Page 6 of My Irresistible Enemy

I brought one leg up, bracing my foot on the edge of the sink, then flipped my camera around and pressed ‘Record.’

“You got me so hot with your comments,” I said, biting my lip as I looked into the camera, “that I couldn’t wait. I had to jerk off, right now.”

I panned the camera down my body to my dick, teasing the head with my fingers, then stroking my shaft.

“I keep thinking about what you’d do to me if you were here,” I said, making my voice needy. “If you’d take me right now, even knowing that people could walk by right outside. If you’d put a hand over my mouth so I didn’t make too much noise, or if you’d let me be as loud as I wanted so anyone who passed by would know what was happening in here.”

I tilted the camera down and back, sliding a finger towards my hole. It was an awkward angle, but I knew my subscribers liked my ass even more than my cock.

I was actually turning myself on a bit as I talked. It was all a silly fantasy, but there was something exciting about doing this in a semi-public place. Besides, it wasn’t as if anybody was going to—

I froze, my finger just breaching my hole, as I remembered something in horror. I’d never locked the door. My gaze flew across the room, but it was too late. As though summoned by my thoughts, the handle started to turn.

2

Nolan

“Nolan, sweetheart, do you have a sec?”

My mom’s voice came down the hall from the living room, light and clear as a bell. Even with everything that had happened over the past twenty years—to say nothing of the last twelve months—she still sounded exactly the way I remembered from when I was a kid.

That said, I could hear a note of worry underneath. Actually, no—not just worry. What I was hearing was her doing her best toconcealher worry. I was all too familiar with that sound, too.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden spike in my heartbeat. She’d been living with me for a year now, and I still got taken by surprise by moments like these. Moments where all the fear, all the guilt came rushing back, and I wondered what else I was about to lose.

“Be right there!” I called, opening my eyes.

I’d been pulling a suitcase down out of my closet, but that could wait. I’d put off packing for this long, there was no reason I couldn’t avoid it for another few minutes.

“What’s up?” I asked, putting on a bright smile as I entered the living room.

My mom sat on my sofa, wrapped up in an old afghan my grandmother—her mother—had knit. It was lime-green and orange, truly atrocious, and I wasn’t sure which one of us loved it more. She pulled it tighter—she was always cold these days—and patted the seat next to her.

“Come sit, honey,” she said.

Her smile was worried too. It was the same smile that used to hover on her face when she’d tuck me into the closet and tell me to stay quiet on the nights when my dad came home drunk. The same smile that used to appear and disappear like the sun behind clouds when she’d visit my grandparents and ask for money. It was a smile that said she hated what she was doing, but she couldn’t think of a better option.

The last time I’d seen that smile, I’d been coming home from a night I couldn’t remember—a night I never wanted to think about again. I’d found her sitting on the front stoop of my building.

She’d had nowhere else to go, and I’d had no one else to trust. She’d needed somewhere to live, and I’d needed—well, I’d needed a lot of things. A distraction. A lesson. A way to atone.

What else could I do but ask her to stay?

I hadn’t regretted it. Not for a moment. I’m not saying it was fun, seeing her this sick. And it wasn’t easy, wondering if I could have prevented all of this if I’d been a better son.

But I’d spent more time with her in the past year than I had in the twenty preceding that. And I was crossing my fingers that we were through the worst of it.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, sinking onto the couch. “Are you feeling alright? Should we call Dr. Morgan? Or is it a medication thing? I can stay if you want me to. It really wouldn’t be that big a deal, and—”

“Nolan.” My mom gave me a level look. “I feel fine.” I looked right back at her and she flushed. “Well, as fine as can be expected, under the circumstances.”

“Really?” I studied her face, searching for some sign that she was concealing the truth. I was familiar with how that looked on her, too. “Because you don’t have to pretend for me. Your health is more important than anything. Is it pain? Or nausea? We could get those pills, even if we do have to pay out of pocket for them.”

“Nolan. I’m fine. I mean it. We don’t need to call Dr. Morgan, and you definitely don’t need to stay home. Hell, even if I didn’t feel fine, I wouldn’t let you stay here.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I arched an eyebrow. “All that does is make me think youarelying, just so I won’t feel bad about leaving.”

“We all have our crosses to bear.” She grinned, but her face sobered when I didn’t smile back. “I’m serious, Nolan. I really do feel better than I have in weeks. Even if it’s only because I’m excited for you, think how guilty you’d feel if you stayed homejust to be safe, and nothing was wrong, and you missed your chance to win all that money. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

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