Page 2 of Just Watch Me

I should stop.But I couldn’t. It was the most exciting thing I’d done, the most alive I’d felt in ages. My biggest adventure involved standing in my own home with my hand in my pants.How sad is that?

I tightened my grip around my cock nearly too hard as I raced toward climax. My neighbor’s hips pistoned as he pounded the guy’s ass into oblivion.

I want that so bad.I wanted to feel my neighbor’s strong arms as he gripped my hips hard enough to leave marks. With my free hand, I dug my fingertips into my hips, carving crescents into my skin. Marking had never appealed to me before. Then again, my idea of getting wild was having sex on the covers instead of underneath them.

My neighbor’s pace faltered, and my balls tightened. He raised his hand from the man’s wrist and swiped the back of it across his forehead. I licked my lips as though I could taste his sweat.

What the hell has come over me?I was a watch-some-vanilla-porn-and-tug-my-dick-until-I-had-a-mediocre-orgasm kind of guy, not an act-like-a-voyeur-and-watch-a-neighbor-I’d-never-met-rail-someone-on-his-couch type of dude. I wanted to watch him again. I wanted to feel his hard cock pounding into me.

Oh god,god. My spine tingled as my balls drew up. I lowered my sweats to come in my hand and avoid adding unnecessary laundry to my shame. I pressed my thumb against the underside of my cockhead for a last bit of pressure to push me over the edge. As the initial come shot from my cock onto my palm, I tilted my head back, squeezed my eyes closed, and groaned.

When the stars behind my eyes cleared, I blinked away the fog and looked back out my window—and into my neighbor’s eyes. I felt his stare like a caress as I came more. My neighbor’s mouth curved into an O as the steady clip of his movements faltered.

I seared his expression into my memory before yanking up my sweats and rushing forward to close my blinds with my clean hand. I pulled so hard I nearly ripped them off the wall. So much for a boring Friday night.

CHAPTER2

I couldn’t concentrate at work. On a normal day, I would retreat to my shared cubicle on the sixth floor of the Portland office building with fluorescents too bright and temperature too cold, lose myself in the code, and ignore anything unrelated to whatever video game I was programming. If only it were a normal Monday.

My mind wouldn’t stop thinking about my neighbor and the way he’d licked his lips, how his mouth had fallen open as he’d pushed his thick cock into the guy, how the muscles in his arms had rippled as he’d tugged on the guy’s wrists.

After spending the rest of the weekend with my blinds firmly closed, numbing myself by catching scattered games with my online friends, I half expected to call in sick. My shame nearly suffocated me, but if I did call in, my boss would give me hell. I didn’t need another reason for Chad to make my life miserable.

I allowed myself to wallow in my embarrassment for two days, even splurging on grocery delivery in order to meal prep my lunches for the week, then I forced myself to leave the security of my apartment that morning. Fortunately, I didn’t see my neighbor. Not that I’d ever seen him outside his apartment since I barely left mine other than to go to work, but I was relieved he hadn’t left a flaming bag of crap on my doorstep or sent the cops to interrogate me for being a perv.

Despite all that, my desire for him burned under my protective layer of embarrassment. I wanted him. I didn’t have the guts to go after him, but a man could dream.

Someone stuck their hand in my face and startled the hell out of me. I pulled off my noise-canceling headphones and found Chad hovering over me.

“How’s the patch coming along?” He leaned against my desk, too close for comfort.

“Good. Almost done.” I shouldn’t have agreed to do it because it wasn’t my code that needed the patch, but Chad knew I wouldn’t say no.

I used to think the work ethic my dad had drilled into me was beneficial, but as I got older, I began to wish my parents had taught me how to stand up for myself and set boundaries. Instead, they were like Dr. Frankenstein, their greatest creation a lanky twenty-seven-year-old whose biggest risk to date had been moving an hour away to college and not coming home after graduation—much to my mom’s disappointment.

“I need it done by the end of the day.” He flicked an ear on my Loki Funko Pop! and knocked it over without bothering to fix it.

I reached over and righted the toy. “I can do it by the end of tomorrow.” Wednesday would be better, but I knew Chad wouldn’t go for it.

“Sorry, bro. I need it today. Gotta impress the suits.” Chad smiled like he thought it would convince me or something.

I’d seen interns and newbies fall for his preppy exterior, but I found him slimy.

“I’ll do my best,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t forget we have an all-hands meeting at ten tomorrow. The new consultants are coming in to blow shit up.” Chad rolled his eyes then flicked my Funko again.

How could I forget?The office whisper network had been working overtime since word got out about the executives bringing in consultants to help make a plan of attack before we embarked on preproduction for the long-awaitedLegion of Tomorrowgame. The consulting company, Hawthorne Consulting, had a reputation for suggesting drastic changes that benefited the bottom line, and the rumors led me to believe those ideas never benefited plebeian employees like me.

“Do you think they’ll recommend changes in our area?” I asked Chad.

Ben shot me a look from his half of our double-wide cubicle. We had an unspoken rule to not invite conversation with Chad, but I couldn’t help my curiosity. A part of me wanted the consultants to come in and shake things up. I’d been stuck in the same role since I’d joined Rose City Digital Entertainment five years ago. I’d thought after my contributions toLegion of YesterdayI would eventually earn a promotion, but it was surprisingly difficult to advance at the company. I’d gone as far as junior programmer to programmer, but Chad hadn’t mentioned anything about a promotion to a senior programming position.

“Probably, but I won’t allow it. We’ve got a well-oiled team here.” He nodded once.

Something about that didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. I wished I had a supportive manager who asked us what we wanted to do. I had a feeling that if I mentioned my dream of transitioning to game designer to Chad, he would lose it. I’d gotten stuck in the programming path and couldn’t shake from it. I was reliable, always met my deadlines, did solid work, and didn’t cause trouble. The perfect worker bee.

We weren’t a huge game studio, but we were large enough to have narrowly defined roles. If I worked at a smaller studio, I could probably have a hybrid job involving both game programming and design.

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