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Not that I need to tell my roommate what I’m doing. It just felt natural. I shut the door between us and stare at myself in the mirror. I am so fucked. I guess for the next nine months I’ll just be living life with a perpetual hard-on, at least around him.

I splash water on my face. It doesn’t help. I need a cold shower, but I guess a cold ice rink will have to do the job. Not that I’ll be very cold. No, I’ll be sweating my ass off.

Getting dressed quickly, I run my fingers through my hair and check my reflection again. It will do.

Quinn is still in the same spot when I come out of the bathroom, and I say a quick goodbye before grabbing my stuff and heading out.

FIFTEEN

QUINN

I finish my homework in record time.

Then I have nothing to do with my hands.

I stare at his side of the room. It’s messy. One shoe under his bed, one by the door. A shirt on the floor next to his laundry basket. A textbook face-down and open like he stopped reading mid-sentence, which I’m sure he did. A towel slung over the desk chair from last night. Normally, all of that would bother me. But it doesn’t bother me with him.

Still, I pick up a dirty shirt from the floor that missed his hamper and start to toss it in, but then I catch a whiff of his natural musk. That smell he has after sweating. I freeze with the shirt in both hands and glance toward the door like someone is going to walk in and ask me what I’m doing.

Nobody walks in, obviously.

And I bring his shirt up to my face and inhale before I can talk myself out of it.

He smells amazing.

My stomach dips. My jeans go tight in a way I usually ignore until I’m in the shower and can take care of it. I absently press my palm against my jeans, like that will stop it. It doesn’t work. If anything, it makes it worse.

Heat under my hand. A slight pulse of my cock wanting to be free. I suck in another breath through the shirt without meaning to, and my hips hitch forward into my palm.

I have time. I can masturbate. That will give me some pleasure. Then I can put the shirt in the hamper and go back to being a person who does not sniff his roommate’s laundry.

I keep his t-shirt in my grip as I undo my button and slide down my zipper before pushing my jeans down far enough to get myself out. I’m already hard when I get my hand around myself, which is faster than normal. The air in the room kisses my heated skin and feels too cool and a little too much. I sit on the edge of my bed because I feel like I’m going to tip over if I stay on my feet.

I stroke once, dry, and hiss. I spit in my palm and try again. Then I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to bring to mind that vague sense of warmth that usually helps me get off.

I start the same way I always do. But it doesn’t stay that way. I can still smell Daniel. On the cotton gripped in my free fist. I drag the shirt down and away from my face and it brushes my other wrist while I stroke and my brain—malfunctions—hands me Daniel in the lab. Focused. His hair falling over his goggles. That smear of chemicals on his gloves. His smile when I told him he was good.

I try to push it away and bring back the anonymous warmth I’m used to. Instead, I get an image of him in the doorway with the Subway bag instead. Sweaty. Grinning. Attractive.

My hand speeds up chasing the new feeling. I’ve never done this with someone in my head before. The realization should stop me, because it should feel wrong. It doesn’t. It makes my cock throb against my fingers, thicker, wet at the tip. I swipe my thumb through it, and my thighs jump.

“Oh,” I say, out loud, which I don’t usually do.

I press his shirt to my face again and breathe him in, and the picture changes without my permission. This morning, sleep-rumpled, hair in his eyes, and rolling onto his stomach. The sound he made. I didn’t understand that sound then. I think I do now.

I squeeze myself and stroke harder.

The images of him coming quicker. Him on the floor next to my bed, dripping from the shower, and calling me a brainy bear. His hands around mine, rough but feeling so nice at the same time. His bright smile. My hips start moving. I plant my feet on the edge of the bed so I don’t slide off the mattress.

This is—more.

Usually it’s a climb I can measure. Pressure, then more pressure, then I finish and wash my hands. This is sloppy. And there’s this building hot feeling all the way down my spine. My stomach is tight. I keep seeing his mouth.

I replay the two seconds before I shoved my tongue into his mouth, when it was only lips, and my fist tightens.

I want that again.

The thought is so clear it scares me.