Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Cameron
I couldn’t sleep.
I’d folded out the sofa bed as though I was defusing a bomb, with slow, careful movements, terrified of making noise. The springs creaked once, traitorously loud in the hush of Theo’s flat, and I froze, listening for movement down the hallway.
Nothing, only the low hum of the fridge and the city night outside.
Everything in the flat had edges, surfaces, a precision that screamed Theo Sinclair. The shelves were neat, the coffee table lined up exactly with the rug’s border, the remote parallel to the coaster.
The kind of order that told you how someone survived their own thoughts.
I don’t belong here. I knew that. But I also couldn’t remember the last place that had felt even close to safe.
Now I was alone, I took stock of my surroundings. The sofa bed wasn’t the only seat in the room. Thank God. Theo might actually have to sit next to me. There was an armchair near the fireplace, a small table beside it. A TV screen sat against the wall.
I wonder what he likes to watch?
That was stuff I didn’t need to know.
I probably won’t be here long enough to find out either.
I brushed my teeth in Theo’s bathroom, using the spare cup, aware of the faint scent of cedar soap and the aftershave I remembered from that night at the bar, something dark, smoky, and probably expensive.
I remembered Theo’s words from that night too.
How they’d stung. I’d told myself it didn’t matter.
But it had mattered, way too much.
I lay in the middle of the sofa bed, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling and counting the cracks in the plaster.
Theo’s bedroom door was closed, but not far. The flat was small enough that every tiny sound carried. When Theo moved—a restless turn, a sigh, the soft groan of mattress springs—I heard it. Felt it, even.
Every time I tried to close my eyes, my mind betrayed me.
It was full of Theo.
I turned over, pressing my face into the pillow. It smelled faintly like linen and Theo’s laundry detergent. I hated how that made my stomach twist.
When I finally drifted off, the sun was already pale through the curtains.
Theo
I lay in the dark, aware of every noise that filtered through the door.
My mind provided images of Cameron nude between white sheets, and a shiver rippled through me.
I slid my hand beneath my own sheets, brushing over my nipple in a languid motion, moving lower, lower, until my fingertips grazed the elasticated waistband of my briefs.
How does Cameron touch a lover? Is he gentle? Rough? Passionate?
I trailed my fingers over my burgeoning erection, squeezing it through the soft cotton, feeling it harden, lengthen. My breathing quickened as I pictured Cameron lying naked beside me, his hand wrapped around his own shaft, coaxing it to full capacity.
I swallowed and rolled onto my front. In my imagination, I pinned Cameron to the mattress, our cocks sliding over each other.
I squeezed my arse cheeks, thrusting against the mattress, humping it, rocking, my mind supplying delicious details of Cameron beneath me, meeting my movements with his own, his hips pumping, moans falling from his lips.
I removed my briefs and stuffed a pillow under my hips, thrusting into it, loving the friction, the imaginary slide of slick flesh against equally slick, heated flesh.
I clutched the bottom sheet in my fists, hips rolling as I pushed my cock into the pillow, breathing shallow and rapid as I neared orgasm, Cameron’s face filling my head, the flush on Cameron’s chest, his wide eyes, his parted lips.
And when I got too close, I flipped onto my back, dick pulsing cum onto my belly, my body shaking, fingers tweaking nipples to give an edge to my climax.
Fuck.
I lay in the dark, chest heaving, breathing ragged and harsh in the quiet. I scrubbed a hand over my face, hating how warm my skin felt, how sensitive. My pulse throbbed in my throat, in my fingertips, everywhere I didn’t want Cameron to exist.
The heat hadn’t faded yet, the raw, startling pleasure of it, and that was the problem.
God.
I’d wanted Cameron with a hunger that had no business being in this flat, on this night, under this roof. The silence pressed around me, thick and accusing. I pulled the sheets higher, even though the room was warm.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I was supposed to control myself, to compartmentalise, to shut my body off like a switch and file away every feeling into neat, manageable categories.
Instead, Cameron had walked through my front door and my whole system had buckled.
A sound tumbled from my lips, born of frustration, shame, or something in between.
I turned onto my side, but the movement only made me more aware of the stickiness on my stomach, the rapid beat of my heart, the way pleasure still pulsed through my body.
I exhaled sharply, and the low, chiding voice in my head was threaded with that familiar undercurrent of amused disappointment Luka had always wielded like a scalpel.
“Honestly, Theo. You really can’t control yourself, can you?”
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. “Not now. Not tonight.”
Memory could be a relentless bitch.
I’d been twenty, new to everything—sex, intimacy, bodies—and so desperate to be good at it. To be good for Luka, or at least good in the way Luka defined it.
The first time I’d gotten close too quickly, Luka had stilled inside me and laughed, not in outright cruelty, but cruel in a teasing, knowing way that crawled under my skin. I could still feel that laughter reverberating through my body.
“Slow down,” Luka had murmured, his mouth curved. “You’re always rushing. It’s like you’re embarrassed to want anything.”
I’d flushed, mortified. I’d apologised without being asked, and Luka had given a pleased hum before resuming his slow, torturous thrusts while I tried to hold back my orgasm.
Later that night, when I’d unconsciously reached for him again, Luka had caught my wrist, firm enough to freeze me.
“See? This is what I mean. You’re better when you’re quiet. When you let me lead.”
Except in Luka’s vocabulary, better had meant quiet, obedient.
I’d internalised it like scripture, because Luka had given me attention and affection. There had even been moments of validation, all of which he took away the moment I stepped out of line.
After a few months, I learnt to mute my pleasure, my needs. I also learnt to be quieter.
I became efficient, careful, and controlled, an instrument Luka could tune as he liked.
That was the beginning of it, the end of instinct.
The start of shame.
I shuddered out a breath. I turned my face into the pillow, as if that alone could silence the echo of Luka’s voice. But the guilt was already here, heavy and smothering. Luka’s words tangled with the fresh memory of Cameron’s smile as he’d thanked me sincerely.
And here was I, minutes later, doing this. Wanting him enough to fall apart alone in the dark like some lovesick, pathetic version of myself.
I swallowed hard. My throat ached.
I hated how right it had felt in the moment, and how wrong it felt now.
I hated that I couldn’t tell the difference between desire and danger anymore.
I tried to ground myself.
I shouldn’t want him.
He’s Gary’s brother.
He trusts me.
He’s sleeping ten feet away.
And worst of all:
He makes me feel louder… and I don’t know how to be that man.
A tremor ran through me, not physical, but emotional, something I hadn’t allowed since Luka. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, my breaths evening out slowly, painfully. Cameron’s face hovered in my mind again, open and guileless, and nothing like Luka’s.
That was the real danger.
Although I could endure control, punishment, withdrawal, even coldness, I couldn’t endure kindness.
It stripped me bare and made me reckless.
It made me imagine things I wasn’t allowed to want.
I closed my eyes. This was the last time I’d let Cameron into my fantasies. It had to be this way.
I wouldn’t lose myself again.
I rolled onto my side, my body exhausted, my mind a mess, and my heart pounding with the aftershocks of something that felt too much like longing. Through the bedroom door I caught the creak of the sofa bed, Cameron shifting in his sleep.
My chest constricted, and I whispered to the empty room, ashamed of how much it hurt.
“This is going to ruin me.”
Cameron was going to break me.
All I felt was the raw ache of wanting something I was terrified to reach for.
All I heard was the ghost of Luka’s voice, still whispering.
Cameron
The smell of coffee woke me.
I blinked, groggy, disorientated for half a second until I remembered where I was. Then I sat up fast, because shit—this wasn’t my house. This was Theo’s sofa.
And Theo was awake.
I rubbed at my eyes, conscious of my hair sticking up at every angle, the way it always did, and reached for my hoodie, trying to make myself look less like a guy who’d been dreaming about his host.
From the kitchen came the quiet rhythm of morning. The kettle was boiling. A cabinet door closed. There was the scrape of a spoon against ceramic.
I hesitated, then pushed the blanket aside, grabbed my jeans and squirmed into them, and stood.
Theo was already dressed in dark jeans and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows.
Of course he is.
His hair was damp from the shower, the faint scent of soap trailing in the air between us. He looked so freaking composed, like someone who didn’t have a clue what it felt like to fall apart at two AM.
“Morning,” I croaked.
Theo turned, his mug halfway to his mouth. For half a beat, he froze, then straightened. “Did you manage to get some sleep?”
I gave a half-shrug. “Some. Your sofa bed’s surprisingly comfortable.”
“I know,” Theo said. “I had to test it. For guests.”
I smiled faintly. “You get many of those?”
Theo gazed at me. “Define ‘many.’”
“More than one?”
Theo arched his eyebrows. “Then no.”