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He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and the image of Victor exploded behind his darkened lids. He could hear the echo of his soft laugh, see the shy, careful way he handled Oliver and the heat in his eyes because his desire had been obvious.
He could feel the ghost of the kiss on his hand when Victor had taken his fingers in his. He pictured Victor’s full lips and the way he would bite into them and the spit left behind when he let go. He imagined having Victor between his legs and sucking him until Oliver screamed his name.
“Victor! Fuck.Fuck.” It was a hoarse gasp, and it sent him over the edge.
He spilled in hot ropes over his stomach, the mess almost instantly cooling from the ceiling fan, and he pawed around for his discarded shirt before changing his mind. It was the hockey shirt, and he couldn’t bring himself to soil it. He grabbed a couple of leftover napkins from his last takeout order and wiped the mess from his stomach before rolling onto his side and turning the blanket into a burrito.
He would have stayed immobile for the rest of the night, but his phone buzzed twice. It was a text, not an email, and his heart was hammering in his ears as he stuck one arm out and fumbled for his phone. He was almost too afraid to look, but he was too afraid not to.
His thumb tapped the screen, and he prepared himself for the best and the worst.
And Christ, somehow, it was both.
Unknown: Tonight, when I first saw you, you looked like an angel. The parking lot lights gave you a halo. I couldn’t get that image out of my head.
Unknown: I want to see the aquarium. I don’t know if I want you to take me, so please don’t reply to this tonight. I’ll let you know either way tomorrow morning when I wake up. But I wanted to say thank you, Oliver. You did something for me no one else ever has.
Unknown: Sweet dreams.
Chapter7
There wasa small part of Victor that had hoped Oliver was the kind of man to push boundaries. Of course, knowing what he actually did for a living, it made sense that he wouldn’t. That consent and respect would be more than important to him, but Victor was looking for an excuse to change his answer.
Or maybe he was looking for an excuse to say fuck it and invite Oliver over to his rental and fulfill several of the fantasies that had been running through his head since he kissed Oliver’s hand at the arena.
Instead, he slept poorly with the vision of platinum hair and earth-brown eyes showing up in every single one of his dreams. He woke feeling more alone than he had in forever and rolled to the side, staring at the jersey he’d draped over the dresser in the bedroom.
He replayed every single second he remembered from the night before. Every laugh, every casual touch—and the most deliberate ones. He could still taste the salt of Oliver’s skin when Victor’s lips lingered against his knuckles.
Inviting Oliver to be with him casually for the week was a study in absolute disaster. He’d be paying him to what? Be his companion?
Victor was pretty sure that fell under the description of hiring a prostitute. He’d never done it himself, but he was fairly certain hiring an escort didn’t always have to end in sex.
The problem was, he’d be crossing a line because it wouldn’t be just professional. Not for him. From the moment their hands connected at the arena, Victor was deep in his feelings. They were powerful and completely foreign, and he wasn’t sure what the hell to do with them because he had no business falling for a stranger on his ruined honeymoon.
Still, there was also no denying he was falling hard and fast. When Gabriel tried to steal his date, he’d been ready to knock the guy flat on his ass, even if it would have earned him the beating of a lifetime.
But in that same moment, he’d also opened his phone and found that Oliver wasn’t who he said he was. And that had damn near crushed him. He almost called a cab and left Oliver there to his own devices—and Gabriel’s attentions.
And—as much as he hated himself for it—that was why he stayed.
Gabriel was charming, younger than him, good-looking, and wildly charismatic. He was everything Victor wasn’t. But Oliver looked at him the way most people looked at men like Gabriel, and Victor found it immediately addicting. He couldn’t seem to let go, even if he was reeling about the lie.
It had taken everything in him to walk away because he was on the verge of making a mistake, and he had to let his common sense make the decisions. He needed to find a way to be rational about this, which wasn’t easy because Victor had never been in this position before. He’d always been a casual observer, making quiet judgments on the people around him.
And Jesus, now look at him.
Oliver was working as an escort to avoid loans, which was something Victor had never spent a single moment worrying about, and that had made him feel like shit. He had no idea what it was like to be in Oliver’s position, and that alone kept him from panicking and hurting a young, vibrant man who didn’t deserve the kind of pain anyone else might have heaped upon him.
But did that mean Victor should take Oliver up on his offer?
His resolve was almost nonexistent.
Rubbing his hands down his face, Victor rolled over and flexed his calves a few times until his feet went a little straighter, and then he heaved himself up and braced himself on the wall as he made his way to the bathroom. He rested his knees against the side of the toilet bowl as he emptied his bladder, then washed his hands and face and stared at his toothbrush before deciding coffee first would taste better.
He hadn’t bothered unpacking, so he had to slump down next to his suitcase and wriggle into his orthotics and trousers like he’d done when he was a kid, feeling a little pathetic. He was a grown-ass man who ran his own multibillion-dollar company, and he was lying on the floor, wiggling his ass into his pants while having a moral crisis.
Fuck, life wasn’t fair.
