Try Me (Extracurricular Activities #2)

by Neve Wilder

I was used to seeing that generous mouth drawn in concentration, or in the frequent snarls he served up on the court when he was deep in game mode, ever the relentless competitor. I remembered other things, though, from years back: teasing half-smiles. Grins. The dimple when he laughed.

Chet rolled his eyes, then signaled me with an annoyed twitch of two fingers. I leaned again. Opened my mouth again. And waited. This time he didn’t flip the joint around but instead drew a deep inhale that he held as he leaned toward me, fingertips dusting lightly over my shoulder to brace himself. His lashes lowered and smoke moved in a lazy stream between our mouths, blooming warm and humid on my tongue. As I sipped it into my lungs, Chet’s eyes fluttered open, gaze fastening to mine. For one brief second, we held like that, lips so close I was certain even blinking might cause them to touch. And in that same brief second, I wanted them to. The desire poured through me, as potent and intense as the smoke that filled me, dizzying as it burned through my core.

“It’s gonna be okay. Maybe not right now,” I hastened to add when he shot me an icy glare I felt all the way to the pit of my stomach. “But later. It’ll die down.” Even I wasn’t swallowing the Pollyanna bullshit, though. I sounded like my mom. “Nothing will be okay for a long time. Let’s just not talk about it, okay? I can’t stand to keep fucking talking about it. That’s all my mom wants to do, and it doesn’t fix anything.” “Okay. No talking, then. Got it.” I made my way back to my bed and crawled under the covers, reaching to turn off the light. In the darkness, I heard the quiet sound of his breathing and the few times it came out as a muffled hitch. Chet was an absolute bastard on the court, and frequently off, from what I’d heard and what I remembered of him myself, but I couldn’t help the pang in my chest as I listened to the sound of his life unraveling. It felt too intimate, too private, too unearned given how long it’d been since we’d interacted regularly. I kept trying to think of something comforting to say, but nothing came to mind that didn’t sound like another spoonful of sunshiny crap. And even though we hadn’t been friends in years, I still knew he wouldn’t want that.

Eventually, I dozed off. I surfaced again when the mattress dipped, found myself instinctively pulling the covers back as Chet climbed in next to me. It happened on occasion when we were kids, too. And just like he used to, Chet shifted around and put his back to me. My arm brushed his, bare skin on bare skin, as I tried to make more room for him—much harder since we’d both almost doubled in size. I muttered an apology as I bumped him again, this time my kneecap knocking into the back of his leg. Chet fumbled a hand behind him, and for a second I thought he was going to deadleg me in retaliation like he used to. Instead, he found my hand and closed his around it. He paused with it midair indecisively, then guided it gently to his hip. Something inside me stuttered: my heart skipped a beat, or my breath caught with a sudden, full-body kick of tension. My muscles were wires, and every place where our skin touched wound me tighter. He’d taken off his shirt and jeans at some point, and I splayed my fingers, half touching the fabric of his boxers, half touching his naked skin. I was scared to even breathe, afraid the incremental space between our bodies would spark off with the charge I felt between us. His bare back rose and fell, brushing against my chest with every inhale. Tentatively, I moved my thumb and forefinger over his skin, trying to be subtle about it, but shit, I felt the heat in every millimeter I touched. And I liked it. Maybe too fucking much. I thought of the s...

I sucked in a breath, wondering just what in the hell I thought I was doing. But when I started to wrench my hand away, Chet caught me by the wrist. “It’s okay. Feels good.” He didn’t yank my hand back to his cock, just held it, still low on his hip until my own desire, curiosity, and fucking need got the better of me and I stretched my fingers out again, moving lightly over the infinite silk of his hard shaft.

“Is this okay?” Obviously I knew how to jerk a dick, but right then I felt like an inexperienced idiot, which kind of made it all the hotter. Our breaths went rough, and a weird but organic sense of inevitability descended, like we were picking up at some unknown point we’d left off on previously that I had no memory of. Had it always been there, lying in wait? “Yeah. Goddamn, yeah,” Chet whispered, fucking into my hand in smooth, practiced strokes. I could tell he was trying to keep quiet, trying to keep his exhales from becoming ragged pants that might say too much. But he liked it. I could tell that much, too. And fuck, I liked it just as much as he did. If not more.

Tightening my grip, I stroked him harder, and he rolled onto his back, arching into the friction, throwing his head back as he muttered a hoarse “Shit.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and his lips parted. Light from the window hugged his profile, casting dark shadows across his jaw and side of his neck. He was fucking gorgeous. It was the first time I allowed myself to explicitly acknowledge that fact. A second later, he rolled to face me, forehead barely touching mine, open mouth pouring hot breaths over my cheek as his fingertips curled around the shell of my ear and splayed through the ends of my hair. And though his dick was in my hand, at that moment it was his mouth I wanted. The shit he said on the court, the way he’d always taunted me, even his smirks seemed to hold a flavor I desperately wanted a taste of.

“Let’s get a fresh beer, then I’m gonna go in for the kill,” Amanda said resolutely as she tugged me toward the keg. “Can I suggest not opening with a question about whether or not he’s ever tried to clench a piece of paper between his cheeks?” “You can suggest, my friend, but that doesn’t mean I’ll listen.” “No doubt.” I was almost certain she’d be feeling up the guy’s ass within seconds.

I didn’t want Chet in this house. It’d taken me long enough to manage walking into my bedroom at home without seeing him twisting in the sheets, hearing the echo of his moan as he came all over my fist.

Mark Farrow, the boy I’d crushed on before I even knew what a crush was. The first guy I’d ever jacked off to. The first guy I’d ever wanted to kiss. The first guy who’d ever touched me exactly the fucking way I’d wanted to be touched. The only guy I could never have.

His name felt too soft in my mouth, shapeless with disuse. I pushed aside a sudden pang of longing for the times when I’d said it daily.

Mark’s eyes slammed shut, and his mouth dropped open as my nails dragged with a hiss over denim. He was hard. So damn hard. The way he’d been in his bedroom years before. I’d never touched his cock, but fuck had I wanted to.

Squeezing his thighs around me, Chet bore down on my forearms until they were all but pinned against my chest. The air between us filled with our raspy breaths. I wondered if the thundering beat of his heart had two causes the way mine did. I caught a quick impression of firmness as he shifted, and then he moved his hips away. His mouth hitched into a smirk I should’ve wanted to punch off his face. Instead, I flexed my fingers, snatching the fabric of his shirt and yanking him closer until his arms on my chest barricaded him inches away. His mouth went slack, his eyes wide open and registering bald surprise, and the instinct to kiss him exerted its own gravitational force. Fear flooded me, along with arousal in equally overwhelming measures. Not for the first time, I wondered what if nothing else would ever be enough, if I was fucked-up to want this, fucked-up that he was driving me crazy right now, even with everything that had happened between us, even with who he was.

Inside, the kitchen light over the sink was on, faintly illuminating the living room where my roommate Jesse was passed out on the couch, one leg hanging off the cushions, a shoe in the middle of the carpet. The other shoe was still on his foot, and as I passed by on the way to my room, I stopped to unlace it and tug it off. I collected the other shoe and set both near his feet, then pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and spread it over his tightly folded arms.

But I shouldn’t have fucked with him like that. Much less enjoyed it. Maybe I was the nutjob I’d accused him of being. I let the phone fall facedown on the mattress, hand coasting down my abdomen to my thickening cock as my eyes drifted shut. I imagined a different version of last night. The alternative facts version where instead of hurling accusations and venom at each other, Mark buried his fingers in my hair as I lowered to my knees and unzipped him, his eyes wide and feverish with lust as I wrapped my lips around his cock. Breathless, needy gasps of sound and pleas falling from his lips when I sucked him until he lost control and bucked into me. Or maybe it was my cock pummeling the back of his throat, my hand buried in his strands, my mouth uttering filthy directives while he choked around me. I groaned with arousal, with latent envy, with a tangled mass of emotions that struggled to find any outlet other than this one. I lost it and shot all over my hand, then fumbled around the floor until I encountered something suitably soft that turned out to be a sock. It’d do. After wiping myself off, I opened the message thread again. But what the fuck did I say after last night? How’s your face? I typed, then erased it. Wanna do it again? Another immediate erase, and one that left me chuckling to myself. Yeah, I was definitely walking some tightrope-tiny sanity lines. I’m sorry. That one I lingered over the longest, letting it remain in the window as I scrolled back through ...

The last text I’d received from him before college came the morning after I’d crawled into his window: I’m sorry about everything with your dad. Wish it was different. You can come over anytime. I can sneak you in. But I get why you wouldn’t want to.

Once again, I deeply, deeply regretted not answering Mark’s request to meet with the “fuck off” he deserved. We’d been like oil and water for years. That I’d had to force myself to peel away from his hard body and the thick cock throbbing so fucking ready in my hand was infuriating. I’d hooked up with plenty of guys. Plenty of straight boys testing the flexibility of their sexuality, even, which was often entertaining. I didn’t give a shit. Fun was fun and who cared whether or not the dude wanted to acknowledge you in public the next day? Mark Farrow isn’t every other guy, though, is he? No, I answered my own internal musings. He was much more dangerous. Engine of catastrophe. Frat boy extraordinaire. Wealthy beyond belief. And a douche. He was everything I should despise wrapped in a six-foot frame of casually honed muscle that probably came from pickup football or basketball with his bros.

“Who was the other guy you were with?” “A friend,” I ventured, fighting to make it more of a statement than the question it started off as. My inability to classify Chet in my own mind wasn’t helping. Nor was the fact that even thinking about him right now caused the tiniest frisson of arousal to percolate through me. It felt like a betrayal of the highest order—bodily speaking—considering what an ass Chet had been that night. Well, aside from the part where he helped me escape campus police, an unhelpful voice in my head reminded me.

“Yes, ma’am.” Mark had an annoyingly smooth baritone with only a hint of a drawl. Also irritating was how the sound of it prompted a surge of heat in my balls.

When he registered me the next row over, there was a satisfying stumble to his step before he caught himself, neutralized his features, and continued toward the front. Later, Farrow. That didn’t stop me from watching his progress, though, or the ridiculous intrusive thoughts that accompanied. I wondered if he kissed the way he walked. If that swagger reached those full fucking lips, and how easily they’d give beneath mine. I wondered what he tasted like.

“Chet!” I set my jaw and kept moving. “Pynch!” Reluctantly, I slowed a half step as Mark jogged into view and fell into step alongside me. “I tried to get her to let me switch teams, but she won’t.” “The Farrow charm didn’t work on her? Guess she’s allergic to bullshit.” I thought I caught a flash of anger or hurt in his eyes. I couldn’t tell which, and I didn’t give a shit anyway. You do. You always have.

“Your ribs okay?” “Yeah, they’re fine.” Fine meaning I’d tossed and turned the past few nights trying to get comfortable. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of sharing that tidbit. “I was really hammered that night.” I laughed again, the sound acrid even to my own ears. “That old excuse, huh? Favored by straight boys all across the land. No homo. I get it.” “That’s not what I meant, asshole, about the—” Mark blew out a breath of frustration, brows pinching together as he lowered his voice. “I meant about hurting you.” He shifted uncomfortably as I cocked my head, eyeing him up and down. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be looked at with suspicion basically everywhere you go. To be an already formed conclusion the second you walk through a door. A couple of jabs to the ribs? That’s fucking nothing.” I turned and walked away, relieved when he didn’t follow.

“It’s not your job to fill in for your father.” Father. She said the word with such disgust now, so much conviction in it that guilt stormed me for the part of me that still loved him, that wanted to forgive him even when I knew I shouldn’t, even when his transgressions couldn’t have been more black and white. “I’m not filling in. I’m being a part of the family. So let me.” She stared at me for a long time in silence, and I knew she was trying to muster up some reason not to take the money. But we both knew I was right. At last she sighed, drumming her fingertips over the envelope. “All right.”

“You look like an asshole.” I offered the observation casually from my seat across from Mark while we waited for our associates to arrive and give us the details of our joint project. He glanced down at his shirt—a baby pink oxford, no doubt expensive—and then back up at me with a smile so sickly sweet it’d make Cupid pop a chub. “Which part of me is it, exactly, that you’re objecting to?” “This general area.” I made a gesture that encompassed his torso. Then I moved it higher to indicate his face—his mouth, in particular. “But it’s especially concentrated in this area.” “So it’s not the tie, then?” He ran a finger down his stupid fucking periwinkle tie—silk, most likely. “The tie’s not doing you any favors.” Except it was; it looked nice with the stupid fucking pink shirt. Mark leaned back in the leather chair, folded his arms over his chest, and stared at me, his smile morphing into an amused smirk. “Nothing? No comeback at all?” That…wasn’t the Mark I knew. Or used to know. He lifted a shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “I think the tie looks good. And I’ve got the entire summer to grind you down to a stump. It’s also possible you’ll just take care of that yourself. So yeah, I’m in no hurry. Also?” He leaned closer, mirroring my posture, and though instinct had me starting to lean away, I stifled it and held my ground. “You’ve got a little something…” He gestured to the corner of my mouth, so close I felt the heat from his fingertip. “Right there.” “Bullshit.” I hadn’t h...

“You’ve got it,” Mark said, with a grin that was just as stupid as his tie. Goddamn, had he always been so good at kissing ass? Surely John and Lena could see through the bullshit. I waited for the flash of realization, but none came; they each smiled congenially back at him. Fucker.

John nodded like a bobblehead. I already disliked him, and it wasn’t just because he kept looking over at Mark like he not only agreed with his taste in ties but also appreciated the sexy mahogany sweep of his stupid hair.

“You’ve still got that fucking smear on your cheek, by the way. Looks like…chocolate icing?” I started to tell him to fuck off, then remembered the chocolate-glazed donut I’d grabbed from the lobby on the way up. Goddammit. Digging through my desk drawers, I found an old napkin and swiped roughly at my chin and cheeks while Mark looked on with a smirk of pure devilry.

“Why are you here?” I demanded. I didn’t mean it to come out as harshly as it had, though. I sounded snippy and defensive when I’d wanted to sound smooth and detached. But what I meant was why, of all the fucking endless summer internship opportunities at his fingertips, Mark had chosen this place? “Physicists and religious leaders alike have been pondering that question for years. You think an asshole like me has figured out the answer?” He perked a brow. “You know what I mean. You’ve worked at your dad’s firm every summer since I can remember. You’re all but guaranteed a cush job the second you toss your cap in the air next spring. What the hell are you doing at a law firm? Is this the rich boy version of a rumspringa?” “I switched my major last fall.” That was a mental speedbump. “You did? What the hell for?” Don’t get me wrong. Mark’s dad was the fucking scum of the earth in my opinion, but his investment firm was the biggest game in town, and no doubt a six-figure salary I would kill for awaited Mark. It didn’t make any sense. “Maybe I saw where the path was going and it didn’t quite jive with what I had in mind.” “Yeah? A 100k starting salary and a corner office with a view sounded shitty? Wow. I’m weeping internally for your Sophie’s Choice.” “No,” Mark snapped, and the whole smarmy act fell away as his gaze heated. “You don’t get to say that kind of bullshit to me. Tell me my tie is stupid and that I suck, but you don’t get to pretend you know anything about why I ...

But I’d never acted reasonably over Mark Farrow. Even when we were younger.

He glanced up and caught me watching him. “What? I even sort paper like an asshole?” “Collate.” Mark eyed me for a second, then broke into laugh that was warm and amused. “What’s funny about that?” “Collate,” he repeated in a dorky voice, a quirky half-smile on his face that was magnetic despite my intent to maintain a generally irritable demeanor around him. It wasn’t the politely detached smile I remembered from high school when we’d slap hands at the end of basketball games—the one that was an imitation of his father’s. I stared at him, waiting for more, and when he didn’t say anything, flicked the paperclip in my hand back at his face. “Say it. Whatever you’re holding back. Say it, dickhead.” “Nah. I think I’ll keep it to myself. Let you wonder.” Mark gathered up his papers into one giant sheaf he placed back in a cardboard file box, then turned and walked out before I could reply. Damn, I’d forgotten how much I hated that tactic of his. He’d done it even when we were kids.

“What?” I emerged from a fantasy where I yanked off Mark’s tie and stuffed it in his mouth to find him studying me intently. “Were you a total dick when we were kids, too, and I just didn’t notice it somehow? You’re, like, nothing but salt.”

It drove me crazy that even now I felt a level of comfort with him I’d rarely felt with anyone else. That even when we were antagonizing each other, there was something about sitting across from a guy I’d known since I was three that was reassuringly familiar. The night in his room came back to me suddenly, and this time instead of the shame that had plagued me the morning after—when I’d crept back out of his window at the asscrack of dawn rather than bear any more of his pity or potential backlash against what had gone down between us—I felt a disorienting sense of nostalgia.

They droned on, and I mentally checked out the way my mom already had. She was looking out on the lawn, Botoxed brow smooth, a musing half-smile on her face while my mind time-traveled back to the firm and how Chet asking about her had caught me off guard. I wondered what he was doing this weekend. Did he have a circle of friends he hung out with? I knew he was taking a summer class like me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Did he have another job?

Mark lifted a brow. “Always comes back to that, doesn’t it, making sure everyone’s aware of how hard you work.” My blood pressure flared, and the back of my neck heated, probably as he intended. But then Mark folded his arms over the desk, leaned in with a smirk, and the heat in my neck started trickling down south at the mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Thank you, Pynch. I truly appreciate your hard, hard work.” It should’ve made me even more furious. The faux pandering tone, the way his eyes widened slightly—which somehow accentuated the tiny dimple capping his smirk. How he dropped his voice to a confidential rumble that begged me to lean in, too. Instead, I got hard right there in the middle of the office with sunlight blazing against one side of my face and Houston and Liza laughing at some dumb YouTube video about penguins doing the luge.

“So who pissed you off?” “No one.” I reached for the coffeepot and poured swiftly while the drip hissed. “Bet it was that pretty boy you go to school with.” I laughed outright that time. “He’s not pretty.” “Oh, he’s definitely pretty.” Barrett narrowed his eyes at me and leaned in a little like he was scrutinizing me, before settling back and nodding with apparent satisfaction. “Okay, yeah, that’s what I thought.” I cocked my head, but he didn’t come right out and say what I thought he was going to. So I could add cleverness to his list of traits alongside pest. “The straight ones are always such heartbreakers,” he sighed. “You have my sympathy.” His smug expression suggested I didn’t at all. I ignored it, saluting him with my coffee mug as I backed into the hall. “Nice bow tie,” I said. What the fuck was with the neckwear here anyway?

He prodded his tongue coyly against the inside of his cheek. It made me want to punch him and touch him at the same time.

Mark nudged a paper sack on the table I’d noticed earlier. “You want the rest? I ate a huge breakfast.” “What is it?” I was more struck that he made the offer than I was interested in the sandwich, which was on crusty bread and had globs of green, yellow, and white dotting the sides. Not very appetizing. “Cold grilled cheese with avocado spread. But really fucking good,” he tacked on when I made a face. “My roommate Jesse made a bunch last night. He’s a badass cook.” “I know Jesse.” Mark’s brows shot up. “You do?” “Yeah, we had a bunch of classes together sophomore year.” He fell silent for a moment. “Did you…have you…?” “Are you about to ask something that’s none of your goddamn business?” Mark shrugged, and I cocked my head at him. “You assume I’ve hooked up with him because he’s a fellow teammate on the sexual playing field?” I laughed. “No. I assume because Jesse’s cool and good-looking.” He fiddled with the sandwich bag. “And I don’t remember you ever having trouble getting anyone you wanted in bed.” You. There wasn’t a chance in hell the word would leave my mouth, though.

I jerked my thumb toward the files. “Want to take these back to our desks and check ’em out? We can split them down the middle.” “Sure.” Mark’s tone was distant, but as I straightened, he watched me arch my back in a stretch, gaze skipping down my torso, then climbing slowly back up. I felt each landing like a thumbprint, a tiny pinprick of heat that rippled through me. Then he turned away, tossed the rest of his lunch in the trash, and shoved the file cabinet closed. “I’ll bet we can get it done in under a half hour if you—” I was going to say if you stop moving like a grandma, but the rest of the sentence flew away when Mark touched my shoulder to stop me. All week in the office, I’d been tense, holding my breath until he walked in in the mornings, noting how the cocksure gait to his desk made the corners of my mouth instinctively tug upward, or how he bantered with Houston and Liza, watching her gradually give in to his boy-next-door charm. But there was none of that casual aloofness right now, and I was tense for a different reason altogether. My insides coiled tightly, and I felt every inch of space that diminished between us. Mark’s gaze moved slowly over my face as he licked his lips. I hadn’t resisted the touch. I didn’t resist when he slid his hand from my shoulder to splay over my chest. He made an aggravated noise, closed his eyes briefly, then exhaled. “You were fucking with me that night. When we met up after Nate’s, I mean. I know that. I know what you were d...

“So now what?” he asked. “We go through these files and figure out where to go next.” “No, I meant now what as in, like, you and me.” Mark messed with a strand of hair, then raked his hand through the neat ends. “I’m not going to mention it to anyone, if that’s what you mean.” There it was, just as I suspected. I could see it in the way he kept his head turned away, fiddling with his pants, looking anywhere else except at me: regret was settling in. Or maybe shame. Concern about what others might think, about associating with a guy like me. Gossip traveled fast, and the pipeline was probably faster to Mark’s dad. I couldn’t even imagine what he’d say, and I also couldn’t deny the cruel little thrill I got thinking about it. I kinda had to wonder if that was part of Mark’s appeal to me now. This fucked-up sense of revenge, messing with his pristine white-collar life. Maybe I had more of a mean streak in me than I’d thought. Mark’s gaze dropped to his feet. I followed it down, something inside me softening. “Or is that not what you meant?” He cleared his throat gruffly and shook his head. “Nah, that’s what I meant. Let’s go.”

“You know what’s annoying about you?” Chet posed the question philosophically while we waited for Houston and Liza to finish what sorta looked like a couple’s version of Pictionary. “Aside from my ties, my mouth, my intelligence, skills on a basketball court, GPA, and the fact that I’m still breathing?” I rested an arm casually against the oak tree next to me, then drew it back with a frown and swatted an ant that had hitched a ride up my pinky. “Some of those are arguable. But no, the most annoying thing is that you can flash a fucking smile and get away with murder. There are a bunch of ants on that tree, by the way.” Chet’s smile gleamed. Annoyingly brilliant and overly gallant for 10 a.m. “If only I had a murder weapon.” I glanced around and pointedly eyed a stake lying on the ground nearby. Chet reached for it. “Be my guest. It’ll save me the headache of applying to law school and incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that I’ll then spend the rest of my life paying off.” “Wow. That went from zero to morbid fast.” “It’s a talent of mine.”

And I wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. I wanted to do that about as much as I wanted to see it up close again. Maybe taste it. Despite my failed plan, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what’d gone down in the file room. It had haunted my every solo session since, and my only conclusion was that someone had seriously fucked up the dynamics of sexual chemistry when they’d created me.

Chet plopped down in the grass. “Let’s do this.” “Fine.” I reached for the stack of cards and withdrew one before easing to the ground, my back to Chet’s per the instructions. “Why the fuck is your spine so bony?” “Why the fuck are you such a meathead?” Chet tossed back. “C’mon, give me a clue.” “Okay, draw a circle in the middle of the page.” The marker whispered and squeaked over the paper. “Done. Next?” “Bisect it with a triangle.” “Mmmm, listen to you with that sexy geometry talk. Bisect,” he repeated, with a hard emphasis on the sect. “What’s next? Vertices? A few perpendicular lines?” I laughed in spite of myself. “Jesus, dude.” “Okay, done. Next.” “You don’t have to keep saying that. I can hear the marker on the page, so I know when you’re done. Now, wait a sec…” I studied the card, trying to figure out how to best explain. “Okay, at the apex of the triangle you just drew, make two lines coming off either side, like arms trying to flap.” Chet snorted and whispered apex under his breath, but a second later, I heard the marker moving. We finished my shape without incidence and compared it to the picture afterward, a series of circles and intersecting triangles. “Not bad,” Chet said, and then we switched. “Okay, draw a test tube shape at about a thirty degree angle on the page with the open end facing the bottom left of the page, but”—he interjected when he heard the marker—“where the opening of the test tube would be, don’t draw a line. Just leave it open.” “Okay,” I ...

Chet held the blindfold out to me on the tip of his finger. “Not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to this.” “Yeah, yeah, you can watch me bust my ass. How hilarious.” I rolled my eyes. “I meant the blindfold.” Heat bowled through me at the provocative curve of his mouth. “What, too kinky for you? Would you like it better if it was a paisley tie?” “I’m sure you’d love that.” I grabbed for the fabric, but he pulled his hand out of reach. “I wouldn’t hate it. Too many people around though for me to enjoy it to the fullest, though. Be still.” Chet settled the blindfold over my eyes, then reached his arms behind my head to tie it. His exhales puffed over my skin, and the verdant scent of his soap filled my nostrils. When he finished knotting the blindfold, he ran his fingers along the bottom edge, adjusting the fabric near my nose. “That okay?” The lightness of his touch and the care in it caused goose bumps to break over my shoulders and my nipples to harden, hopefully hidden by my tee. “Okay,” I whispered, then cleared my throat loudly. Fuck, this was definitely giving rise to a new spank bank fantasy. The heat flooding my face trekked down to my groin before I could mentally dam the seductive images of Chet pulling a Fifty Shades of Grey on me. “The fact that you blush is so intriguing,” he mused. “You’re really enjoying fucking with me today.” “Almost as much as you enjoyed me fucking with you the other day.” His smug laughter carried as he made his way to the platform across...

It was on the sixth loop that I fucked up and missed the rope on the other side as I tried to put my foot back down. Instead of landing on something solid, I met air. I jerked to one side, the rope biting into my palms as I gripped it and hung in midair. My heart flew into my throat, and I kicked my feet, trying to find the tightrope. I hated how the blindfold made me lose all sense of direction except down. “Mark.” Chet’s voice cut through my panic, calm and steady. “Be still and let the ropes settle. Then reach to your left and you’ll feel it. Farrow, trust me,” he added when I flailed again. After forcing myself to quit swinging around and sucking in a galvanizing breath, I found the damn rope and got myself balanced on it. “Two to go,” he said in that same patient voice. “Slow and steady. There you go!” he praised when I made it through the next, and he actually sounded encouraging.

I twined my fingers with his again, and we inched sideways onto the rope, wobbling while we still had one foot on the platform. “Keep your eyes on mine. That’s going to keep us from wobbling.” “I don’t want to look deep into your eyes for the next minute,” I told him. “You’ll probably steal my soul.” “It’s gonna take us longer than that to get across, Buttercup, as slow as you’ve been moving. Put your other foot on the rope.” I did so reluctantly and felt Chet’s body shift to absorb and balance my weight. I didn’t mean to, but my eyes met his and he was right, we both stopped wobbling immediately. “Good.” His murmured praise moved through me like a warm current. “The trick is staying in sync with each other. You feel my weight shift, shift yours, too. I’ll do the same. Perfect,” he purred as I inched sideways another step to keep pace.

His gaze held mine, intense and focused, and a little uncomfortable at first. I mean, how often did people actually gaze deeply into one another’s eyes for an extended amount of time? But as we started moving across the rope, our steps synced, our bodies found a natural give and take, and the tension in my limbs loosened. Chet’s eyes were a deep, molten brown, but I’d never noticed how much variation of color actually comprised them. Slivers of gold, like delicate filigree, and softer milk-chocolate striations mixed in with darker hues, all ringed in mahogany. His pupils shrank when the sun broke through the leafy canopy overhead and hit the side of his face, then widened when the breeze scattered the light. Watching the ebb and flow was hypnotic. Chet’s fingers tightened around mine, and instead of worrying about the ground below, I found myself imagining him hovering over me, fingers twined just like this, pressing down on either side of my ears as he moved on top of me. Or maybe the other way. Maybe him beneath me, my cock sliding against his. Slick and hard and hot, his hands gripping tighter as I kissed lower and lower. His throat, his stomach, his⁠— “Farrow.” Chet’s voice was a sexy growl that tightened my balls. “Quit giving me the fuck-me eyes.” “I’m not.” Denial. And a weak one that wouldn’t hold up under even modest pressure. “What’s the picture in your head? Who’s on top?” His thumb went rogue, sweeping over the side of mine, the simple movement somehow as poten...

“So if it’s so easy to get laid, why are you complaining about not getting laid?” I asked. “Because I have standards.” “But you also eat chocolate Pop-Tarts.” “Quit throwing my completely inane logic back in my face.”

I almost dropped my phone scrambling to unlock the screen when it vibrated. Chet: I left. Mark: Yeah I know. Chet: And? Mark: And where’d you go? Home? I waited for him to tell me to fuck off. I kind of wished he would. That’d make the rest of the night much easier. Chet: Hype Mark: Can I join? An eons-long silence followed, during which I questioned every life choice I’d ever made regarding Chet. Then… Chet: If you want. Chet: It’s a gay club, btw. Barrett and some of the other rainbow crew are here. Chet: I thought we were playing the cold-shoulder game again. Breaking protocol so soon?

The intent movement of his eyes over my face gave me the feeling I realized I’d been searching for all night. Off-kilter and dizzy. And it had nothing to do with the beer.

Chet threw his head back and laughed. Jesus, he was sexy when he laughed like that. Full-throated, deeply amused, and genuine. I was supposed to be annoyed right now, though, and set my jaw accordingly.