Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Then he slides the shower door open and steps in, but leaves it open just enough to show his back as he lets the water run over his body.
Thin streams of water draw roadmaps down his tapered back.
Tracing lines down his muscles that lead like a canyon to the tops of his butt cheeks, pert and beautiful.
I’m drawn to him, as if by the force of gravity, unable to pull away so easily. It felt like just a minute ago I was set on going back to my room to give him his privacy. It was the respectful thing to do. The right thing. The obvious thing.
Now I’m glued to the spot like some kind of voyeur.
Caught in a situation I never dreamed I could possibly be in. A situation that doesn’t happen to people like me. A situation that has me questioning whether it’s ever been a matter of me lacking the confidence to do bold and crazy things in my life—or if I was just always too many steps away from the opportunity.
Now I’m standing right by the greatest opportunity.
Watching with implied yet obvious permission as Cole takes his shower. After he left the door wide open.
His literal open invitation.
Cole runs his hands through his hair. Steam gathers in the air around him as he takes his time. Is he waiting for something?
Is he waiting for me?
I step inside the bathroom and close the door behind me. After a moment’s hesitation, I begin to take off my clothes. Cole continues to shower, the water trickling down his smooth skin, turning it wet and glossy under the dim shower light.
When the last article of clothing comes off, I feel like I’m still wearing something. Is it my fear? My hesitation? Or the invisible chainmail of my reclusiveness that’s kept me safe my whole life?
But what do I think I’m keeping myself safe from?
Life itself?
I step into the shower behind Cole. Water droplets spray from off his body and onto mine, almost cold, if it weren’t for the hot steam drifting around me like a hug. This close to his body, I’m not sure what to look at, what to touch, what to do. Despite everything we’ve already done tonight, I’m still nervous.
He turns.
His eyes find mine.
The hunger in them is so much more apparent in the light than it was in my bedroom or in the car. I can see how he gazes at me with intense adoration. It’s nearly overwhelming as I gaze back at him. Water drips down his face from the wet, curly spikes of his bangs. He brings a hand to the side of my face, caressing my cheek and the side of my jaw, his fingers tracing the outside of my ear, as his eyes never leave mine. Then he goes in for a kiss, and my back feels the cold wall of the shower as he presses against me.
And even while coated in steam and droplets of water, I feel the electricity of his lips course through my body from our kiss.
My tongue comes out to meet his.
His hands slide down my naked body, slick from steam and water.
I think it’s in this moment that I realize I’m safe.
Because instead of reaching for my swelling cock, which is what I believe any reasonable warm-blooded guy would have done in this circumstance, Cole’s gentle hands slide behind the small of my back protectively. He draws his body closer to mine, and I feel his warmth envelop me.
It inspires me to kiss him even deeper.
Cole’s body responds as his protective grip on me tightens—and our hips come together.
And our cocks touch.
“Are you okay?” he asks me.
I didn’t even realize we’d stopped kissing. My eyes pop open. “What?”
“Is this too fast?”
I do acknowledge that there is an insurmountable number of anxieties and questions waging war in my brain right now.
Not to mention the notion of being with another guy in my shower with my parents a mere handful of rooms over.
But standing this close to Cole’s beautiful face, it’s difficult to think of anything else in the world.
I think I like that.
I think I desperately, urgently need the distraction Cole’s face is giving me in forgetting everything that makes me afraid.
“We can slow down,” says Cole, attempting to read the weird look on my face. “You were just telling me how I’m your first guy to do anything with. I don’t want to overwhelm you or make you feel like I’m pressuring you into anything at all. Even a little bit.”
The truth is, I’ve dreamed things like this before.
For years and years, all through high school, I’ve had dreams of being some other version of myself—another Noah Reed—who lives recklessly, who doesn’t waste hours of his day calculating probabilities of danger and misfortune, who doesn’t question all the words he says …