Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zeke
I’ve never been someone who has that intense sexual drive that my brothers do. If I go weeks or months with no sex, it doesn’t bother me. So why the actual fuck am I so desperate for it now?
It was only last week that I was with Charles, and based on past experience, that kind of intense orgasm should have lasted me to the Olympics, but somehow, it’s had the opposite effect. I’ve been choking the chicken all week with no end in sight.
Hush Hush and early locker room encounters aren’t the answer though.
Every time we meet up that way feels like a foggy memory, something that could just as easily be a dream.
It’s how I was able to disassociate so easily.
Quickies are all well and good, but I’m craving …
more. A whole night. A chance to really figure out how his body works.
I kick myself over even teasing the impossibility as I slice through the water.
Unless I’m willing to come out and play a huge gamble with my future, I need to be happy with anything I can get.
I’m working on a business degree, I have options for my future, but where I’m at now, I can only see two possibilities.
The first, I end up in an office somewhere. Maybe toeing the line of middle class like my parents, hopefully as happy as them and not bitter that my dreams came to nothing. I have some ideas on directions I could take, but I’ve been actively avoiding giving myself a fallback.
The second, I live out my dreams. Because if I make it to the Olympics, I’m going to be on that fucking podium.
Maybe I’ll come out after I’ve made a name for myself, maybe I won’t. All I know is this addiction I’m feeling to being with Charles will pass. He’s a way to spend time. I need to remember that.
Unfortunately, remembering becomes a whole lot harder when I haul myself out of the pool at the end of practice and find Charles sitting on the bench, waiting for me. My breath catches, and I have to remind myself to let go again.
“Hey,” I say as I approach him, swim cap in one hand, towel drying my hair in the other.
Charles’s stare immediately drops to my abs and then pings away again.
“Morning. I brought you coffee.” He lifts a takeout cup, gaze fixed somewhere off to the left.
“Thanks.” My lips tug at the corners. “I’ll go take a quick shower.”
And it might be my imagination, but his posture gets a bit straighter, his cheeks a bit redder, at the mention of those showers. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing I am, or maybe my thoughts are so clouded over by that moment that nothing else exists in my mind.
He nods stiffly. “I’ll wait right here.”
“Where else would you wait?”
He meets my eyes, and his face twitches like he wants to laugh. I wish he would. Instead, I hold his gaze for another beat before I drag it—and my ass—away.
It’s the fastest shower I’ve had in a long time, and I only half dry my hair before I stuff everything into my bag, pull my WHU hoodie on over my clothes, and then head back out to meet him.
My breath does that dumb hitch again, and it’s so ridiculous I can’t stop from laughing at myself.
So this is infatuation, huh? I don’t hate it, but it could have picked a better time to hit.
In a few months, all this will mean nothing, and I have to be careful not to let this … interest get away from me.
Charles stands when I reach him, handing over a coffee that tastes freaking incredible.
“What is this?”
“Hazelnut latte.”
Huh. I take another sip, and yep. That’s what that taste is. “Nutty. I like nuts.”
He almost chokes on his laugh. “Please don’t make me think of nuts right now.”
“Hazelnuts. Geez, head out of the gutter. You’re in presidential company.”
Somehow, he doesn’t roll his eyes as he plucks my sleeve and drags me after him. That seems like an improvement to me.
Once we step out of the building and head toward the parking lot, some of the tension leaves him. “You’re going to have to be more careful than that if you don’t want anyone to know there’s … that something is … about … you know.”
“About what?”
“About us.” He scowls. “Well, not that we’re an us, just that between us, there are things happening that you’d prefer no one knew about, and if you keep looking at me like you want to eat me whole, someone is going to pick up on it.”
I swear he didn’t take a breath that whole sentence. “Like I want to eat you whole. Is that how I look at you?”
“That’s definitely the way my dick interprets it.”
Interesting. “Are you hard right now?”
“Zeke!”
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”
“That’s a ‘we can’t do anything, so don’t tease me.’”
“Wow.” I blink at him. “My name translates into a lot.”
“You have no idea.” He crosses his arms, footsteps getting heavier as we cross the parking lot.
I chuckle, then jog to catch up with him. “You’re kinda pissy today.”
“Long night.”
“Then why are you up so early?”
We reach my car, and Charles leans against it. He turns his pouty face up toward me, and it does things to my gut that I’d never admit out loud. Still, he doesn’t answer me, and it takes my dumb ass a while to figure out what he’s saying without saying it.
A smile springs to my face. “You missed me.”
“No need to sound so cocky about it.”
“You actually missed me.”
He sighs, pretending to inspect his nails. “Just let me know when you’re done.”
“I’m done.”
He looks out at me from under a skeptically raised eyebrow.
I hold up my hands, trying not to drop my coffee. “Really.”
“Fine. Yes. So maybe I wanted to see you.”
That makes me unreasonably happy as I take in his appearance. He’s almost disheveled, which is an odd look on him. “You okay?”
“Yeah. M’fine.”
I tilt my head, noting the dark smudges under his eyes. “Just how long was your night?”
“Long enough that my study session finished around the perfect time to pick up coffee before your morning swim ended.”
Yikes. He pulled an all-nighter. No one wonder he looks so wrecked. Then again, if our places were switched, I can guarantee I’d look like I’d been punched in both eyes. Somehow, Charles still looks gorgeous. “Come on, I have an idea.”
He doesn’t move as I reach past him to unlock the car. “You’re going already?”
“We’re going.”
“Where?”
“Back to my place. You can have a sleep before class.”
“What? No. I—”
“Get in the car, Chuck.”
“There is just …” He shakes his head. “So many reasons why that’s a no.”
I glance around to make sure there isn’t anyone else out, and once I’m sure the coast is clear, I step closer, caging him against the car. “Is one of those reasons that you don’t want to?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He draws a long breath, and I try not to laugh at how familiar his exasperation is. It’s a heads-up that the blustering is about to start, so I let him get through it without interruption.
“First of all, any one of your brothers could see, and how the hell do we explain what I’m doing in your house so early—I don’t think a nap is going to cut it when I live five houses away.
Plus, my first class starts at nine, and when I’m this tired, I’m likely to sleep through my alarm, and then I’ll miss the quiz I stayed up all night studying for in the first place.
And also, I drove here. My car is literally right over there. ”
I step closer and lean in so we’re eye to eye. “You good now?”
“Hmph.”
“Please come over.”
“Zeke …”
“Don’t make me remind you about how much you missed me.”
He scowls. “So much for being done talking about that.”
I chuckle and tilt my lips to his ear. “If we’re done talking about it, I guess I shouldn’t tell you that I missed you too.”
When I pull back, Charles’s lips are mimicking a fish. “Y-you did?”
“Yeah, Charlie.” I tweak his chin. “I think I did.”
“Okay …”
“Now, will you get in the fucking car?”
An uncertain smile flashes over his face, and then he hurries to nod. I step back so he can round the car while I slide into the driver’s side.
The whole way back to Greek Row, Charles reminds me how against this idea he is, and how he won’t be held responsible for my brothers finding out about me, and how he’s only coming there to hang out and will not, will absolutely not be going to sleep.
I smile while I listen to his never-ending voice, trying to remember a time when I ever found this annoying.
There were plenty of times when I told my brothers he was annoying.
That his voice rubbed me wrong and it was draining listening to him whine all the damn time.
But … every meeting we’ve ever had, I’ve gone along to with no complaint.
I could have handed it off, I could have canceled. And yet … I never did.
“What are you smiling at?” he asks.
I didn’t even realize I was. Shit. Well, I’m not going to tell him I was smiling over him, now am I?
Or that I was picturing all those times I should have passed his problems off to someone else to deal with.
And I’m definitely not going to say I’m smiling because I think I’ve had a soft spot for him for a while now.
“You’ll smell it in a moment.”
“What? Dick!” He scrambles for the window button and has his head in the fresh air before the window is all the way down.
Disaster averted. For now. I’m going to have to learn how to keep my face under control.
The house is as quiet as it normally is when we get back, and I crack the door and listen for any sounds of my brothers.
The lacrosse guys would be gone by now, and all my brothers who played football sleep in until the final possible moment to leave for class now that the season is over.
I grab the sleeve of Charles’s hoodie and drag him inside and down the hall.
We’re in my room before anyone sees us, and I quickly lock the door.
“I think you pulled my arm off,” he says.
“Worth it.”
“I’m glad loss of my limbs is a price you’re willing to pay to spend time with me.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Now, get in bed.”
“I said I’m not sleeping.”
“Did I say anything about sleep?” I inject as much innocence as I can into my tone. “I only mentioned getting into the bed.”
“And what will you do with me once I’m there?” The husky way his voice drops makes my cock stir, but I stamp that shit down.
“Only one way to find out.” I advance on him, loving the way he watches every move. His eyes burn into me, and when I pause, leaning in, his mouth tilts up toward mine. Damn, I want to kiss him too, but …
I bypass his lips, grab the backs of his thighs, and throw him on the bed. His yelp is loud enough they probably heard it down the end of the street, and I have to stifle my laugh as I kick off my shoes and climb up after him.
Charles is on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I hate you.”
“Sure you do.”
“You think you’re so charming, but you’re not.”
“I can think of many people who’d disagree with you.”
He hmphs again as I reach down to take off his shoes and then pull the blanket over us both. “All of those people are mistaken.”
“Including you?” I tease.
“Especially me.”
I laugh, and even though I’m already skating a dangerous line, I wrap my arm around him and pull him closer. Charles immediately curls into my chest and tries to stifle the yawn that takes over.
“I’ll miss my class,” he murmurs.
“I swear I won’t let that happen. Just close your eyes.”
“I will, but only for a second and not because you told me to.”
“I’m so glad you cleared that up.”
It’s barely a second later that his breathing suddenly deepens and soft snores come from under my chin. I roll onto my back, careful to take him with me, and distract myself with my phone. I promised him he wouldn’t miss his class, and I’m sure as hell going to keep my word.
His warm weight pressing against my chest settles me, and as much as I wish I could drift off, as much as I wish we could say fuck classes and stay like this all day, I know we both have other responsibilities that we can’t ignore.
But this next hour is ours.
And I let myself dream of days waking up like this, where it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
Where it’s me and the man I’ve chosen above everyone else.
A man who smells like caramel candles, wears his pride on his chin, and unexpectedly snores.
I let the image go.
The only image that matters is the one I’ve had for years.
Gold.
A podium.
And my secret locked up tight.
It’s getting really hard to remember that.