17. Mikhail
Chapter seventeen
Mikhail
Isqueeze my cock painfully as I rock my hips.
The shower beats against my back as I rest one hand on the cold tile and the other makes a slow drag up and down my length.
It’s my shameful ritual, but one I’ve accepted as just something I have to do to keep her.
I work out to take the edge off, and then jack off in the shower to finish the craving.
I squirt a small amount of her body wash into my palm and use it as lube. Every time.
I know jacking off to thoughts of my best friend, when he’s only a room away, is wrong on so many levels, but when I started to at fourteen, I really hadn’t had much of a choice.
I’ve been so horny for her; everything about her turned me on.
I must have showered four times a day, just to jack off to images of her.
I let my favorite scenario play behind my closed eyelids: a sunlit room, a bed covered in white sheets, and waking up with her slowly.
Except, where that is our normal morning routine, we’re both sleeping naked.
She’ll wiggle her ass against me in her sleep, and I’ll snake my hand down the front of her stomach to hold her between her legs.
When she stirs again, she’ll feel me there and spread her legs for me more.
I’ll play with her with my fingers forever, until she’s squirming, soaking my hand and so desperate for me - as desperate for me as I always am for her.
Then I’ll hover over her, pinning her beneath me, taking in all of her beauty unabashedly. For now, it’s quick glances and eye contact while we talk, but in my fantasy I allow myself to really look at her.
I’ll work my way down her body until I can feast on her soaked pussy until she begs me to stop. I want her fingers through my long hair. I want her writhing beneath me, clawing at my shoulders and needing more.
And then I want to make love to her like she’s the most precious thing in my life. Because she is.
I watch porn as much as the next guy, and my favorites are always the sweet, sensual, lazy morning videos where two people coming together looks more like a work of art than a hot, quick romp.
I gasp, and then breathe my orgasm out silently through my nose, painting the walls with my cum.
Is jacking off to images of my best friend when she’s only a room or two away pathetic? Sure.
Do I have any pride or self-preservation instincts when it comes to her? No.
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And if I’m going to stand any chance of cuddling with her, holding hands with her, or spooning her tonight without begging her to touch me, I have to set my pride aside and take the edge off where I can.
It’s not her fault I’m so turned on by her. It shouldn’t be her burden, either.
I’m careful to wipe the remnants of my orgasm off the wall and run a washcloth over it so she never suspects, before rinsing her soap off my spent cock and shutting off the water.
When I step back into the bathroom, though, I know I’ve fucked up.
I forgot to bring my clean clothes. That’s my routine - I always bring my clean clothes into the bathroom with me, so she doesn’t see my secret.
Before my first shift at the rescue, Lev drove me back to the apartment to pack my own bags, but I set them in the room across the hall from Tati because the closets here are much smaller than the apartment.
Shit. I left my phone in that room too, so it’s not like I can ask Tati or Lev to bring me clothes. I drag my piercing under my top teeth and tongue as a nervous habit.
No, this is fine. Tati was taking a nap when I went for my shower. It’ll be two seconds, and I can dart down the hallway and put clothes on.
Taking a fortifying breath in and out, I wrap the towel around my waist and bolt out of the door.
I’m halfway down the hall when her laughter rings out, and I freeze. She’s not in her room taking a nap. She’s in the goddamn kitchen, with a direct view of my tattoos.
She turns and does a double take when she sees me - her eyes widening and her smile falling as she takes in my body.
Fuck!
I’m frozen with indecision. Do I run back to the bathroom? Do I run to my room? Or do I face the consequences of my own actions?
“Mik?” she asks, and it snags the attention of Lev and Roman from where they’re on the couch.
“Oh, shit,” Lev says, at the same time Roman says, “Wow.”
I tilt my head back, refusing to be ashamed of my body and the art that adorns it.
Tati walks up to me on socked feet, but I can’t meet her eyes.
I’ve thought about this day from the second the artist put the needle to skin.
It was the night of her very first date in high school.
Lifting weights, punching a heavy bag, and jerking off so much my dick hurt hadn’t dulled the anger and fear inside.
She’d looked so excited as she was getting ready for that date.
Excited like she might be going out with ‘the one’, and it had twisted up something dark and dirty inside of me.
So, I found a shop: Twisted Ink. Axel specialized in hyperrealistic and watercolor designs, and he was happy to work on me in silence. Over the years, he knows more about my body than even Tati, even if we’ve never had a conversation.
A part of me wants to feel bad for hiding this from her, but how could I show her? It would ruin everything.
Just like right now.
This is going to go one of two ways: she’ll play it off like it's nothing, or everything I’ve worked so hard to hide will blow up this carefully constructed balance we have.
I flinch hard when her hand touches my pec. I wasn’t expecting it.
Blue eyes look up, searching mine. “What...”
The pec she’s touching has one of her paintings from high school on it. It’s a man’s hand wrapped in a woman’s, like a prayer, wrapped in a red ribbon. It’s imperfect. She’d just started learning how to sketch, but it had meant something to me.
I swallow around a ball of emotion as I wait for her to see the rest.
Along my ribs is an angel, half draped in a robe with one breast exposed, while a female devil has a hand wrapped around her ankle, trying to pull her down.
Tati painted this freshman year of college.
On the other side of my ribs is the back of a woman’s head, hair splayed around, underwater, shoulder and arm extended, reaching towards the surface of the water.
On my other pec is a pomegranate she sketched in class. It looks like it’s been bitten or ripped open with fangs or sharp teeth, seeds and juice spilling out and sprayed onto the ground.
Both of my arms are covered in shoulder-to-wrist sleeves with small sketches, paintings, and the impressive way Axel’s managed to use vines, flowers, feathers, and ribbons to make them all a unified canvas.
From here, though, she can’t see my back.
It feels like an eternity while her hand roams, and she inspects my ink. I suck in a gasp when she wraps a hand around my wrist and lifts it to drag her other fingers over my ribs. It fucking tickles.
Finally, she drops my arm and blinks up at me, confused.
I don’t know what to tell her. I know she wants an answer, but the past decade of loving her in secret...
how can I have words for that? How can I admit that every date that I wished her luck on hurt me so badly that I used pain to escape the possibility of losing her?
Even if I knew that I would happily miss her for the rest of my life if it meant she got everything she wanted.
Guilt floods me, and I look down, hunching my shoulders in on myself. I feel like I’ve betrayed her. I may not have lied to her outright, but I’ve been wearing a lie of omission like a blanket.
Her jaw ticks. Angry Tati. I deserve this.
“What is this, Mik?” she asks, her voice quiet and just for us. I don’t want to do this with an audience, but Roman and Lev make no attempt to move.
Do I lie more? Tell her it’s nothing. That I just like her artwork? Or do I pour my heart out and hope she doesn’t kick me out? I want to be here for her, even if I can’t have her the way that I want.
I shrug miserably - unable to lie to her more, and also unwilling to tell her the truth.
She taps my pec, the one with the hands. “I drew this in high school,” she whispers. I think she’s trying to figure out what all this means, especially when I’m not giving her a direct answer.
“I know,” I say quietly.
Blue eyes find mine again. “I... I don’t know what this means...”
I flatten her hand onto my pec with my own. “It doesn’t change anything...” I plead. Please don’t let this change anything. Not now. Not when I almost lost her three nights ago. Not when we don’t know if she’s still in danger.
She licks her lips, but nods as if she’s not really convinced.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I ask, hope bubbling up in my chest.
She nods again, still looking confused and far away, but she’s nodding. “Okay.”
Relief overwhelms me, and I drag her into my arms, pressing her cheek to my pec and dropping a kiss to her hair.
I know this isn’t at all the end of this conversation, and that I got lucky, but I’ll take the reprieve where I can.
I press her back, double-checking her face, making sure we’re okay.
She nods that we are, and I leave to get dressed.