Page 88 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

I pulled off, and crawled up the length of him, so we lay face to face. He dropped a hand, caught both of our slick dicks in his grip, and worked us together. I kept my gaze locked on his. Long, paintbrush lashes framed dark eyes flecked with gold. He didn’t look away.

I was no virgin, no prim little choir boy. I’d been around. But this was different, this was new. Looking into his soul, and him looking into mine. It was intimate in a way I hadn’t signed up for but wasn’t backing away from now.

I was close to coming, body a live wire, hips moving, driving my dick into his grip, breathing fast. I couldn’t hold it, couldn’t hold his gaze any longer, and came apart right there in his hand, eyes closed, mouth open. His tongue thrust between my lips, stealing my breath in a kiss, and Theo came then too, shuddering, trembling, moaning into the kiss. Messy and desperate, and so needed.

It might have been one of the hottest things I’d ever done with a man, and it had just been a double hand job. He’d made it hot. We’d made it something else, something special. Or maybe I was overthinking again.

I got an arm over him and hauled him against my chest, kissing him hard, forgetting any kind of awkwardness or embarrassment. This felt right in a way nothing had felt right in years. Felt bad too, a good bad. I couldn’t describe it, barely understood it myself. I wanted more of this messy, filthy chaos with him.

Theo was bad for me, in a good way. And maybe I could be good for him, in a bad way?

CHAPTER 20

We eventually made it down to the party an hour after everyone had seen us trying to eat each other’s faces in the bedroom window. They all probably assumed we’d done more than wrestle tongues right after. But that was fine. It was unlikely these people cared about Theo’s personal life. They definitely didn’t care about mine.

I stayed at Theo’s elbow and mingled with him to begin with, but it wasn’t long before a crowd formed around him, and somehow, without me knowing when, I found myself standing alone at the snack table, with a glass of wine and a tiny plate of party food.

I’d been squeezed out, but I was okay with it. Mostly because I still buzzed from having my hands on Theo, like nobody else here had. But also, I wasn’t a crowd person.

Theo’s touch still lived in my body. The memory of his hands on me, his mouth doing good things on my skin, and then after, on the bed, side by side, sharing breaths and bodies, and I was going to have to stop thinking about it or we’d have an embarrassing situation by the snack table.

I’d have stayed in bed with him all night if a housekeeper hadn’t knocked and told Theo his mother had been looking for him. We’d cleaned up after, both kinda awkward, but miracle of miracles, he got cute when awkward. After a few nudges, some laughs, Theo’s light kiss had landed on my forehead like an afterthought right before we’d headed for the door.

I didn’t know what it meant, if it meant anything. I wanted it to mean something. But what was Theo thinking about us?

I could hear Theo laughing with his group across the room. I’d clearly been forgotten now he was with his people, but wasn’t that what I’d wanted? #Thowen trending would be a disaster, and if I went over there, there was no way I’d keep a goofy post-sex smile off my face.

I put my wine down and opened my phone.

Sure enough, there we were, #Thowen was trending in the local area, maybe wider too, right alongside multiple pictures taken through the window, from a low angle, of me trying to climb down Theo’s throat using my tongue first. He looked all handsome with his black hair and pretty dark eyes. Next to him, I was the average, sandy-haired, tanned guy who worked the yard. A nobody. And the internet was eating it up. #GoldenRetrieverEnergy #HotPoolGuy #PoolGuyAtVampireMansion. I turned my phone off before it could suck me into a social media spiral, and lifted my head.

Theo had vanished. My heart did a little hiccup. I tried not to let it hit me wrong, that he’d leave without telling me. What had I expected? He hadn’t said anything about us being a couple, just because we’d jerked off face to face and stared into each other’s eyes like it had meant something. He probably brought guys home for that all the time. He’d said some nice things, but it wasn’t as though we were in love or anything. And how much of it was real?

All of it was real, dumbass. You know him better than that. You felt how real it was. Now go find him.

I did know that.

It wouldn’t hurt to check in with him, even if I didn’t fit with his tribe. We didn’t need to be side by side all night, we were grown-ups. Grown-ups who had come in his hand not so long ago.

Oh-kay, clearly my mind was going to be stuck there all night. But I was allowed. My dry spell had ended, and I still had it in me to make another guy breathless. I sure knew how to pick ’em, but Theo wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d wrongly assumed when I’d first seen him. Despite all his many, many faults, I wanted more. And it wasn’t just the sex, although I definitely wanted more of that. I wanted to be near him, to talk with him at three a.m., share my thoughts and dreams with him.

Okay, don’t get ahead of yourself there, lover boy.

Hm, this voice in my head had started to sound like a whole other person. A lot like mirror me, in fact. But that couldn’t be right. That thing had dissolved along with the rest of the Briars’ toxic pool. Hadn’t it?

I’d wandered outside into the cool night air, where the landscape lighting got sparse and the shadows had thickened. There were people out here, walking through the grounds, chatting. Not completely off the beaten track, but distant enough from the house that the music was a suggestion.

“I’ve been waiting to get you alone.” A voice I’d recently heard said from close behind me.

I spun.

A thick, salty hand slammed over my mouth. My back hit the house wall, oomphing air from my lungs.

Sweet loomed, filling my whole vision with his stocky, broad self.

How’d he get into the grounds?

Didn’t matter.