetent, so I could safely assume he had made an egregious mistake.
He had deserved a chance to explain himself, and I was glad I had given him one.
It wasn’t until after he was gone that I suspected there had been another reason for my intense, immediate response.
He was, as I had admitted to myself, an attractive man who had walked in on something not only incredibly private, but sexual.
I was no less human than anyone else, and wires were bound to get crossed.
It hadn’t helped that I’d been thinking about his naked, erotic wrestling with Cade in the spring when one of the focuses of my fantasy came stumbling into my room.
A good-looking man had witnessed me masturbating…
to thoughts of him. I felt another surge of sexual attraction, but also guilt.
No one needed to know that, though.
“Did you solve the problem?” I asked, rather than give a protracted speech I didn’t want to give and was sure he didn’t want to hear.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Reggie said with a proud smile. “I had it patched within twenty-four hours of Luka reporting it. I had a few more things hit my desk, and I kept forgetting to tell you.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” I said, wanting to get back to my room, not just to take one of my pills, maybe two, but to risk the opportunity to deal with myself.
My interaction with Clay was a reliable indicator that I needed to release some steam before it built up so much that I did something impulsive. Something I might regret.
“Ah, speak of the Devil,” Reggie chuckled, and I turned, groaning inwardly as Luka jogged up. His shorts weren’t nearly as small as Clay’s, but they were small enough, as was the sleeveless shirt sticking to his sweating body.
“Hey, hey,” Luka said, bouncing between each foot. “Figured I’d get a workout in while you got through your...what was it you said? Doomed endeavor?”
“Yes, and I was right,” I said, frowning as I felt the tension in my gut spread to my groin.
“I was just telling him we had our little problem from last week taken care of,” Reggie said. “So no worries about that anymore.”
“Oh, goody,” Luka said with a sarcasm that was about as subtle as a brick to the face. “Thank you for bringing it back up. That’s not awkward at all, Reggie.”
Reggie chuckled. “Sorry, just wanted you both on the same page.”
Luka rolled his eyes, grabbing the bottom of his shirt and wiping his face. The tension that had been drifting immediately shot to my groin, and I forced my next breath to come out smoothly. “You could have just told me, and I would have passed it along.”
“Indeed,” I said through clenched teeth. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to rest.”
“You okay?” Luka asked, his brow furrowing as he dropped his shirt and leaned closer.
I could smell him now, a mix of subtle cologne and something else, something.
..just him. Alarm bells rang as I realized it was his natural smell, the product of being covered in sweat before it turned sour.
Instead, it was earthy and...impossible to find the proper adjectives, but my brain certainly liked what I was smelling.
“Fine,” I said tersely. “If you’ll both excuse me.”
I didn’t give either of them a chance to say anything else as I walked away stiffly.
I felt like a teenager again, unable to help my body’s reaction, which was absurd when, even after five or six days without release, I should have been able to control myself better.
That was until I reached the door to my room and stepped inside, closing it behind me and realizing it had been longer than that.
It had already been a few days when Luka had walked in on me, which meant it was now well over a week since the last time I’d.
..God, even then, it was still absurd how fiercely my body was reacting, but at least it made more sense.
Taking a deep breath, I figured I would have at least fifteen minutes before Luka showed up.
He had clearly been in the middle of a workout, and I suspected Reggie wouldn’t seek me out now he’d spoken with me.
That meant I had time to take care of things before I was so riled up I did more than feel like a horny teenager seeing his first naked person.
Yanking at the string of my pants, I kicked them off as I walked over to the bed.
Hooking my thumbs into my underwear, I shoved them down and kicked them off to join my discarded pants.
I paused only long enough to dig for the supply of pills, taking two with a bottle of water I had left sitting out.
Easing onto the bed, I plumped my pillow so I could lean against it as I wrapped my hand around my dick.
Images of the noticeable bulge in Clay’s shorts, and the criss-cross scars along Cade’s naked, wet torso flashed through my head.
But it was the memory of Luka standing at the edge of the water, towel wrapped tightly but low on his hips, staring down at me, that took over.
Perhaps I would feel guilty about using him as a means to take care of myself, but that could wait until I showered after I was done.
The thread of pleasure inside tightened as I stroked myself, remembering the sight of Luka’s stomach covered in sweat as he wiped his face.
I really needed to come up with a schedule so I wouldn’t run into this problem again.
Right now, though, I had the privacy of my room and the minutes it would take to build the pleasure slowly until I—
“Alright, so you might have put Reggie off, but I…holy shit!” Luka came to a halt so hard his feet actually scuffed the carpeting.
“You must be joking,” I said, disbelief heavy in my voice. “Surely.”
“God,” he hissed, scrunching his eyes. “Reggie said it was fixed. It was supposed to be fixed! I didn’t see the privacy mode activated.”
“Clearly it…” I began, then stopped. It occurred to me that in my haste to take advantage of the perfect opportunity, I hadn’t actually activated privacy mode. “I...may have forgotten.”
His eyes stayed pinched shut, but his expression turned wry. “You may have forgotten?”
“Fine, I did forget.”
Oh God, I still had my dick in my hand, and it was still hard. I couldn’t decide if that was humiliating or irritating. “Are you going to stand there and watch or what?”
He froze. “What?”
Oh my God, of all the moments for him to decide to be dense and not take an obvious clue that he needed to leave. “I do not need the main actor in my masturbatory fantasy to stand there like a sheltered virgin when the door is right behind him.”
His expression went slack. His eyes stayed closed, but the shock on his face took a moment to register before I felt like someone had shoved my face into icy water. His lips parted, fluttering for a moment before he sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, did you just—”
“I did not,” I said, panic screaming to life as I scrambled to come up with an explanation that did not involve admitting what I had most definitely just said to him. “I am flustered and frustrated, and I don’t do well under pressure in a...non-professional capacity.”
“Did you just...admit to jerking off to thoughts of me?” he asked, and I realized he was still wearing the same outfit as when he’d jogged up to Reggie and me.
Which meant he had not showered before..
. Actually, I didn’t know his reason for visiting me before finishing his workout.
What I did know, though, was that the front of his pants looked smaller than they had, and I’d had every reason to inspect his shorts before.
..and now. Something else was bigger, and it was definitely making the shorts look smaller.
Don’t. Don’t do it, Rowan, don’t do it.
I licked my lips. “Did you...want me to say it?”
“I did not ask you to say that,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if I should admire him for keeping his eyes closed or be irritated at his constant shyness. “You said that of your own accord.”
Don’t do it.
“Did you like me saying it?” I asked in a quieter voice and felt my dick throb in my hand when he swallowed hard and didn’t immediately deny it.