Chapter 22
Samuel
The present returned as a slow, thick seepage into his senses.
First was the smell. A faint, lemony polish, the dry whisper of cotton, and underneath it all, something else; something dark, green, and cedary that clung to the pillowcase. Gael’s smell.
Then, the light. It was wrong. Too diffuse, too grey.
Finally, the surface beneath him. The mattress was too firm, unforgiving. The duvet was heavier than the one he used, a dense, cool weight.
His eyes flew open.
He stared at the white ceiling, his heart beginning a slow, heavy knock against his sternum.
Where...?
Memory crashed over him in a sickening wave.
The silent, appraising look at the door. The tour; you will use these. The weight of the book in his hands. The questions. The way the air had thickened with each one, pressing down on him until he couldn’t breathe. The tear. The nod.
Gael’s apartment.
The panic settled. It poured into the hollows of his ribs, a cold, liquid poison. He was in Gael Wise’s apartment. On a Saturday morning. He had slept here. He was expected to stay until Sunday. The reality of it felt ludicrous. Insane.
What was he doing here? Playing house with his boss? Letting himself be… what?
He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Shame followed, swift and corrosive. It burned up from his stomach, heating his face, tightening his throat.
He saw himself from the outside: a pathetic, lonely man, so desperate for a scrap of attention he’d agree to be someone’s toy.
He’d cried in front of him. He’d admitted he had no one.
He’d basically confessed to being a virgin.
He’d nodded like a desperate child when asked if he wanted to be touched.
A low groan escaped him, muffled by the pillow. He rolled onto his side, curling in on himself, as if he could physically compress the humiliation, make it smaller.
He couldn’t stay here. He should get up, grab his bag, and leave. Text an apology later. Claim a family emergency.
But even as the thought formed, he knew he wouldn’t.
It would mean facing Gael at work on Monday, having broken the one rule that had been laid down.
It would mean seeing the cold disappointment in those dark eyes, the final withdrawal of that terrifying, electrifying attention.
The thought of that loss was, inexplicably, more frightening than the shame of staying.
Anger flickered, a weak, guttering flame.
He was tired. So profoundly tired. Tired of the constant, low-grade panic.
Tired of the shame that followed him like a shadow.
Tired of feeling like a raw nerve in a world of normal people.
And he was desperately, soul-crushingly tired of Gael Wise seeing him like this.
A sniveling, anxious mess. A problem to be solved.
Not again. The thought was a silent vow, clenched tight in his jaw. He wouldn’t walk out there red-eyed and trembling.
He forced himself to sit up, the duvet falling to his waist. The room was chillier than his own.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his bare feet meeting the cool hardwood.
He sat there for a long minute, elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hands, and breathed.
In. Hold. Out. He repeated it, a shaky, internal mantra, until the sharpest edges of the panic wore down into a dull, manageable ache.
He had to face him. But he would do it on his own two feet. He would be quiet. Contained. He would not offer any more of himself than had already been taken.
He stood, his body stiff from tension and the unfamiliar bed.
His bag was still by the front door, he remembered.
He went to the wardrobe and slid the door open.
Empty. But on the single shelf inside was a pair of dark jeans and a simple, heather-grey t-shirt.
They were new, the tags removed but the fabric still holding the crisp, untouched smell of a store.
His throat tightened. He shouldn’t accept them. It felt like another layer of surrender. But the idea of putting yesterday’s crumpled clothes back on was absurd.
With numb fingers, he changed. The jeans fit perfectly; slim through the hip and thigh, the hem just brushing the tops of his feet. The t-shirt was soft, fine cotton.
He opened the bedroom door. The hallway was dim, quiet. The door to Gael’s room was firmly shut. The living room ahead was empty, bathed in the flat, grey light of a cloudy morning. The book still lay on the coffee table. The armchair sat vacant.
He stood in the center of the living room, adrift.
What now? Was he supposed to go back to his room and wait? Was this a test? Should he make breakfast? Would that be presumptuous?
His earlier resolve wavered, fraying at the edges into familiar anxiety.
He couldn’t just stand here like an idiot.
Then he heard it. A sound. Faint, but distinct reached his ears. A soft clink of ceramic. From the direction of the kitchen.
His feet carried him forward before his mind could formulate a plan. He moved slowly, silently, to the archway that separated the living area from the galley kitchen.
And he stopped.
Gael stood at the far counter, his back to the room. The air smelled of dark roast and the faint, clean scent of soap.
Then Samuel’s mind processed what his eyes were seeing, and his breath stopped entirely.
Gael was wearing only a pair of soft, dark pants that hung low on his hips, the fabric so fine it might have been silk, catching the morning light with a subtle sheen. The rest of him, the expanse of his back, the powerful line of his shoulders, was bare.
A jolt, hot and immediate, locked Samuel’s joints. His mouth went utterly dry.
His gaze, against all will and reason, traveled.
It moved over the slopes of shoulder muscle, defined but not overly so.
Down the firm taper of his spine, which carved a shallow valley through the landscape of his back.
His skin was a warm, even tan, smooth over the hard planes.
Two distinct, small hollows dented the skin just above the waistband of those pants, at the base of his spine.
Samuel’s mind supplied the word from some forgotten corner of art history: the dimples of Venus.
His eyes dropped lower, following the drape of the silky fabric over the curve of his ass. The pants were loose, but not enough to hide the solid, masculine shape beneath.
Fuck.
The word exploded in Samuel’s head, silent and desperate. He wasn’t breathing. His heart was a frantic, hammering thing against his ribs, a chaotic drumbeat underscoring the riot in his mind.
This was wrong. He shouldn’t be looking.
He was staring, gaping like some starved, pathetic creature. But he couldn’t look away. The sight was a physical force, pinning him to the doorway.
Then, Gael turned.
Samuel’s mind short-circuited, whiting out into a static hum.
The front view was worse. So much worse.
His eyes, entirely without his permission, dragged across the expanse of Gael’s chest. It was broad, sculpted with the same efficient muscle, dusted with a faint smattering of dark hair that tapered down his sternum.
His stomach was flat, defined, the muscles lying in long, quiet bands.
The trail of dark hair narrowed, drawing a deliberate line down from his navel, disappearing beneath the low-slung waistband of those damn pants.
The waistband, which was hanging for dear life on the sharp points of his hips.
The V-shape it created leading downward was obscene.
The sight made Samuel feel dizzy. A violent, unspeakable impulse flared; to press his mouth there, to trace that line with his tongue, to taste the skin at the border of fabric.
The thought was so raw, so shamefully specific, that he ripped his gaze away as if burned. He stared fiercely at his own feet. His cheeks were on fire, a scalding blush he could feel spreading down his neck.
What is the matter with you?! his mind screamed, a hysterical shriek. He was disgusting. Obscene. Standing in his boss’s kitchen, staring at his bare chest, having… thoughts.
The silence stretched, thick with his panic. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
Then, he heard the soft clink of the knife being set down on granite.
Footsteps. Deliberate, unhurried. They crossed the short space of the kitchen floor.
They stopped right in front of him.
Samuel could feel the body heat radiating from him, a warmth that seemed to penetrate the cotton of his t-shirt and sear his skin. All that skin, so close… The thought was a whimper in the back of his skull.
He kept his eyes down, praying for the floor to swallow him.
Cool, firm fingers slid beneath his chin.
The touch was electric. A bolt of pure sensation that straightened his spine. The fingers exerted a gentle pressure, urging his head up.
He resisted for a fractured second, a last, futile stand of his shame. Then he yielded. His head lifted, his eyes, wide and helpless, dragged upwards.
They met Gael’s.
The world shrunk. The kitchen, the humiliating spiral of his thoughts; all of it dissolved into meaningless noise.
The only real things were the fingers beneath his chin, anchoring him to the earth, and those eyes.
Dark, deep, endlessly knowing. They held him, not with force, but with a gravitational pull.
There was no judgment in them. No amusement.
“Morning, Samuel.”
Gael’s voice was low, a quiet rumble in the silent space between them. “Sleep well?”
Samuel blinked, his brain struggling to parse the simple English. He managed a jerky, mute nod. His voice was gone, his throat a parched desert. He tried to swallow; couldn’t.
The thumb of the hand cradling his jaw moved. It stroked once, slowly, across the crest of his cheekbone. A shiver racked Samuel from head to toe. Then the thumb journeyed downward, tracing the line of his cheek until it reached the corner of his mouth.
It paused. A moment. Two.
Then, slowly, it swept across his bottom lip.