Page 53 of Man On

As painful as it is, this feels like progress. He admitted he wants me.

A loud crack of thunder jerks me out of my thoughts, and Lane shakes himself out of whatever reverie he was in. His eyes flit towards mine and then away, a blush darkening his cheeks.

Oh no, don't do that.

I do my best to hide my deep, slow breath. Now is not the time to get horny all over again.

Hiding it doesn't help. Lane still notices, his cheeks getting even redder. Then he fucking stutters, which is like kryptonite to my control.

"Y-you didn't?—"

He's too embarrassed to finish the sentence. I follow the movement of his Adam's apple when he swallows hard, and my mouth fills up with saliva thinking about how I kissed and bit and licked that nervous lump in his throat. Would he let me do it again? I'm pretty sure I could come just sucking on it.

I realize that I'm staring when his breathing picks up. It could be nerves, or it could be excitement, but there's enough uncertainty to make me hesitate. Whether we've been sitting here for minutes or an hour, he was just panicking about me jerking him off.

Oh my God, I jerked off my stepbrother.

My cock twitches.

He was just panicking, I mentally berate my penis. We can't push him so hard that he has a complete mental breakdown.

"We should get to bed," I say. "We've got class in the morning."

"Danny—" He stops when something like a growl crawls out of my chest, unbidden. Excuse me, what the fuck was that? I clear my throat and try to pass it off as anything other than what it was, but he continues. "Danny said to check the student app to check for class schedule adjustments due to the weather."

Keeping my mouth shut, so I don’t blurt out what I’m really thinking, because what does stupid fucking Danny Hastings know, anyway?! I nod and get to my feet. I'm surprised when Lane accepts my hand to help him up. Normally he'd smack me away and tell me he can get up on his own, but he grasps my hand and stands. His palm is warm against mine, his grip firm. He doesn't pull away immediately, and we stand there, just an inch too close, in a suspended handshake.

I'm the one that pulls away, but only because I remember that my hand, the very one he's holding, is covered in dried cum. I'd wiped as much of it off as I could without him noticing, but it's still there. I can see dried flakes of it on the back of my knuckles. It makes my cock twitch, remembering the warmth of his cum as it poured over my hand. The salty flavor of it has me licking my lips again, in case there is any trace left. Lane's eyes flick to the movement, and I wonder if he is thinking about how I made him taste himself. I so desperately wanted to lick it from his lips.

"Don't kiss me," Lane says quietly. His words aren't angry or accusing, they're pleading. It's not like when he tells me he doesn't like something when he does. He actually doesn't want me to kiss him. It twists my stomach a little, but I step back. I hadn't realized I was so close to him again.

I put several feet of space between us, retreating towards the hallway. There's an awkward silence that I feel responsible for, so I scramble for something to fill it with, making some excuse about needing to pee, which is a lie. I need space to think, but with him this close, I can't seem to think of anything other than things that I really, really shouldn't be thinking about. I tell him I'll be quick, because I'm sure he'd like to take a shower.

Once I'm back in my room, I sit on the edge of my bed, listening to the sounds of Lane walking through the hallway to the bathroom. The loud click of the door locking, the sound of the water turning on, the shower door closing.

He always locks the door. I never lock the door. I've never had a reason to, though.

I remember one time, back at home, when he left the door cracked open. The steam, laced with his simple, clean soap smell, lured me in. I stayed outside the door until I heard a sound. A gasp. Not a gasp like the one he made when we kissed, something deeper. I couldn't decide if he was crying or jerking himself off, but my boner didn't seem to care. I must have bumped the door or something, because he startled and pulled the curtain back just enough to look out. His eyes were wide with fear and disbelief, but he was staring at the door handle, not at me. Like he couldn't believe he'd forgotten to lock it.

I can't explain my proclivity to fuck with him when he looks the most upset. I've told myself over the years that it's to help get him out of his head. But truthfully, I wanted to fuck with his head as much as I wanted to clear it. I wanted to be the thing he was intimidated by, not whatever thoughts and nightmares plagued him from his childhood. Fuck his old-ass backwards grandpa.

Whenever I think about his grandfather, I get irrationally angry. I don't even know anything about him, other than Hannah could barely speak his name, and Lane spent most of his first year terrified of everything, saying things like, "Grandfather would never allow—". It annoyed the shit out of me.

Fuck that guy. I'm glad he's dead.

I'm the only one that gets to be in Lane's head.

CHAPTER 18

LANE

It's too quiet. I need to pee. I'm sore from overdoing it the other day. My morning wood hurts. The weather pressure is giving me a headache, or maybe it's stress. It could be both, I suppose.

Everything is uncomfortable. Tears prick at the back of my eyes as I stare up at my ceiling, but I refuse to let them fall.

I'm in control. I'm in control. I'm in control.

I wasn't in control the other night. I let Noah have it, again. And he…

---