Chapter 9
TIAGO
Oh god. His dark eyes locked on the camera lens, and very slowly, one eyebrow rose.
“Are you…filming me?”
I swallowed heavily. “No, no. Um…”
He turned and rested his ass against the backs of his heels, a white T-shirt in one hand. His head tilted to the side as he observed me, and while I knew I should put my camera away, I didn’t.
“Oh.” His tone told me he understood what was happening. “Can you see like that?”
With a trembling breath, I nodded, my gaze fixed on his face. I expected him to be offended or confused. Maybe a little weirded out.
He didn’t look like any of those things.
“And you like watching me? You just said I look good, right?”
“I can’t possibly be alone in thinking you look good. You’re fucking gorgeous, and you must know that,” I rasped. I started to lower my phone, but he leaned forward with a hand out.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
He sat back, then carefully tossed the shirt my way. I didn’t catch it, but I felt it land beside my free hand. “I mean, it’s only fair, right? You can see all of me on that screen, which is exactly what you would have seen if you weren’t…”
He was one of those people who fumbled over that word. I let the moment linger before feeding it to him. “Blind. Unless you want to argue that I’m not?”
“No. I was a dick for that, and I am sorry. Like, truly sorry.”
I believed him. It was in his eyes and in the tone of his voice. Most people apologized to save face, but not him. At least, not this time.
“I forgive you.”
Both of his brows lifted, and then his mouth stretched into a smile. His teeth were white, not quite straight—his eyeteeth were slightly crooked and poked out a little over his lower lip. And suddenly, he was even more beautiful than before.
I let out another shaking breath as he lifted up. My camera followed him until he was too close, and only his torso filled up the screen.
“Let me help you change,” he murmured. His hand skimmed down my arm, then plucked the phone from my fingers and set it to the side. I heard it hit the seat with a thud before he tugged, and without warning, I was rising to my feet.
“What,” I started as his fingers went for the hem of my shirt.
“You can’t keep wearing this. You’re a mess.”
I didn’t need to guess if he was flirting. I didn’t need to try to figure out if I was reading the situation wrong or not. He was busy making it very, very obvious.
Aravind’s fingers skimmed my stomach as he collected the shirt, bunching it in his fist so he could drag it over my head without making a mess all over my skin. I let out a heavy breath as the fabric peeled away from my arms, and the air in the room suddenly felt very cold.
“Mm,” Aravind murmured. “Gorgeous.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I felt a sudden urge to hide. I couldn’t help being a little self-conscious under the gaze of a man as good-looking as he was. I felt like a big, clumsy lump of flesh, and there was no way he found that attractive.
“You’re hiding from me?” he asked.
“I…” My words died off as he took my wrists and gently pulled my hands down. “Um.”
“Can I look at you?”
Swallowing heavily, I nodded. “I guess it’s only fair. You let me look at you.”
He made a soft humming noise as he sat back, and he was close enough to me that I could see both of his dark, wandering eyes. They moved slowly, taking in every inch of my exposed skin.
“Scar.” His fingers touched the side of my hip.
“First blindness casualty,” I murmured. “Seventeen stitches. I fell one night when I was walking home from a friend’s house. I didn’t realize how bad my eyes were getting until I turned on our street, and most of the lamps had burned out.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His fingers played over the rough, jagged lines where I’d been stitched together.
“It’s fine.” It was now. It wasn’t back then. I got in trouble for being an inconvenience. My dad accused me of being drunk or high—which, yeah, I was, but falling had nothing to do with that.
Aravind let out a small breath, then said, “Is this okay?”
I blinked at him. Being so close, I could only catch bits and pieces of his face. His eyes. Down a bit to his nose—wide at the tip and pierced in the right nostril. His lips were full, and there was a faint shadow from where he’d recently shaved over his lower lip and chin.
It was a strange thought, but I knew suddenly he would look just as pretty with a rich, thick beard.
I fought the urge to reach up and touch his skin there, to see if it was as rough as it looked.
“Are you, ah…are you being serious?” I finally asked him. “About this?”
“Yes. I can be a bit forward, I think. Sometimes I read the room wrong. I know you don’t like me, but I think you want me.”
I started to make a noise of protest, but it wasn’t completely honest. I didn’t like him before. Now, I wasn’t so sure how I felt. All I knew was that life had been a lot lately, and the weight of him was comfortable.
And I had always been attracted to him. I couldn’t help that back then, and it was even worse now. I wanted to lean in and kiss him—to taste his tongue, to feel his hands in my hair, to rub off on him. And I was fairly sure that’s where he was going with all of this.
“Do we have to like each other to keep going where we’re going?”
Aravind’s pretty pink tongue darted out to lick his lips, and I caught a glimpse of a round tongue ring with a pink ball on the tip. “And where are we going?”
I hesitated, doubt creeping in for the first time. “Are you trying to make a fool out of me? Embarrass me?”
“I know I was a dick,” he said, his voice kind of sharp, “but I’m not that kind of person.
I don’t like humiliation.” He paused, then said, “Sometimes I get things very wrong, and when I do, I get hurt. I’m being careful.
I don’t know what you want, and not even twenty minutes ago, you hated my guts, so… ”
I gave in to the urge to touch him, wrapping my hands around his waist. He groaned and rocked himself down against me. “I never hated your guts. I was pissed off at you for what you wrote in that article, and I’m still a little annoyed at you for being so shitty about my place in the league—”
“I said I was—”
“Sorry,” I finished for him. “I know. And I do forgive you, but it might take a little time to stop feeling that sting.”
“Okay,” he murmured. I felt a jolt of shock pass through me because I was expecting him to fight me on that. “I can understand that. But I do need you to be clear on what you want and that this is okay.”
“It’s okay.” I skated a touch up his back, absently counting the knobs in his spine. “It’s more than okay.”
I hadn’t ever fucked a guy like him before. Usually, it was quick and dirty, in a bathroom stall or in my hotel room with them on their knees before I booted them out the door.
Sometimes they were hockey players. Sometimes they were fans. But they almost always looked like me. It was never a conscious choice. It just sort of happened because I never felt like I had the freedom to chase what drew me in.
It was easier to get rejected by people I didn’t give a shit about than to put myself out there only to find out it was pity or curiosity or a fucking bet.
“You feel tense,” Aravind murmured as he shuffled closer to me. “If you’re not into this, or into guys, or…”
“I’m into this, and I’m into guys,” I said. “I’m into you. You did nothing but piss me off for an entire season, and I still sometimes fantasized about—” I cut myself off.
Maybe I shouldn’t be saying any of this.
“What?” he urged in a whisper. He tipped his head forward and nuzzled his nose alongside mine. “Tell me. I want to hear about the ways you thought you’d fuck me.”
My swallow got caught in my throat, and it was a moment before I could speak again. “Ah. I’m not very creative or inventive,” I warned. “Mostly, I thought about you finding me after a game, asking me questions. Getting me all riled up.”
“Then you pressed me against the locker and fucked my ass?” he chanced.
My face bloomed even hotter because no. No. It wasn’t that. I cleared my throat again. “More like…”
“Oh.” Pulling back, I could see the surprise in his gaze. “I pressed you against the locker and fucked your ass?”
“The bench,” I muttered. “Over the bench.”
His teeth dug into his lower lip, and I wondered if he was blushing. If I touched him, would his cheeks be warm? “Is that what you like? To bottom?”
I let out a trembling breath. “I don’t get to very often.
For a long time, I had a girlfriend, and she wasn’t into, you know, toys.
And hookups were always too quick to enjoy them.
But, yes. I…I prefer it. I like it. I liked to be bossed around and controlled.
And I think that would feel amazing with you. ”
“Fuck,” Aravind breathed out. “Fuck, I want that more than anything. But we can’t do that here. There’s not a chance in hell we’d fit in the bathroom together, and there’s only a curtain blocking us from the other passengers.”
It was almost like a physical blow to remember that only a bit of fabric separated us from the rest of the ferry. And as much as that should scare me, it just turned me on even more.
Aravind shifted on me as my cock throbbed, and he grinned. “Oh. You kind of like that too. I thought you said you weren’t inventive.”
“These days, exhibitionism is pretty vanilla.”
He burst into laughter, then suddenly had me by the side of my face, tugging me into a kiss. His tongue ring clinked against my top teeth, and then his tongue swirled around mine. The kiss was a little mean and a lot messy and absolutely fucking perfect.
It was nothing like I imagined, and god, I was done even trying to fantasize about what Aravind might be like because nothing would ever compare to the real man.
Aravind eased back, and I let myself breathe for a second. “Can I…can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he said, rocking gently on my lap. His cock was hard. I could feel it through his thin, tight jeans.
It took me a moment to focus. “How did you know that I’d want this? I do, but…was I being obvious?”