I watched as the sweats he wore hung low over his hips and shifted with each strenuous jump he took. His face was scrunched tightly, and I could tell from his angle that it was bothering his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to have an off switch.
Wanting to ask what was wrong was like defusing a bomb with Cael. His demeanor was so different from the last time we had been here. Gone was the friendly, sweet boy with the bright smile and loud laugh.
The Cael in front of me was the one from his file.
The Cael beating himself into the ground five feet away was the one that was shown in all the news reports about the accident. The man I had been expecting to come face to face with when I arrived.
“Enjoying the show?” He asked breathlessly.
I hadn’t even realized he’d stopped until he looked up at me through the mirror across the room with a warm gaze that flooded my nervous system and turned my cheeks pink.
“I am,” I confessed. No sense in trying to hide it. “Do you jump rope to Moulin Rouge regularly?”
“It’s a good song, has a good tempo…” He whispered.
Goosebumps ran the length of my arms at the sound. I needed him in every way, and position, possible before leaving Harbor. I wanted to map every inch of Cael Cody with my tongue.
“God, I love it when you get nervous.” He licked his bottom lip and looked over his shoulder at me, tugging out the headphones from his ears.
“Why are you here so late?” I asked him, crossing my legs and gripping the edge of the table.
“Why are you?” Cael countered with a cheeky grin as he sauntered toward me.
“I was—” I stuttered slightly as his hand brushed my thigh. The smell of his cologne and sweat tangled together in the air, making me lean into him. “Getting B-reel for the production team,” I barely finished.
“I was fighting with my Dad.” He shrugged like it meant nothing, but his words weren’t as light as they usually were and it made concern flicker across my face. “Don’t do that, Plum. Look at me like you feel bad for me. It only makes me feellittle.”
You’re still that boy.
I wanted to say it to him, whether or not I meant it. It felt like something he needed to hear, but maybe that was just my newfound knowledge of his past speaking out loud, not my logic.
“You are anything butlittle,” I hooked my finger into the band of his sweatpants and dipped my hand inside, changing the mood with the soft caress of my fingertips over him.
“Brave.” He leaned into my touch as my thumb brushed over the tip of his cock. “We’re in public.” His breath stuttered and fanned over my cheek as my fingers wrapped tightly around him.
“I’ve been up and down the concourse three times tonight. There’s no one here but us,” I whispered back and pumped over his shaft until he grew impossibly hard in my palm. I kicked off my shoes as his fingers worked the button on my jeans, tugging them down off my hips and leaving me in my underwear and t-shirt.
It was just us now.
“You better hope you’re right, Plum.” He swooped forward before I could stop him, and his lips were on my neck, tracing a sloppy line to my jaw, but he paused, stopping himself before he reached my lips and lifted me from the desk into his arms. “Because I’m sick of sharing.”
A tiny yelp left my lips, heat surging through me at his strength as he walked me across the room to the wall directly across from the row of mirrors. He watched me carefully, gauging my reaction to his every touch with blown out pupils as the adrenaline from his workout coursed through his muscles.
“Stay,” he whispered as he lowered me to the ground.
I didn’t even flinch at the demand as he kissed a line down my arm to my wrist.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“Tying you up.” His eyes flickered up to mine through heavy lashes as his lips tickled the palm of my hand before he wrapped the black plastic jump rope around my wrist.
“Cael,” I warned. A shaky breath left my lips when I understood what he was doing, the rope wrapping around my second wrist gently and tugging themtogether in a tight bundle I couldn’t escape. “You can’t do that here,” I said to him.
“Sure I can, you didn’t place stipulations on our trade. I get to tie you up, that was the deal,” he all but purred. “Are you nervous?” He asked.
“No,” I lied as my heart raced.
Cael’s tongue pressed against his bottom lip as it curled into a devilish smirk.