The cover was warm from his body. Warm the same way his skin had been when I held him earlier. The same quiet heat. I adjusted my grip without thinking, palm flattening over it like I could steady something fragile just by holding it still.
I took it with me back into the hall and sat on the floor in my boxer briefs with my back against the cold wall like a teenager hiding something forbidden. I told myself it was just to see if he’d used it. That was all. Just a simple innocent check. That was all. But that was a lie.
The first page was blank. The second wasn’t. His messy script was smaller than I’d expected it to be. Like he was afraid of taking up too much space even on paper. Warm the same way his skin had been when I held him earlier. The same quiet heat. I adjusted my grip without thinking, palm flattening over it like I could steady something fragile just by holding it still.
It wasn’t a story. Just a single sentence.
You shouldn't want what I want. But God, I want you to.
My breath left me in a way that hurt. It wasn’t sexual—not yet. It was worse than that. It was raw. Honest. Already addicted, I turned the page. It wasn’t a narrative either. Just fragments. Feelings laid down like someone emptying their pockets.
I want to be held without being fixed.
I want to be seen without being measured.
I want him to stay when I’m not pretty.
I want to be touched like I’m real and wanted.
My throat closed up. I had to stop for a second. Pressed my fingers into the bridge of my nose and stared at the wooden floor. This wasn’t a journal. It was a book of confessions. I kept reading anyway, ignoring the voice in the back of my head screaming at me to stop.
The writing shifted tone further. Became less fragmented. More fluid. Vivid. Like once he’d started he couldn’t stop. Like he’d been waiting for a place where nothing would leave.
He wrote about me. My presence. My body. The way I watched him from doorways when I thought he wasn’t looking. The gentle way I stroked his hair when he was half asleep. The way I said his name like he was the sun.
Then the intent sharpened on the next page. Not graphic. But it was unmistakable. He wrote about closeness. About breath. Hands lingering half a second too long.
He doesn’t realize how loud he is when he’s gentle.
How my whole body listens when he leans in.
How it hungers for his touch.
How I forget what I’m supposed to be when he looks at me like that.
I want more of him than he seems willing to give.
My chest felt too full. My body reacted before my mind did. My cock thickened against my leg. Tight heat pulled my balls closer to my body. It was dangerous. The kind of danger that didn’t ask for permission.
I forced myself to stop moving. Slowed my breathing, counting it down like a tide. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Again. Want was one thing. Acting on it was another.
Perspiration beaded across my forehead as I continued to devour his words as they grew more graphic. So vivid I felt his phantom touch. My breaths left me in short, sharp pants. I swallowed down the saliva pooling in my mouth. Then I reached a line that undid me.
He kissed me like I was savable.
My hand curled around the page so hard it creased. My heart felt like it was splitting open in my chest.
I whispered before I could stop myself. “Please don’t want me like this.” The words fell like a prayer and a warning and a confession all at once.
The dangerous thing was… I wanted to be what he needed. Not just the desire I could feel. But the responsibility. Because now I knew. I knew how much of himself he was handing to me without ever asking if I could carry it.
I closed the journal carefully. Too carefully. Like it was alive and breathing. Then I sat there on the floor outside his room with it in my hands, a raging hard on, trying to remember when wanting to be needed had started to feel like this. Like standing too close to a fire. Like warmth and danger and light all in the same place.
My ass was numb from sitting there too long. That was the problem. I’d allowed too much time to pass. If I’d put the journaldown immediately, if I’d gone back to bed, if I’d done the right thing quickly enough, I might have been able to pretend this wasn’t happening.
But my body had already reacted. Not in a way I wanted. Not in a way I chose. Just… in a way that told me I was human. And that was worse than being monstrous.
I pressed my palm flat against my chest like I could physically hold my heart in place. It was beating too hard. Too loud. Like it wanted something it had no right to want.
