Once again, I don’t bother reading. Just watch the way he lifts his shirt up and shows that overly defined V on his hips.
It’s fucking obscene.
I’m even harder now.
My hips move without me wanting them to, but it’s a need. A deeply buried, repressed need for him.
I hate it. I hate that I want him so badly when he’s moved on.
When he’s with someone else.
He pulls his shirt off and grabs some dumbbells. I can almost trace the beads of sweat moving down his chest with my tongue. I can almost feel the scrape of his roughly shaven jaw against mine.
I can still smell him.
My eyes screw shut, and I feel my release coat the inside of my boxers.
With an exasperated sigh, I fall face-first into the mattress, the phone still clutched in my hand.
When I finally pry an eyelid open, I stare at the screen and realize with horror that I accidentally liked his post.
I scramble to undo it, but I know the damage has been done. He’ll know I’ve been looking and perving on him and his videos.
I let out a muffled grunt into my pillow, hoping it doesn’t alarm my neighbor, and turn my phone off entirely.
I won’t turn it back on until I’m at the airport.
And I won’t open that app again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DEX
“What are you doing?”Thom asks, making me jump in my chair.
I realize it’s been way too long since I’ve heard a human voice. I’ve been locked in my office for the last three hours doing paperwork. I should probably putdoing paperworkin quotes because I haven’t actually filed anything.
We have expenses due to the accountant, and I need to authorize e-checks for a couple of deliveries, but every time I sit down to do any kind of work, my mind wanders.
It’s obvious Thom has noticed because he doesn’t normally come check on me when I’m doing admin stuff. He always tells me he’s allergic to it and it gives him hives, but I know the real reason behind it. It triggers his insecurities because it’s something he can’t easily do.
“I’m, uh…” I gesture weakly at my computer screen, which I realize a beat too late is turned off.
Thom raises a brow at me, then lifts his hands to sign, ‘Bullshit.’
I sigh and flip him off. I can respond in ASL. I’m not perfectly fluent, but I’m more than conversational now. Three years under Denver’s careful instruction, along with hanging around Robbie’s family and Lexi’s friends, will do that for a guy.
But there’s only one person I’ve ever been interested in impressing with my skills, and he’s not here. When Thom said Rome was going to be gone for three years, I thought he was exaggerating.
I should have realized he wasn’t.
“Sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.” That, at least, isn’t a lie. My insomnia has been like a plague lately, so I spent half the night creating a couple of new classes for the gym.
I would normally be excited about them too. People have been begging for a glutes session to go with the abs class, so I put together a syllabus and filmed a couple of videos to introduce it online.
But the busywork didn’t help. I spent the rest of the night either pacing or rotting on my phone, scrolling through my socials, hoping—and dreading—that I’d catch a glimpse of Rome.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, I don’t even know anymore—he isn’t really into social media. He’s never online, and if he is, he lurks and doesn’t post often. Right after he got to France, he unfollowed my account, but I couldn’t bring myself to respond in kind.
