Jodi turned on his heel and stomped away, slamming the bedroom door. Rupert stared after him.Did that really just happen?
Eleven
Jodi lay stock-still in the bed, fists clenched at his sides, toes curled, gaze fixed on the ceiling. He counted the cracks in the Artex, the cobwebs around the light fitting, anything to distract him from the one part of his body that didn’t hurt. But nothing worked. Despite his best efforts, all he could think of was Roomie-Rupert’s bare torso and the resulting boner that justwouldn’tpissoff.
Groaning, he rolled over, skin crawling, sweat beading a path down his face, nausea churning deep in his belly. What the fuck was wrong with him? Most nights passed in a haze of dizzying headaches and infuriating coddling from Sophie and Rupert. In the morning it was usually hard to distinguish one from the other, but he remembered last night—morning, whatever it had been. Remembered the overwhelming compulsion to seek comfort in the warmth seeping from Rupert’s body, the hypnotic effect of his arms ... the probing heat of Rupert’s erection digging into his cheek when he’d woken up in his lap sometime later.
And the answering hardness of his own dick.
Self-loathing shuddered through Jodi. Rupert had appeared to be asleep when Jodi had disentangled himself, even when he’d landed on the floor with a thud that had seemed to shake the earth, but what if he hadn’t been? What if he’d been awake all along? Awake and aware that his dick had carved a hole in Jodi’s cheek? And, worse, aware ofJodi’scock holding its own parade?Oh God.Jodi covered his face with his hands and curled into a ball, like he could crush his wayward dick into submission. It didn’t work. In fact, the pressure of his stomach pressing his cock into his thighs made it worse.
Indesperation,he swung his legs out of bed and yanked open the top drawer of the bedside table. He had no clear memories of living in the flat before the accident, only vague, blurred scenes that didn’t make much sense, but he did remember where he’d kept his porn stash during his uni years—a pile of tatty magazines, loaded with images of long-legged women with brassy hair and huge knockers.
The drawer revealed no wrist manuals, just a box of condoms, a laptop, and ... Jodi reached for the bottle of what looked like lube, then jumped back as it tipped over, revealing the shiny, bare-chested man on the label and the swirly sub line printed under the brand name.Less sting for his ring.
What the fuck?
Jodi kicked the drawer shut like it had burned him, his heart beating so loudly his ears throbbed. What on earth did he have anal lube for? As far as he remembered, he and Sophie hadn’t exploredthatkind of sex in years, not since the first haze of initial attraction had faded and they’d discovered it wasn’t something Sophie particularly enjoyed. Besides, this lube was brand-new, and clearly for men, so what the hell was it doing in Jodi’s drawers?
The grinding in his brain returned full force. He clutched his temples and tried to get a grip on it before it spread through every nerve in his body.“Don’t fight it. Act on it.”The voice of his occupational therapist filtered through the pain. He straightened his posture and reached for the codeine and bottle of water Sophie and Rupert insisted he keep close by. His prescribed dose was three pills, but that often sent him to sleep, and for once, he didn’t want that. Didn’t want his dreams to be filled with greasy lube and shirtless men.
He took two and drained the bottle of water. His gaze fell on the ominous drawer again. The lube bottle seemed to call his name, and the momentary diversion of dealing with another fucking headache had done little to pacify his dick. He needed a distraction.
With his eyes averted, he opened the drawer and grabbed the laptop, slamming the drawer shut before the creepy bottle jumped out at him. He crawled under the covers and booted up the MacBook. A box asking for a password flashed up. He searched his brain but inevitably found nothing. Instinct told him the password would have something to do with Sophie, but that logic had proved deeply flawed of late. He tapped the keyboard as his mind jumped from one notion to another too fast for him to keep up. What if it wasn’t even his computer? He was missing five years, after all, and he knew the shiny iMac in the room Sophie and Rupert called the office was his. Why would he need two computers?
No sensible answers came to him, then he remembered the business card pinned to the fridge. Fire Kat Design. Something clicked. He closed his eyes and tried to chase it down, but it evaporated as quickly as it had come.
Fuck it.
He opened his eyes and typed inFire Kat Designwith his birth year tacked on the end. The laptop flashed to life. Jodi blinked, but his surprise was fast tempered by the image that greeted him on the screen: a photograph of Rupert in even less clothes than Jodi had seen him in that morning.
So much for the distraction.
Heat flooded Jodi’s veins, burning him from the inside out.What the actual fuck?Was this Rupert’s laptop? It had to be, right? Clearly, his flatmate was some kind of narcissist. There was no other reason his admittedly sketchy logic could find for Rupert’s half-naked form filling the screen.
So shut the damn laptop and put it back.But Jodi did neither. He growled in frustration but couldn’t find the will to break his stare. He leaned forward and studied the image, comparing it with the virtual stranger he shared a home with. They didn’t look like the same man. Putting aside the vast swathes of flawless skin that continued to send Jodi into a tailspin, he’d never seen Rupert smile like that. Jesus, he rarely saw Rupert smile at all.
That skin, though. Jodi took a deep, shuddering breath. It was perfect: pale and smooth, and wrapped around a body that put the dude on the lube bottle to shame. And Rupert’s eyes ... fuck, his eyes. Jodi was lost in them and didn’t notice his hand slip under the duvet until his fingers brushed his cock.
He froze, but it was momentary because the stolen, bewildering pleasure of the featherlight touch on his dick was too intense to ignore. He wrapped his fingers around his cock. The relief was instant but fleeting, as a desperate need for more took hold. He moved his hand up and down, squeezing and pulling. Twisting. His eyelids drooped, but he fought them, unwilling to break the thrall that Rupert’s warm gaze had cast on him.This is wrong.But it didn’t feel wrong. It felt right, like it was the only thing that had made sense in as long as he could remember, and fuck, it was good—better than good. It was fucking amazing.
Jodi pushed the laptop back, cradling it between his thighs, and shoved the duvet away. The cool air on his dick made him shiver, but the heady heat in his veins remained, boiling over until an animalistic groan escaped him, echoing around the room, bouncing off the walls, and reverberating through his bones. He jammed his fist in his mouth, biting down on his knuckles. Jesus Christ, this was insane—perhapshewas insane—but he couldn’t recall wanking ever feeling like this, arresting, enthralling, and so utterly consuming that he couldn’t see how it would ever end.
But it did end. He came with a rush and a strangled yelp, shooting all over his T-shirt with more jizz than he’d ever seen.
For a long moment, he didn’t dare move, but as his gasping breaths returned to normal and his sweat cooled, reality and perspective hit him like a train. Disgust crept over him and left him empty, like his back had no bones and his stomach had sunk through the mattress. Nausea roared, an urge that, this time, he couldn’t ignore. He dove for the bin as fast as his limited body would allow, and heaved his guts up until there was nothing left but bile and shame.Great.Like it wasn’t enough that he had the brain function of an eight-year-old. Now it appeared the accident had short-circuited his sexuality too. Was that even possible? To go into a coma with a—albeit, as it turned out, imaginary—girlfriend, and come out wanting to touch your flatmate’s dick?
Jodi shuddered, and his stomach heaved again, but nothing came up. Panting, he pulled his sticky T-shirt off and wiped his mouth, then stashed it under the bed to retrieve and dump when no one was looking—not that he expected that to happen anytime soon.
On cue, the bedroom door opened. Jodi lunged for the laptop, slamming it shut, and hurling it clumsily into the drawer.
Sophie frowned. “What are you doing? Are you all right?”
“Um ... I threw up?”
“Shit.” Sophie bustled in, swiping the bin before Jodi could protest. “Do you have a headache?”
“No more than usual. I took some codeine. It came straight back up, though.”
