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“Why didn’t you ask?” I held on to the railing as the boat swayed mildly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not easy for me to ask for things.”
“Why not?” I crouched along his supine body, giving in to the urge to remove his shades. I wanted to hear his explanation, as well as see it play out in his eyes.
He squinted up at me, the yellow of the sun deepening the honey hue of his irises. “Because what if I ask and the answer is no?”
“What if?” I asked, always burning to understand him, to get more of the deeper parts of him. “What if the answer is no? What then?”
“Then I wouldknowI couldn’t ask you for anything instead of assuming I couldn’t. I’d know I couldn’t rely on anyone but myself, instead of hoping that wasn’t the truth.”
As always, we were talking about more than this moment, more than this boat, and more thanus. “Ask me for something,” I whispered. Leland laughed but quickly quieted when I didn’t join in. I hid his shades behind my back when he reached for them, my probing stare never leaving his. “Ask me for something that you’ve been wanting to ask me for but haven’t.”
His chest rose and fell rapidly as the seconds ticked by. I didn’t know what I was doing, what I hoped to accomplish, but like I always had after Leland opened a wound for me, I operated on instinct. “Let me drive your boat,” he settled on.
“No,” I said, and he turned away from me. “Only because you have no interest in driving it. You’d rather spend your time up here. I’m using one of the questions I won, Leland, and according to your rules, you have to give me honesty. What do you really want to ask me right now?”
“I don’t like this game,” he bit out. While I’d seen brief glimpses of Leland’s sadness, for the most part he hid behind humor and sexual provocation. Until now, I’d never seen him upset.
I considered him a while longer, determining it wasn’t anger rippling off him. Leland was scared.
“You made the rules, now play by them,” I said, refusing to let him off the hook.
A mischievous glint lit his eyes, rivaling the gleam of the sun, and I knew he’d resort to making light of whatever he planned on saying. He pillowed the back of his head with his hands. “Let me spend the rest of the summer here with you. After the mural is complete.”
That took me by surprise. “I thought you had something to do once you finished.”
“It’s just a bartending course. My homebase could be here,” he said, a little less sure. His breezy, I-couldn’t-care-one-way-or-the-other facade crumbling under the suspense. “Maybe just a couple days out of the week. It’s…sunnier here.”
I didn’t think highlighting how adorable that was would go over well, so I didn’t. “No,” I said, watching unfettered vulnerability crush him. He didn’t have the strength needed to hide it. “I want you here every day. If you can do whatever it is you need to and make it back here—back home—then please, stay.”
“O-okay,” he said, that sweet blush of his washing over his tanned skin.
“Wasn’t the possibility of getting what you wanted worth the risk of rejection?” I asked, returning his glasses to him.Wasn’tIworth the risk?
Leland stilled with his shades halfway on, his eyes searing into me over the rim of them. I hadn’t realized I’d said that last part out loud, but the way his mouth and stare softened said it mattered to him that I had.
“Yeah,” he said without clarifying which question he’d answered. Both, I hoped. “Can we get this show on the road now?”
“From fear of rejection to demanding,” I tsked. “Do you want a below deck tour first?”
“Nah. The view is much better from here,” he said significantly. He was once again hidden from me behind his tinted lenses, but his face was angled up at me. My breath quickened as I tried to work out the intention of his comment, but then his brows wiggled above his frames, and I huffed out a laugh.
“Your flirting is going to get you in trouble one of these days,” I said as I made my way to the rear of the boat, Leland’s laughter chasing me.
I unwound the dock lines from the cleat, going over a few things in my head as I got the boat ready for departure. Had Leland wanted me to invite him to stay when he’d mentioned needing to leave once the mural was complete? Moving forward, I would be mindful of instances when he could be hinting for more instead of outright asking me for it.
I set off, steering us aimlessly and suffering from the helm as Leland first removed his shirt, then his pants in an attempt to achieve an even-bodied tan. At one point he took a nap on his stomach with his boxer briefs pulled below the meaty part of his ass cheeks. The elastic waistband pushed the round globes higher, making them appear plumper than they already were. He couldn’t have known what type of view I’d have from here.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, when I could no longer pretend that my budding attraction for him was some misplaced sentiment from a childhood friendship, I dropped anchor and left Leland sleeping while I took off to berate myself below deck.
Entering the small bedroom, I fell back on the bed, squeezing my eyes shut. Visions of long, sun-bronzed limbs assaulted me, and a blush so vibrant it reminded me of fresh cut watermelon on a summer day made my pulse thrum furiously.
Some force beyond me possessed my body, and before I knew it I had a spit-slicked fist wrapped around my cock, tugging and strangling it with a mix of lust and anger. I just needed to get this urgent need out of my system before facing him again. I didn’t want it to feel good, but it did, which made me angrier, which in turn made me harder. I’d never been a violent man, but someone needed to pay for how good it felt to touch myself to thoughts of him, and since it couldn’t be Leland—couldneverbe Leland—it had to be me.
My biceps flexed, and my hips jutted off the bed as I pumped my cock, needing to orgasm to prove that once done, I could then put this madness behind me.
Within seconds I’d come all over my hand to thoughts of Leland. I panted at the ceiling where Leland slept peacefully above, eyes still closed because I couldn’t look down and face what I’d done.
