4. Tate
Tate
Tate
Good morning.
Your Guardian Fucking Angel
Good morning, Blondin.
Did you sleep well?
I set my phone down on the blanket beside me, stretching out on the bed and squinting in the early morning light.
I look down and see the massive tent my morning wood is making under the sheets, and I wrap my fist around my dick, giving it a tight squeeze.
I’ve been texting Roman.
Every day.
It was initially a joke when I told him I’d send good morning texts, but… I started doing it after that day in the dining hall, and now I can’t stop. I’ve lost count of how many good morning texts I’ve sent him at this point, and usually the conversation doesn’t go much further than that.
Finally, my phone buzzes again.
Didn’t sleep much. Did you?
I had a dream about you.
Hm. Tell me.
I don’t think you want to know about it. I was sitting on your lap.
That’s pretty G-rated, Tate.
...I was sitting on your lap completely naked, facing you, while I sank down onto your cock.
My cock throbs as I send the message.
I don’t know if I should have sent it.
I’m too honest with everyone, and I always say too much, but at the end of the day I’m not trying to piss Roman off or push a boundary.
I reach below my sheets and grip my cock, and finally, my phone vibrates again.
Your Guardian Fucking Angel
You could not handle my cock.
I moan out loud when a photo comes through, and it’s a picture of Roman’s groin. He’s wearing thick grey sweatpants, and there is a distinct outline of his cock pressed up against his leg beneath.
It’s massive.
I had gotten an impression of it that night at the party, but I had no clue it was like this.
Obscenely fucking huge, lying against his leg as it presses through the grey cotton. I don’t even know if I’m seeing the entire thing, because the picture is dark and probably taken while he’s still in bed.
You sent that fucking picture just to brag. Holy shit, Roman.
You brought it up. I am not shy about my body.
How many inches is that?
Quit texting so much. I am busy.
Doing what?
He doesn’t respond for a solid ten minutes, and I idly stroke my cock as I wait for him to reply, feeling like I’m edging myself into oblivion every time I glance at his picture again.
When I get another message from him, I’m desperately hoping it’s a full, nude photo of his shaft, but instead, it’s just words.
I am going to class now. Stay safe for one hour, Tate, and contact me immediately if you feel unsafe.
I scroll back up to the photo immediately and pump my cock harder, taking myself to the brink in under a minute and spilling fat, white streaks all over my lower stomach when I come.
God, fuck, Roman is bigger than me in every way.
My cock is really goddamn good, too, but it doesn’t compare to that thing he has beneath his pants.
I tap on the photo and save it to my phone for later.
When I get out of bed, I look over and see something on the floor by the door.
Something that definitely wasn’t there when I went to sleep.
It looks like a plain, dark stone, some sort of rock with a red ribbon around it, just sitting there right inside the door.
I haven’t been locking my door at night, because… well, I never do, and I’m starting to think that’s a really bad idea.
But clearly, someone entered last night to leave a goddamn rock.
I pick it up and see a folded note beneath it. There is some sort of symbol, circles and lines, carved into the bottom of the flat stone.
The note is short:
Keep believing you’re safe.
You can’t run away, Tate…
My skin crawls.
I drop the thing onto my desk and get changed, ready to go to class. I know I should message Roman about what I found, but when I pull out my phone, I can’t bring myself to do it.
Tate
Thank you for that picture.
Your Guardian Fucking Angel
You’re still texting me?
What do I have to do to get another one?
I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Fuck you.
Keep dreaming.
I shove my phone away and head out onto campus.
My first class is French, which is relatively easy because I love languages. We go over conjugation drills, and it’s a welcome respite from thinking about my morning. Afterward, I have Econ, which isn’t as fun but it’s at least absorbing.
By the time I get to the gym, I need relief, and instead I get a fucking shit sandwich, straight to my face.
Outside the long rows of lockers in the gym, I check my phone and see something I really wish I didn’t see.
A couple of my friends from the city have forwarded me a link to an article.
Tate Landrey Tell-All: Sex, Booze, and Every Decision that Led to His Downfall.
My hand is already starting to shake as I tap the link.
Apparently, one of my former friends took it upon himself to get a payday from a tabloid, divulging “secrets” about me for this interview.
Some of the things he says about me aren’t even true. He claims I was fond of getting my dick sucked while rolling on Ecstasy pills, but I never once needed drugs to enjoy that.
Other things he says about me are very much the truth, though.
He told the gossip blog that one of my exes stole money from my family’s credit card, which is true.
He also said that I fell in love with a married man, getting fucked by him in a hotel every day during lunch, which is true… but I didn’t know the man was married.
The whole article paints me as a fuck-up. A total failure, with no self-control.
The article claims it got this information about me from an “anonymous source and former friend of Tate Landrey,” but I know exactly who did it.
My friend Ryan, who was straight, but got very handsy with me one night while we were drunk.
He freaked about it the next day, and told me to never spend the night at his place again.
I close my phone and drop it in my backpack, shoving all of my shit into the locker and slamming it shut.
I take off toward the punching bags at the corner of the gym.
And I fucking wail on one.
I slam my fists into the heavy bag over and over again, not taking a break, pounding with all of the force of my body.
My injured hand had been healing, and was almost painless, but as my fist connects with the punching bag, the pain returns, first in my knuckles and then in the smaller bones of my hand.
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath.
I don’t stop.
My muscles ache and burn, and I feel my eyes start to sting. A couple of tears slide down my cheeks, and I just keep punching until the healing wounds on my hand break open.
When I see the bright red blood on the punching bag, I step back, heaving over and finally taking a moment to breathe, before I go right back in again.
And a moment later, a warm pair of arms comes up behind me, pulling me away, covering me like a human blanket.
Of course you were watching.
You saw everything, as I unraveled.
“Talk to me,” Roman murmurs behind my ear. “Just talk.”
He immobilizes me, clutching his arms around my torso. He brings me toward the wall nearby, and I reach my good hand up to steady myself on it, breathing deep.
Again, I’m so aware of all of the eyes surrounding me. We’re in a campus gym, and I’m certain there must be people on the far side of the gym glancing over at us, wondering what is going on.
But Roman doesn’t seem to give a fuck.
He holds me from behind, and his hands roam below my shirt, stroking over my lower back.
“I’m here,” he says, and I can feel his breath near my ear from behind.
I swallow, shaking my head.
And I start talking, then suddenly spill everything to him.
I tell him about what happened with my former friend, and everything that fucker said in the article about me.
Roman doesn’t say much.
He still lets me talk while he keeps his hands moving in a steady, calming pattern on my back like it’s something he’s been naturally doing for years.
I know he’s only doing it for the goddamn regulation of my nervous system, but he’s still touching me, and it feels really fucking good, so I’m not going to stop him.
He’s wearing one of his fitted white T-shirts, and as usual, his biceps fill out the short sleeves like they’re straining the fabric.
The beads of his black bracelet move gently as he reaches up with his free hand to push a stray piece of my hair to one side.
“Thank you,” I finally say after I’ve said more about the situation than I ever wanted to.
Roman nods at me. “Not a problem.”
He drags the hand on my back lower, squeezing my hip before he backs away, releasing me. His hair is a little longer now on top, falling in a perfect swoop over his head.
“It’s nice when I can actually fucking see you,” I tell him. “Instead of you just being a shadow, or a text message.”
“You trying to be my friend now?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.
“I can be friends with anyone. Try me.”
A tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and I love that I got some reaction out of him. “Let me clean off that bag,” he says. “Not going to leave it bloody for the next poor fuck who comes to punch this thing.”
I exhale and finally turn my body around, leaning on the wall and looking out at the rest of the gym. It’s not a very busy time of day, and if the people on the treadmills across the room were watching us, they don’t seem to be doing it now.
Every time I’ve been worried about negative attention so far at Crimson, it hasn’t come.
After that guy at the party, everyone else has been shockingly normal.
Refreshing.
Roman grabs a handful of sanitizing wipes and alcohol spray, cleaning off the punching bag.
He beckons me to the restrooms afterward, where he hauls open the first aid kit on the wall and cleans up my wounds for the second time in weeks.
“Need to piss,” I tell him after he bandages me up.
“Go.”
He just stands there silently with his arms crossed.
I wait for him to leave or turn away, but he doesn’t, so I pull my cock out and use the urinal. I glance over, looking him up and down. It’s making me hard, which makes it difficult to control.
“Going to come hold my dick while I piss, too?”
“Quiet.”
“I’m just really, really scared that some attacker might come assault me while I’m in here,” I tell him. “Your hand on my cock would be such good security.”
His expression is like stone, even while I attempt to lighten the mood and joke around.
I will try to win as many smiles and laughs from you as I possibly can.
Even if you act like carved stone when I talk about my dick.
I wash my hands and we head out onto the quad.
“What else did you have planned today?” he asks me.
“I brought a picnic blanket and my lunch in my backpack. Was going to go find a place on the quad to eat. I wanted today to be nice, and now I guess it’s kind of fucked up.”
He shakes his head. “The day is fine. Let’s go.”
He walks with me out onto the crisscrossing pathways along the grass.
The leaves on the trees are starting to go gold, red, and orange now, and the canopy above the quad is beautiful.
I walk with him down one of the long paths.
I still feel like I have an emotional hangover, but he doesn’t seem to be judging me for going into full freak-out mode in the gym.
I don’t know if I’m ever going to see the unhinged, violent streak I saw in Roman that first night at the party.
Why is he so good at physically overpowering people?
Good with first aid, too… and absolutely covered in tattoos even at his young age?
Roman isn’t telling me everything.
And I’m going to fucking figure out what he’s hiding, because nothing else about him makes any sense.
Who the fuck are you, behind that wall?
I lay out the picnic blanket under a particularly shady tree and sit down, bringing out my lunch.
Roman goes and sits on a nearby bench, folding his arms and watching me.
“You know, you can just come sit with me,” I call over to him. “We both know you’re following me at this point.”
“I don’t want to sit with you. I want to sit near you, and observe.”
I pull out my little container of strawberries and pop one in my mouth.
“I saw you last night,” I tell him.
“Excuse me?”
“It was cute when you were following me on the quad at midnight with that clove cigarette,” I continue. “Didn’t know you smoke. Almost went up and asked you for one—”
Roman stands up and finally walks over to my picnic blanket, his expression turning to stone. “What?”
“Quit blushing, Roman.”
“No. I haven’t smoked a cigarette in over a year, Tate. Who did you see following you on the quad?”
The smile falls from my face. “It was you. I thought it was you, at least?”
“Midnight last night, I was in the front room of Onyx House, definitely not smoking on the quad. I knew I should have stayed out to watch you. What were you doing outside?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m not allowed to leave my cage of a dorm, now?”
“Why were you out?”
“Because I was bored and I wanted to fuck with you,” I tell him, irritation rising in my voice. “I was going to go for a walk around the quad, then come up behind you and scare you. But by the time I finished the lap, you were gone. Or… whoever it was, was gone.”
He shakes his head. “Not good.”
I bite my lower lip, thinking. “Wait. I guess that means that could have been the guy who left the stone with the note.”
He sits down on the picnic blanket, and the dark blue of his eyes lands on me like fire. “Tell me what you found.”
“Shit. I woke up this morning and there was a… gift at my door. A heavy black rock with a red bow on it. The rock had some symbol carved on it.”
Roman sits up tall, and I can’t help but drag my gaze over his body.
He’s pissed off at me.
Clearly.
But when he’s like this, he also looks fucking hot, and his stature becomes even more imposing.
“You have a dedicated stalker leaving things at your door and you don’t come to tell me about it? You don’t call your brother?”
I swallow. “There was also a note with it.”
When I tell him what the note said, he looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him.
“You didn’t call me,” he says.
“I honestly forgot about it, until right now—”
“I cannot wake up one morning to find out you have been killed,” he says suddenly, his voice forceful, with a stronger accent than usual.
It’s incredibly intimidating.
The way he says it makes it sound like something like that may have happened to him before.
Did someone in his life get killed?
Is that why he has this intense edge that only sometimes rears its head?
Why do you have the ability to suddenly transform into someone this fucking scary?