Page 14 of Wild Obsession

A door opens somewhere in the hall. The click is as loud as thunder, crashing through this hallowed space we’ve constructed. Or unhallowed, as the case may be. There’s nothing sacred about where I planned to take this, but I never get the chance to enact my wicked plans. The second Tim hears that click, he’s gone, ripping himself away fromme before I have time to react. He opens his door and throws himself into his room so quickly I stumble from the sudden movement of the door I’d braced myself against.

I want to laugh, to grin, to revel in my triumph, but as cold, filtered air replaces the heat I built up between us, I feel anything but triumphant.

Chapter Seven

Tim

WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously, what thefuck?

I land in my room panting and slump against the door trying to catch my breath. My heart pounds wildly and my cock throbs like it’s going to punch through my jeans. Sweat rolls down my back while my whole body burns. Any thought of a drink to make this disaster of a night go down smoother is long gone from my mind. All I can think about right now is Keannen’s breath, Keannen’s words brushing hotly against my ear, Keannen’s aborted promises to do things to me I’ve fantasized about but never actually experienced.

I rush for the lotion in the bathroom.

It’s not good stuff, I’m probably giving myself a crazy rash or something, but no rash is scary enough to deter mefrom my path. My cock needs attention, and it’s not taking no for an answer.

If one thing is on my side tonight, it’s Cameron bouncing to see his boyfriend. Saying a silent prayer of thanks to my bandmate and his boyfriend and their continued obsession with each other, I shuck off my clothes and dive for the bed. I don’t need to pull up anything on my phone, not with Keannen’s voice still buzzing in my ear and his breath still ghosting across my skin. My ear and neck burn where he almost —almost— touched me, goosebumps marking the path of his wicked promises.

The second I touch myself, I make a sound pathetic enough to rival any of those whines I issued out there in the hallway. Being a twenty-five-year-old virgin will do that to a guy. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, it’s not even that I haven’t had opportunities, but after I left Keannen things got … confusing. I wasn’t sure who I was, much less what I wanted. My parents moved me around so much that I didn’t get a chance to settle into being myself until I joined The Ten Hours.

None of that shit matters right now. All that matters right now is how damn badly I needed Keannen to touch me out there in the hall.

The mere memory makes my cock twitch. I’ve barely touched myself, but that isn’t going to matter in about two more seconds. Keannen has no idea how close he pushed me to the edge. Or maybe he knows exactly how close. Iwouldn’t put it past him. In fact, it seems like the precise type of torture he’d most revel in during the torment that will be this tour.

His voice rasps in my ear as I spill over my hand. I barely manage to catch it all before it makes a mess, and afterward I flop back on the bed with my own cum in my fist and lie there panting like Keannen really did stomp in here and fuck me senseless.

I groan at the thought. Not because I don’t like it. Rather, because I like it so much it makes my cock threaten to stir, and that’s a genuinely painful prospect after I just came so hard I saw stars.

It seems like ages before the heat finally recedes, leaving me shivering on the bed. I slouch to the bathroom and shamefully wash off my hand as coherent thought returns in a trickle, every realization more horrifying than the last.

I can’t be thinking about Keannen this way. He’s held onto a grudge all these years, clearly, and my attraction to him does nothing but give him another wound to stick his fingers in — and he is definitely going to stick his fingers in every sore spot he can find as some sort of retribution for what I did when we were seventeen.

The reality crashes in as the fever passes, and it leaves me shivering. As hot as things were out in the hall, Keannen’s motivations were ice cold. He probably has a ton of experience with guys by now. Toying with me must be so effortless for him. I’m sure he feels nothing, that it’s alljust a game, one I have no hope of winning, especially after this. If anything could have made this tour worse, it was jerking off to thoughts of him.

If Keannen wasn’t in my head before, he certainly is after tonight.

WE GET BACK ON the bus in the morning. They cut us a break on this first stop, partially because of Cameron, but mostly because the schedule allowed for it. Now, we trundle south toward California, where the schedule will get a lot more grueling. Shows every night, and right back on the bus afterward to try to hit the next stop the next day. We’ll get a little break here and there, but won’t truly relax until Austin, where Julian is going to fly in to see Cameron again.

At least a schedule that demanding leaves me little time to think, and even less time to run into Keannen. I see him, of course. I can’t avoid him during this tour, but he’s as busy as me, and I suffer little worse than a knowing smirk in passing. It still scares me shitless. His expression screams, “I know you jerked off to thoughts of me that night in Portland,” but blessedly, Keannen never voices the accusation, and I escape California with some of my dignity intact.

It helps that every show after that first one goes better. Keannen’s presence doesn’t throw me off the way it did thefirst night, and I manage to put on a passable performance that doesn’t demand all of my bandmates’ help covering for my crappy drumming. I can almost believe I belong in The Ten Hours by the time we stop driving south and start driving east.

We’re on the road when our manager, Emmett, calls. Erin answers, setting the phone on the little fold out table in the van. We crowd around it, anxious for news. Part of me fears Emmett is about to tell us this whole thing has been a disaster and the rest of the tour is canceled. My playing has been too shitty. Baptism Emperor is upstaging us and management is done with us. They took a risk on this, and now they want to bail. I’ve ruined everything for my band because I’m distracted by the boy I kissed under the bleachers in high school and—

“It’s sold out,” Emmett says.

“What?” a chorus of voices responds.

“Every single date,” he says. “They’re all sold out. Every date in every city. We don’t have a single ticket left.”

“Holy shit,” Kelsey breathes.

“Is that … normal?” Erin says.

We may have accrued some fame in the past couple years, but we’re still basically those kids in Erin’s basement figuring this out as we go.

“Yes, for a band twice your size,” Emmett says. “For you? For this? Not so much.”

“So what does this mean?” Cameron says, cutting, as usual,straight to the heart of the matter.

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