Yanking my hand away as if it had been scalded, I decided if he was going to sleep in the worst way possible, then it was his responsibility to deal with the consequences of snoring through his Cirque du Soleil act. I remembered Malcolm complaining, though it was done so with that light in his eyes that said he didn’t mean a word of it, that Reggie turned into a marionette whose handler was on crack when he fell asleep after drinking.
Reggie and I rarely shared a bed. Only those nights when we were away from Arete and sharing a room, too drunk to go to theeffort of being dropped off at our respective homes. Again, not common, but the first time Reggie had pointed out that we were going to wake up hungover and miserable, there was no point in making it worse by forcing me to sleep on the couch when his bed was large enough to fit both of us. That had been before Arete was up and running, but it was something we’d done a few times since, though never here. That was new.
There was a tingling in my fingers that I didn’t like, and I scooted toward the edge of the bed as quickly but carefully as I could. Sitting with my back to him so I wouldn’t be tempted to give in to the itching, I looked myself over. Apparently, I had changed before bed as well, though that wasn’t exactly a clear memory. I was wearing a pair of sleep pants that hovered above my ankles, and the shirt was the one I’d been wearing under my dress shirt. Clearly, I had borrowed a pair of Reggie’s pants, and from the looks of the nearby table, I had folded not only my pants and dress shirt before collapsing into his bed, but paired and folded my socks neatly?
Drunk me had priorities…maybe not the best ones, but priorities all the same.
“Mmf,” came the grunt from behind me, and I turned to see Reggie unbending himself, his face scrunching unhappily as he slapped the side of the bed I’d been lying in moments before. Chuckling softly, I patted his hand, and for whatever reason, that made him still with a heavy sigh as he now lay with his legs spreadeagled, one arm under his pillow, and the other in the warmth I’d left behind on the bed.
I couldn’t resist the urge to look at him again and tried not to betoodisappointed when I saw the shirt had slipped back down to cover his stomach. That was quickly forgotten with a sudden jolt as I realized that the sleep pants he was wearing were apparently not all that thick. Or at least, not heavy enough to cover the outline of his clearly hard dick.
Now, at forty-two, I was aware that was not a sign of arousal and that more than likely when he woke up, he would sprint to the bathroom, as I should have been doing, to empty his bladder. It was, however, the first time I had ever paid attention to his groin with more than a curious glance, and my eyes skittered away nervously before I was found out.
Reggie was asleep though, out cold more likely, and there was no way for him to catch me as my heart thumped harder than it should from just sitting. The itching was coming back to my fingers, crawling its way up my arms, a restless frustration from my body that craved to reach out. In truth, with how hard he was sleeping, I could probably wrap my fingers around his shaft. I wondered if the heat from his dick would leak through the fabric into my palm, and if he was hard enough for me to feel the throb of his heartbeat.
It would be as easy as turning around, and he would never be the wiser. I couldn’t call it an innocent thought, but I believed I was capable of touching without going further. Without needing to go the extra step and reach into his pants to feel the skin of his cock against my hand, or to grip him and pull him free where I could find out if he was the type to leak or not. Or to go the extra step and lean over so I could take him into my mouth, to taste him and?—
I snapped my head up and got out of bed before my brain went from its rapid spiral into intense fantasy and instead became a reality. I would not molest Reggie in his sleep, for fuck’s sake, and while I knew better than to beat myself uptoo muchfor the thoughts, I still felt a squirm of guilt that I had even considered going that far. Not just with him, but while he was asleep and completely vulnerable.
I glanced again as he rolled over into the spot I’d left behind, legs still splayed but otherwise not moving as I grabbed a bottle of water from his fridge. I could feel my bladder protesting, butthe problem was that my hard on was no longer the product of sleeping. I had just been seriously tempted to grope a cute, funny, and sexy man while he slept trustingly beside me. That would need to go away before I tried to empty my bladder.
I looked around, realizing it had been a few months since I’d last been in his room. Neither of us needed to visit the other’s private quarters when our offices, usually mine, were more than good enough to talk. Sometimes we left Arete together, but even then, we came back and went to our own rooms.
Like my office and quarters, his private room was built into the side of the mountain, which gave him a window with blackout curtains he loved. Reggie could be a restless sleeper, and sometimes he needed to sleep late or even a few hours in the afternoon. When I drew them back, I wasn’t surprised to see the strong sunlight blinding me momentarily; I glanced down and rolled my eyes at the prosperous-looking collection of plants, some of which I recognized from a few years before.
Clearly, he had a green thumb, unlike me.
Blinking against the sunlight, I let the curtain close again and took in the rest of the room. Like his office, it was sheer chaos that would have driven me crazy if I’d been forced to navigate it. Reggie, however, thrived in it, and I knew from seeing him in his office that he wouldn’t see piles of mess, but could pluck what he needed from each pile easily.
There was a stack of folders on what should have been a dining room table, along with a sketchpad. There was a card table against one wall, with a half-finished puzzle, and when I flipped over the box, I grimaced at the 5000-piece count. I didn’t know if that much frustration was worth getting to see a picture of a seaside shack, but somehow that image didn’t surprise me either. He was the same man who kept a seashell from every beach he had ever visited in a clear box on a shelf, had a lightshow to mimic an underwater view, and had been scuba diving certified since his early twenties.
Stepping over a small pile of laundry that, for some reason, he hadn’t thrown into the chute down to the laundry room; I stepped into his bathroom. When we had the place built, he had insisted his bathroom have a standing shower rather than a tub, and a large one at that. Large enough to house a bench that allowed him to sit under the spray of water. He’d said that if he needed to soak in hot water, that’s what the springs were for; he preferred a shower.
Sighing as I finished emptying my bladder, I washed my hands and plucked one of the wrapped toothbrushes that sat in the cup. According to Reggie, he didn’t like to use his toothbrushes for more than a week and had a tendency to drop them, so it was necessary to keep a stock. Which was handy when you accidentally crashed at his place and needed to brush your teeth to wash out the taste of the previous night’s bad decisions, and no small amount of leftover, bitter-tasting rum for that matter.
Once the foulness in my mouth was replaced by a welcome minty freshness, I flipped off the light and opened the bathroom door. Only to stop when I saw Reggie moving on the bed. I stopped to see if he was going to wake up. He let out a grunt, which, while not unusual for him, made me stop in my tracks as he continued to move.
It took me a moment to understand why my unconscious made me freeze at the door when there was no reason. It wasn’t until I squinted at him that I realized he was pushing his hips against the bed and making soft noises. Now, I wasn’t going to stand there and tell myself I had never woken up, hard and out of it, then alerted to the sensation of my arousal being ground against a bed. It wasn’t as if you were at your cognitive best inthat state, and sometimes the primal feeling of pleasure from your groin could provoke you to chase that feeling.
Except I wasn’t the one doing it; I was bearing witness to someone else doing it, and while I should have stopped him or at least woken him up, I was frozen in place. My hard-on was making a comeback quickly, and I stood in the doorway to the bathroom and watched, eyes growing wider as he gave another groan, flopping onto his back, his pants tented.
If I thought that was the end, I was wrong, as his hand pushed under the band of his sleep pants. For a fleeting moment, I told myself he was just adjusting himself, but then I saw his hand move. Either he was trying to jerk off in his sleep, or he was so sleepy and groggy he didn’t remember I’d been sharing a bed with him and might still be around. Either way, I knew I needed to step up and stop him before he went even further. My accidental peep show needed to stop, and that was all there was to it.
Yet the words died in my throat, my mouth going dry when he pulled himself free from his pants before I could do more than take a halfhearted step forward. It was the first time I hadeverseen his cock, hard or soft. Even when we’d gone to the gym together, I had always made sure I wasn’t around when he changed, or busied myself so I wouldn’t see anything more than him in his underwear.
Except there was his dick, wrapped in his hand as he stroked himself, hard and alluring. My cock was straining, trying to break through the fabric of my pants as I stood in silent surprise and arousal. He was taking his time, but clearly enjoying himself as he groaned, pushing up into his own grip with a roll of his hips. Jesus, that one motion was just as erotic as watching him jerk off, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he could do the same thing while he was fucking someone or someone was fucking him.
I needed to back away because I clearly could not muster the willpower to make him stop. Just retreat into the bathroom, turn on the light and pretend I had been in there the whole time. Then make enough noise on my way out that it would hopefully alert him. Sure, it would probably embarrass him to realize he had done that with me so close, but I could pretend I hadn’t seen a thing so long as I sat in the bathroom long enough to stop being hard.
Except his breathing was getting deeper, and I could hear the shaky note at the end of his next groan. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up to expose his stomach, his back arching. He was so close, and that would have been the perfect moment for me to make a hasty retreat. I didn’t need to see the rest, even as I felt rooted to the spot, and my dick was trying its darndest to take over and push me to help him that last bit.
He didn’t need my help, though, and his hips thrust into his hand again as he gave a soft cry that threatened to shatter what fragile remains of self-control I had left. I had enough to stay in one place as his cock jerked in his grasp, and I watched as he shot over his stomach and chest, groaning from the depths of his throat. Either he was the type to make a mess when he got off, or it had been a while since he’d taken care of himself considering the sheer amount that shot over him before finally settling down to a thick drip that pooled over his hand and down onto his groin.
I made a small noise. It might have been a groan, a curse, a gasp; I didn’t know because I had tried to strangle it before anything could get out, but it found enough space to wriggle free. It was also enough for him to flail, twisting in the bed with a shout of surprise to see me standing there.
For a moment, all I could do was stare back at him, no idea what my expression looked like, as he stared at me in open shock, his eyes wide as they darted over me. It was therealization that there was the smallest streak of come on his cheek, that he had shot that hard, that finally broke the spell that had taken hold of me. I muttered a hasty apology and darted back into the bathroom. I would have preferred to leave the room, but the bathroom was the closest space I could safely retreat to. Plus, I wasn’t wearing underwear, and my dick was still hard; it would have been obvious to waddle out quickly with that thing swinging around in my pants.
Letting out a huff of air that I hoped wasn’t loud enough to be heard, I flipped on the light and spun around to turn on the water while I heard him muttering curses. I stared into my wide-eyed reflection, which looked as if I’d just seen either the worst or best thing I’d seen in a long time, and forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. That was a lot easier said than done when I had the crystal-clear image of Reggie sprawled on his back, cock in hand as he stroked himself to a messy finish that was definitely going to find its way into my fantasies when I was alone later.
