Page 74 of The Influencer

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“We should talk,” I say with my dick still mostly hard inside him.

“I know,” Jade whispers.

Extremely reluctantly, I let him go. It feels beyond good to be this close to him.

“You can use the bathroom first,” he tells me.

I take him up on the offer, wanting the condom off. It’s fun seeing the other ones in the trash can—not all mine. And by fun, I mean like that feeling you get right before you have to have dental work done. Dread mixed with worst-case-scenario.

What’s nuts about it is, before we fucked the other night, I never would have pegged myself at this point in my life as someone who would want to jump into anything remotely emotional, let alone with a virtual stranger. But when I woke up on his couch with him in my arms, I don’t know. Knocked a screw loose or something.

There is no way in hell we can be any more than this. The dude fucks other dudes for a living. And what’s even more nuts? I kinda like that about him. It’s hot. He’s a slut and a camboy and a cock whore, and that’s all just very fucking hot, especially when it comes to his cynical attitude about all of it. There is nothing I don’t find appealing about him exactly as he is, but what he is—is completely incompatible with me. I rinse off, take a piss, and return to the bedroom. He rises in all his pale, sculpted marble beauty and disappears behind the bathroom door.

I pull on my boxer briefs and tank, think about putting on my jeans for a second and decide to go through with it. As I’m buckling my belt, he goes through the routine that’s starting to feel familiar. Fresh undies from his dresser, a clean shirt—this one is so oversized it not only falls off one shoulder, but it also covers his ass, and then he sits back down on the bed, looking up at me like he expects me to do the same.

I do. We cross our legs beneath us and face each other, neither one of us chomping at the bit to go first. “Well,” he finally says. “What did you want to talk about?”

Nice trick.

“Just heard a lot of ‘next times’ and ‘we’s’ tonight. Wondered where you’re at with that.”

“Did you want to go ahead and end things?” he asks, totally sincere, and not at all like an affirmative answer will bother him in the least.

“I mean… not exactly,” I hedge, studying his face for any clue as to what he wants. Because whatever it is, I figure I can try to give it to him. He’s not likely to ask for much, given his lifestyle.

“I think I wouldn’t like it if I didn’t think we’d see each other again.”

“That means a lot coming from you,” I admit.

“Tell me about it,” he says.

I smile. “You’re really cute. I don’t know what to do with you. Seriously.”

“I think you’ve been doing just fine with me.”

He didn’t see me last night, nearly killing myself on the bench press trying not to think about what he looks like being fucked by two men at the same time.

Maybe it’s my lack of experience, but I haven’t exactly mastered the ability to separate sex and intimacy. When I was first with Liv, sex led to my falling in love with her. I’ve long since fallen out of that love, and I can’t say for sure if it’s because I lost the physical closeness, or if I’ve just grown to low key hate her—familiarity breeds contempt and all that.

Going all the way back to high school, when I lost my virginity—I fell for that girl, too. Kendra. When she moved away, I thought I was gonna die. I never tried the casual hook-up thing, even in college. I’ve always been the guy who likes a girl from a distance for a while, builds up the nerve to ask her out, and then, if I got really lucky, I’d get to the date where we finally had sex.

So Jade, being Jade and all, is a departure for me style-wise. Whether it was an inside joke or not, money did change hands before our first, second, and third encounters. I wasn’t crushing on him the day I asked to suck his nipples, I just wanted to suck his nipples. It literally had nothing to do with him. But tonight, it did. Tonight, my being here had everything to do with him. And I do think I should back off.

Because as hot as the idea of him fucking anyone else is in theory, it makes him hook up material. Not boyfriend material. And that’s totally fine. I need to be more focused on myself right now anyway. Obviously, I’ve got a lot to figure out.

“Look, I’m not trying to make your life complicated,” I say. “I know you have lots of stuff going on and a tour coming up. Maybe it’s better if we?—”

He holds up a hand and says, “Wait,” stopping the words before they make it out of my mouth. And I admit I’m a little relieved. I hadn’t wanted to say them all that much anyway. “Let’s just say, I’m here if you need anything. Can we do that?” he asks.

“If I need to get laid, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“What if you’re busy?” I ask.

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