Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“Hey, I enjoyed it, too, ya big dummy. Or didn’t you notice?” O’Brian grinned at him, seemingly unaffected. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Valenti looked at his partner in disbelief, and O’Brian looked innocently back. “I just jerked you off, Sean -- in front of a crowded room. We’ve been kissing and groping all over each other since we got here. Last night I ... you ...” He couldn’t find the words to complete his thought. “This is going to change us, partner,” he said at last. “There’s no way it can’t.”
“What are you talking about, Nicky? Change us how? We’re undercover -- we do what we have to. Why do you have to take everything so seriously? Why does everything always have to be a federal case with you?”
Valenti just looked at him in weary disbelief. The earth had moved for him, but his partner hadn’t felt so much as a tremor. It was too much. He stood shakily to his feet.
“Hey, where ya goin’?” O’Brian asked anxiously, rising beside him and taking his arm.
Valenti shook him off. “I don’t know. Away. Back to the room.” He shambled heavily down the polished wood hallway, not bothering to glance at the posh beauty around him. He felt wrung out -- beaten. This was all a job to O’Brian; nothing he could do or say would touch his partner’s heart. His fear that O’Brian might be angry with him for making the contact between them such an intimate occasion now seemed entirely laughable.
“Hey ... hey ...” O’Brian called after him, but Valenti just kept on walking. There was nothing left to say.
Chapter Ten
Dinner that night was a silent affair. Valenti wouldn’t have attended at all if they hadn’t been on assignment. His mind and every part of his body felt heavy and dull, and he heard O’Brian explain several times that his partner wasn’t quite feeling himself. Word of the Wankathon had spread, and they were congratulated several times on their “outstanding performance.” Valenti was dimly aware that his partner was wearing a tight white T-shirt with the words “I Beat My Meat at the RamJack” across the front, but he found he just couldn’t be interested.
After returning to the room, he had lain facedown on the bed for hours, trying to think -- trying to make sense of it all. Once or twice it had seemed that maybe O’Brian might actually return his feelings. Valenti thought of the tender way his partner had washed his belly and thighs the night before -- the hot suction of O’Brian’s mouth on the head of his cock. And what about the kiss they had shared before leaving the room this afternoon? The way O’Brian had verbalized his love, something Valenti knew wasn’t easy for his friend, no matter how much he might feel it. But what kind of love?
O’Brian had jumped into this assignment with both feet and taken to his role as Valenti’s lover as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Last night he had even initiated physical intimacy between them without the benefit of an audience for an excuse. But despite all the touching and kissing going on between them, O’Brian still seemed essentially unmoved.
Valenti had seen his partner when he was in love with a woman, and he wasn’t acting that way at all. He was just behaving normally -- the way he always acted around his partner. Valenti had no choice but to assume that it was all in a day’s work for his friend and that O’Brian really was unmoved by the physical contact between them. He admitted to himself that his partner would probably be just as happy when they finished this assignment and could go back to their old routine -- a platonic friendship with casual, nonsexual touching.
Valenti didn’t know if he could stand it. The whole situation was getting to him. To be able to touch his partner any way he wanted and yet know there was no way he could touch O’Brian’s heart ... It was devastatingly hurtful. He wondered for the millionth time how he could ever have been so stupid as to let himself fall in love with the one person who was more important to him than anyone else. And yet -- how could he have prevented it?
There were no easy answers. After dinner, he let O’Brian lead him back to the room, making excuses along the way to Paul and Remy, who had invited them up to their room for a rousing game of strip Canasta.
“Maybe tomorrow night. Charles isn’t feeling so well right now,” he heard his partner say. “But I’ll meet you tomorrow before breakfast to talk about what we discussed, Remy.”
“See ya’ll later, then,” was the soft reply. And then, much to Valenti’s relief, they were stepping into their room, and O’Brian was locking the door behind them.