Zio
I feltlike an addict as I indulged in Armand’s scent, craving more as it stirred my lust. It left me ready to beg for things a straight guy should never want from another man. The more I attempted to suppress it, the more painful my aching hollowness became. All I knew for certain was that only Armand could help it go away. It scared me but also piqued my curiosity.
“Here’s your coffee.”
I startled as the server set our cups on the table with a smile, releasing Armand. It snapped me out of the weird reverie I had slipped into as my cheeks flushed with profound embarrassment. “Sorry for spacing out. It must be the jet lag.”
His amusement did nothing to quell the weirdness inside me. “Must be.”
“I’m not fully a person until I’ve had at least two cups of coffee.” That was a lie, but I needed it to be true. What the hell was I doing, nuzzling against him as I breathed him in? Worse, why was I half-hard and aching for more of him? My hand shook as I prepared my drink with creamer and sugar while berating myself for acting so weird.Get your shit together!
“I prefer late nights to early mornings.” His smirk hinting at innuendo detonated a bomb within me. I wasn’t equipped to handle what he was implying or the sexiness of how his lips parted when he took a sip of his coffee. The way his tongue darted out to lick them afterward made me verklempt. “They’re much more fun,non?”
“Not really. It usually means I’ve procrastinated too long on a paper the day before its due.” That was the story of my entire academic life.
“Ah, that’s no good. Perhaps we can find a better reason for you to enjoy some late-night adventures on this trip.” His sexy smirk electrified me as if it put jumper cables on my heart and jump-started it.
It was another golden opportunity to tell him I was straight and not interested. But I couldn’t force myself to say the words, especially since my subconscious was being a fucking dick about it.If you weren’t interested, you wouldn’t have gotten off on the taste of him last night while jerking off to a fantasy of him.
It was true, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Yeah, uh-huh. You hated it soooo much that you got off on the memory this morning. Sure, that makes total sense.
It was too early in the morning to be antagonized by my inner bastard.Leave me alone, and fuck you very much.
As payback, my subconscious flashed an image of me under Armand, moaning as he fucked me. I could see a crystal-clear vision of me with my legs wrapped around his waist, my back arching off the bed as sexual ecstasy flooded all my senses. The suddenness of the sexy visual caused me to startle. I slammed my knee against the table when I jumped, causing the silverware to rattle. The sharp pain was almost enough to distract me from the fact that my semi was on the verge of turning into a full-on erection.Knock it off, asshole!
I swore I could hear my inner jerk snickering as it slinked back to dwell in darkness.
Thank god my weirdness seemed to entertain Armand. “Are you doing okay over there?”
“I’m definitely going to need more coffee.”
Armand’s chuckle sent shivers racing down my spine and made the situation in my pants more dire.
Please let me get through the rest of today without humiliating myself. Is that too much to ask?
* * *
As a career academic,I wasn’t athletic. However, the paved Makapu’u Lighthouse Trail was an easy hike. It was a beautiful day that wasn’t too warm, and the views of nature as we walked were stunning. Armand paused to take pictures for his boss throughout our stroll, which gave me plenty of opportunities to do the same. I had snapped a few covert snapshots of him, acting like a sneaky Bigfoot hunter photographing an impossible creature out in the wild. He looked infuriatingly perfect in every picture. It wasn’t fair that someone could be that pretty, charming, nice,andfunny.
You left “and fucking sexy as hell” off that list, the voice in the back of my head taunted me.
Mentally flipping it the middle finger, I ignored the unruly part of my brain that loved to torture me.
When we reached a scenic overlook, the view of the clear blue water with an endless sky of fluffy clouds was breathtaking. Leaning against the railing, I marveled at the beauty of nature. “Wow. It’s so pretty, it’s hard to believe that any of this is real.”
Armand rested his forearms on the rail as he stood next to me. “That seems to be an ongoing issue for you. You said the same thing about me this morning,non?”
“In my defense, you’re kind of unbelievable.” With him standing so close, I caught a tantalizing whiff of his cologne. What was it about his scent that had a confounding ability to make me question my sexuality?
His laughter raised chills on my skin despite the sunny weather. “Ah, you’re not the first person to say such a thing to me.”
It was so weird how he managed to both set me at ease and kept me off-balance with such comments. “What’s it like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Being you and so—” I gestured at him and all his perfection. “That.”