“Yeah,” Cade said, then cleared his hoarse throat. “Yeah, it’s great. Um. I’m going to see if I can finish a few more chapters of this book.”
And he grabbed the book and sat down at the table as if nothing else had happened, burying his head in the pages so fast I could barely even catch his eye.
Cade
That was easily one of the top ten stupidest things I had ever done.
I knew the rules. If you got involved with a straight guy, you got hurt. I knew that. And I also knew that I was nowhere even close to being over Brody, which meant in turn that I was nowhere close to being ready for so much as flirting with another guy.
And yet I just got carried away in the heat of the moment, allowed myself to actually believe Aiden might be interested in me. I let him actually jerk me off. I came on his hand.
The thought made my cheeks burn as I pretended to concentrate on the book, when really I was so hyperaware of every move Aiden made that it was painful. I watched from the corner of my eye as he flopped down on the bed, grabbing his phone and a pair of earbuds. A second later the sound of tinny music, just barely audible, started coming from his direction. He must have had some audio files he’d downloaded onto his phone ahead of time that he could listen to.
I let my eyes pretend to wander over the page and tried not to look at him. Tried so hard. It was almost impossible: every thought I had, even when I was trying not to think about what had just happened, was about him. I tried to figure out what he was listening to and whether it was the kind of music I liked.
Which didn’t matter at all, because this was a casual thing and we were never going to sit and listen to music together or go to a concert.
I kept wondering how it had felt for him, whether he’d simply got off on the power of making me cum, whether he wanted to do it again.
Which was stupid because it wasn’t going to happen again, because it was a mistake, and if you made the same mistake twice then you were an idiot.
Most of all, my mind kept going back to that moment when he had brushed my hand away and told me no. Like he didn’t want me to touch him at all. Why? Because that would make it gay? Because he was straight and found that idea disgusting?
And all of this was a waste of my thoughts and effort because he’d made it clear that he didn’t want me to touch him so I never would – and that was all I really needed to know.
This was an artificial situation. The two of us were trapped together with nothing to do for entertainment but desperately keep our minds off it however we could. Maybe it was natural that we ended up getting involved in something sexual – I just had thought it would take a lot longer for that kind of tension to build up.
Like how you would expect to wait at least a few days after running out of food before suggesting that you eat someone.
Okay, that was not a helpful thought to have right now. Rescue was coming, I reminded myself, trying to read the same paragraph in my architecture book for the seventeenth time.
Rescue was coming, and I was going to get out of here and see Caleb again and he was alright and everything was going to be alright. That was all I needed to think about now.
Right.
God, I hoped Caleb never found out about what just happened.
There wasn’t any reason why he would. I was absolutely, definitely not going to ever tell him I made out (and more) with one of his teammates. He would probably try to beat Aiden to a pulp, which wouldn’t be easy given how big Aiden was.
And muscular.
And strong.
And…
Noooope. Nope. I wasn’t thinking about Aiden anymore.
I didn’t want to do or say anything here that would rock the boat. He wouldn’t want anyone to know, anyway – the last thing any straight football player wanted was for people to start going around talking about how he made out with a gay guy. I wasn’t stupid. He pushed me away, after all. I wasn’t going to try and tell people what we’d done as if I was going to out him.
He was straight. This was just an anomaly brought on by stress.
Although the atmosphere in the room was not helped by what had happened and the fact that we weren’t talking about it.
I snuck a look sideways at him…
And looked back at my book immediately, waiting for a second and then turning the page as if I was really engrossed in it - because he’d been looking right back at me.
I felt my cheeks flame up, the one telltale sign I was always incapable of hiding. So much for being subtle. Now he knew I’d looked at him on purpose, and that I was embarrassed to have been caught.
