“I’m not into hookups,” he finally managed to get out.
Not a hundred percent true. But when said hookup had nothing to do with Peter looking hot (hotter than usual for him, anyway), and he hardly knew the guy…yeah, no.
Damian frowned, but not in a pissed kind of way—more in a thoughtful, unhappy way. And that shouldn’t have been so adorable. Peter had to bite his tongue to keep from doing what he always did, soothing people and trying to be nicer to make them happy. Mar told him he needed to cut that out and think more about himself, and she was right—even though ninety percent of the time, it was Mar he had to soothe and placate.
“Okay,” Damian said finally, with a shrug, his tone too neutral to give anything away. Or he didn’t give a damn about being rejected after all. “Maybe I should plant that tree, since I’m here anyway? I mean, you do need some help, even if you didn’t ask for it yourself. And I could use the money.” Damian flashed a wicked grin, the skin around his eyes crinkling, and Peter went a little weak in the knees. Oh, God, he wouldn’t be able to say no a second time, pity or no pity. Please let Damian give up. “Since Mary Jane’s paying, right?”
“Okay,” Peter echoed. His brain had gone completely blank. “Um. Okay?” Because Damian was still just standing there, eyebrows slightly raised.
“I need a shovel.”
Right. Jesus. How dumb could he be? Had Damian nuked his last remaining brain cells with that grin, after killing most of them with a single kiss? “I think there’s some tools in a shed sort of thing around the back of the house. It’s not locked.” And that made him sound so much smarter, good job.
Damian’s eyebrows went up another fraction. “This a new place? I mean, did you just move in?”
Because why would he have tools if he didn’t even know what or where they were? “Yeah, my great-aunt moved into a retirement home. So, like, not new, but it needs to get fixed up a little. And I’m—not good at that. Not much of a fixer-upper. I mean, I guess that would mean I need to be fixed, so not that, but I mean I don’t really know much about—”
His words cut off in a choke as Damian reached up and set his thumb over Peter’s mouth, pressing lightly into his lower lip. And then stroking. With calluses, and his fingers resting against Peter’s chin, and those nerve endings seemed to connect directly to all the ones down below like an “I’m about to make a fool of myself” game of Hokey-Pokey.
“You should probably stop talking now,” Damian murmured, his eyes gone a lot darker than their usual golden hazel.Peter couldn’t see anything else.
“Sorry,” he whispered, or tried to—his mouth moved, anyway, caressing Damian’s thumb in a way that set Peter’s hair on end and made his cock thicken so fast it almost hurt. It felt too much like foreplay, too much like Peter was about to get on his knees and rub his lips over something else.
Damian jerked his hand back like he’d been burned. “Don’t apologize.” He leaned down a little, getting back in Peter’s space. It didn’t feel threatening, not at all. It was like he couldn’t help needing to be closer. If Peter’s T-shirt wasn’t hanging down enough, his erection would start to show, and then— “You were making me want to kiss you again,” Damian said, his voice husky.
Yeah. His erection would definitely be showing.
“Oh.” Peter cleared his throat. Oh God. This close, he could pick up that faint scent again—Damian’s cologne, or maybe his skin simply smelled that damn good. Better than Peter, who’d been napping miserably until the knock on his door. He’d definitely brushed his teeth before he came to the door, and maybe he’d slapped on some deodorant, but maybe not. “Um. I’ll shut up now, then.”
Damian sighed, a little gust of warm air that brushed over Peter’s forehead. “I’ll go see if I can find a shovel.”
And then he turned and bolted off the porch and around the side of the house like Peter might chase him down and jump onto his cock or something.
Peter only wished.
He swung the door shut, locked it, felt like a jerk and unlocked it again, and then huffed and retreated to his bedroom. He’d wash up the best he could with his good arm all broken and casted, and then find someactual pants, Jesus Christ—and then he remembered what he’d put on the night before, and looked down in horror at hisSonic the Hedgehog underwearand went lightheaded for a second, dark spots swimming hazily in his vision and his knees turning to jelly.
One arm shot out to break his fall—only it didn’t, because that was his left arm, currently in a cast and a sling.
Peter toppled awkwardly, one knee cracking into the hardwood and making him cry out. He ended up on his ass, that knee bent and throbbing and the other leg stretched out. Cradling his jostled broken wrist and panting out a silent scream, he willed himself not to cry as jagged sparks of pain shot up his arm.
“Peter? You all right?” Damian’s worried voice carried easily through the bedroom window. The open bedroom window with the shed right next to it.
For a minute, Peter couldn’t answer, couldn’t do anything but breathe through the pain. Damian called out again, and then again, more frantically, and then silence fell.
That lasted all of five seconds before the front door slammed open, a quick flurry of heavy footsteps pounded the floor, and then Damian crouched beside him.
“Peter, what happened?” It sounded like a different person speaking, all of a sudden—Damian the first responder, not Damian the hot guy who’d been trying to make out with him a few minutes before. Gentle but sure hands moved over his shoulder, his leg, his left hand where it stuck out of the cast. “Did you move your left arm when you fell? Any pain in your shoulder?”
The pain was actually ebbing away quickly, the result of twisting his body too far and pulling against his sling without any real damage done. He told Damian as much in a miserable mumble, unable to lift his gaze from his lap. Sonic stared back reproachfully.
Damian took another look at Peter’s knee, prodding it a little and then letting out ahuhof satisfaction when Peter didn’t react beyond a slight wince.
“You’re probably all right,” he said. “But if anything starts to hurt more than it did before, you tell me and we’re going straight back to the hospital, you hear me?”
“Yeah. I hear you,” Peter whispered. The needle on his humiliation gauge had flipped so far over it’d gotten stuck. Now he’d simply gone numb. It came as kind of a relief, because if he hadn’t been, the warmth of Damian’s body so close to his and the tease of his callused fingers brushing over Peter’s knee—impersonal, exactly like he’d have done for any moron who fell and injured himself—would have been unbearably, shamefully arousing. “Maybe you should go. I’m fine.”
“But—”
