I have choices though. I could knee him in the balls. Or scream at him. Or simply be a man, the straight man that I am, and walk away right this second.
Unfortunately, that little inner tantrum is going to remain locked in my head, because I’m not going anywhere. In total truth, both of his hands, on my body, are the two best things I’ve felt since the night I last saw Zoey.
Then it hits me, as terrifying as it is…
He’s right, I do need him.
And I do want this.
“Can I hold you?” he asks, somehow managing to double the intensity of an already fucked up situation.
Talk about great material for a screenplay, I think to myself.
I know what I need to say, what the only possible correct response is, but my lips are on autopilot as they eke out the words, “Yes, please.”
Yes please? I can’t be serious.
Garrett pulls me in close and wraps his long, thick arms around my back.
And it feels too good to resist. I want to cry, right here in his arms. That’s when I know he’s coming from a sincere place because my heart feels like it’s glowing in my chest as he encases me in his warm, tight embrace.
“Is that better?” he says.
“Yes, but this can’t be normal. Or okay,” I say.
The lights sputter on and off several times, then the power returns, lighting up the room permanently.
I look up and meet his gaze head on. He’s staring right through me. And suddenly, I can tell that he looks just as confused as I feel inside.
I pull away from his arms quickly and back up until I reach his door. Garrett looks stunned, like he'd just been caught stealing.
“I have to go,” I say, turning as quickly as I can. My eyes glance over at the Scorsese poster on his door before I reach for the knob and turn it.
I can feel his eyes burning a hole in my back, but I don’t look back. I open the door hurriedly and try to leave, but the bottom of my shirt gets snagged on a piece of the door’s hardware. I pull my shirt as hard and as fast as I can, ripping my shirt in order to break free from the doorway.
I slam the door shut, and he doesn’t come after me. I immediately can't help but wonder if this whole thing was just a dream.
Just some crazy, twisted, messed up dream.
I hurry down the dreary hallway, leaving behind the serenity of Garrett’s office, and that look in his eyes.
Did he lose his mind, kind of like how I did?
Fuck, my bag. I left it in Garrett’s office. It has everything I care about, except for Zoey, inside of it. I’ve spent months, even years, working on some of the pieces in that bag. A good chunk of it is on my laptop, which is also in the fucking bag, or in the storage cloud, but still…
And I was actually stupid enough to think that my life couldn’t possibly get any worse.
I walk several blocks in the cool misty air, not even bothering to step over or around the massive puddles left behind from the storm, until I can’t walk any further. I pull out my phone to catch an Uber asap. As I sit my ass down on a cold, metal bench, I try to make sense of everything that just went down back there.
That's when I realize something horrible. Only minutes after I just made my panicked escape, there's only one place I really want to be right now...
Back in his office.
The relief I felt when he put his hands on my shoulders, it was unbeatable. Yes, I was nervous, more like terrified, but I wasn’t oblivious to just how amazing his hands felt on me.
But why? I am straight, right? Is it possible to become un-straight over time? Or is it just that I'm so painfully lonely in my life? Maybe even desperate for physical affection after all the years Elizabeth purposefully withheld it from me?
Apparently so. But why can’t I just be like normal people and get a massage if that’s all this is about?
Because obviously, it’s not that simple.
Nothing ever is.
And obviously, I’m not normal.
I never was.
Even though I know exactly what I need to do right now, what I should do, my body locks me in place as the rare San Diego rain comes back for another round and starts to drop down hard and heavy from the sky.
GARRETT
I can’t believe myself.
I’m deranged, that's all there is to it. I put my hands on my client. A weak, wounded client at best. A client who I’m supposed to draft a report about and submit to a county judge.
Fuck. But it felt so good.
My brain is a scrambled a mess. I can’t think or find any way of fixing this. I always know how to fix things, no matter how bad, or at least keep them from breaking in the first place. Got that from my father, the king of perfection himself.
But not this time, I have zero idea what to do. Or what I’ve done. My body just kind of…
Took over.
Poor excuse, I know. But it’s true. The moment I put my fingers on him during the tapping exercise, something got triggered inside of me. Some deep, explosive yearning that was too powerful to control.
I can't seem to hear my thoughts right now as another batch of rain pounds down on my office building. Not that I want to hear my thoughts considering how useless and untrustworthy they are to me.
I notice Ethan’s brown leather bag resting beside the couch where he was sitting.
No, I tell myself as the thought of going through his personal stuff enters my mind.
I turn away from his bag and rush to my computer, thankful that the power is working in my office. I start searching the hell out of whether or not I can lose my license for what I just did. A ton of stuff comes up, making it obvious within seconds of searching.
I’d have to either lie and make Ethan look crazy for even accusing me of crossing the line with him, or I’d have to own up to my behavior, which would be a fucking nightmare. Especially because of my father’s notoriety as a talk show celebrity therapist himself.
Come on brain, I need you now more than ever. Think dammit, think.
I pace back and forth in my office several times, trying to put the thought of what his shoulders felt like in my hands out of my mind forever. But it’s not working.
Whatever tiny amount of inner resolve I have left in me dissipates in a puff of insanity as I walk over to the couch, pick up Ethan’s bag, and unzip the main pocket.
Great, now they’ll get you for an invasion of privacy while they’re at it.
It’s as though I’m suddenly possessed. All because of one man. One likely straight man who happens to be my client.
Ethan’s bag is filled with ten or so folders and a beat up silver laptop. I grab the red folder that’s resting on top and open it. There's a thick, stapled document inside, with the words Silver Coast at the top of the first page. Most of it's typed, with handwritten edits and random notes scribbled throughout the pages.
I start reading the story and legitimately can’t believe how good it starts off. My attention is caught from the very first paragraph, so much so that for a moment I forget that I’m breaking the law right now by invading his personal property like this. I sit down on the couch to finish reading the first page, then the second page, then the third...
His story has me completely gripped. Even the rain pelting the aluminum roof above me hardly exists in my awareness anymore. Just his story about a tattered lost soul who comes back to his hometown, a small sliver of land along the coast of Maine, only to find that everything, and everyone, is gone and has been replaced with a completely new world. The main character is freaking out and disoriented, practically stumbling as he makes his way through the first scene, as though some tortuous past that he’d just spent the last ten years running away from was never real to begin with.
I spend the next twenty minutes reading through Ethan’s phenomenal screenplay. I feel a deep pang inside knowing how sad it is that Ethan truly has no idea how incredibly talented he is as a writer.
I take out my phone and do the un
thinkable, even though I know it's so wrong I can't even stand it. Then I hear a knock on my office door, probably one of my co-tenants. I shove my phone in my front pocket and hurry to stuff the manuscript back into Ethan’s bag which I then place down on the floor, exactly where he left it.
I let out a deep breath, the same breath I’d basically been holding in since the moment I started snooping through his stuff.
Lost in my new world of secrecy, I'm barely paying a lick of attention as I open the door. Until I realize it's him...
Ethan Shields… Out from the rain, all dripping wet. And looking even more amazing than when he left.
“You came back,” I manage to say. “You’re soaking wet.”
Ethan looks down at his bag, and a jolt of guilt sets in knowing that I just violated his privacy. He should be able to trust a man in my position.
He looks more nervous than usual. And why shouldn’t he, he’d just recently been groped by the one person who is supposed to play by the rules.
Me.
“I forgot my bag. At least it stayed dry,” he says, aiming a soft finger towards the couch.
I want to tell him how talented of a writer he is, but that would only spell the end if he knew I just went through his personal stuff.
“Can I get you some paper towels to dry off with?” I offer.
He stares right through me. “I just need my bag, then I should go,” he says, passing right over my question.
I expect him to say something about the fact that I put my hands on him in the most inappropriate manner possible, but he doesn’t say a word. I grab a few paper towels from under the utility cabinet and reach out to hand them to Ethan. At first he doesn’t move; he just watches my hand cautiously as though it’s the head of a venomous rattlesnake. Finally, he reaches out, only he grabs my wrist instead of the paper towels themselves. An onslaught of electricity moves up my spine. Our eyes lock, and Ethan closes his own eyes as he guides my hand towards his sopping wet cheek. He continues to force my hand with the paper towels in it towards his face until my fingers reach his moist, rose-colored flesh.
This time, I let him take the lead. I can’t believe he’s doing this, but I don’t stop him, even though every ounce of reason left inside of me is telling me that this is my last chance before it’s probably way too late to turn back the clock…
And take back any damage that gets done.
He flips my wrist around so that the back of my hand is now pressed up against his cold, wet cheek. I'm determined to stay calm, but feel like my knees are about to give. I'm still trying to understand why being around Ethan throws me so far out of orbit.
"This isn't good," he says.
I swallow heavily and nod. Tiny beads of sweat escape through the pores in the back of my neck. I move my hand from his cheek, only to pat his forehead dry with the paper towel. Ethan tilts his head back slightly, giving his neck over to me.
And putting us both even more at risk.
I dry the side of his neck, and he grabs my wrist again. This time, he squeezes it hard. "Why are you doing this to me?" he says.
"I should ask you the same question, but that wouldn't be fair. Because I know you don't know the answer. Neither one of us does."
He glances at his bag. "That's everything I need. I should go."
Ethan releases my wrist and tries to slide past me, but I stop him with my hand. I point my finger directly into his chest. His muscles are firm, and my finger just so happens to brush up against the tip of his nipple. "I'm fully aware that this isn't a good situation. But for some reason..." my voice disappears as I struggle to tell the truth.
I can't stop myself, I think to myself.
“I just think you should stay for a few more minutes," I say. “So we can wrap our heads around this, together.”
My dick starts to swell, and my heart pounds hard and fast in my chest. If he looks down, he'll see the massive bulge in my pants, so I pray that he doesn't.
But he does.
His eyes go right to it, and his gaze locks in on the outline of my cock stretching through the thin fabric of my dress pants. Ethan swallows hard, and it seems pretty obvious that neither one of us is about to make a good choice. But we both know one simple truth...
It only takes one of us to end this massacre before any real blood is shed. And unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be me.
"You look cold. Your shirt is soaking wet," I say.
He bites down hard on his lip and nods. "I'm freezing."
My voice quivers as I make my next stupid move. "I want to help you," I say. I slide my fingers under his shirt and rake them over his abs. A heavy drop of rain falls from his bangs and lands on his eyelid. I dab his eye delicately with the paper towel, then toss it onto the floor as I start to pull his shirt up and over his arms.
I try to maintain my composure as I look over his upper body. Whatever hell he’s been going through, he must be working out some of those demons in the gym.
His body is unreal. Not a shred of fat, with a beautiful, v-shaped torso that leads right past a small patch of hair by his belly button and into the black elastic band on his underwear. I look up slightly and see that Ethan looks torn.
I don't blame him.
He wants to be here, and he likes my attention, but at the same time, his body is slightly trembling.
I can relate.
We're both terrified.
Then I make the worst decision I could possibly make. Despite having my doctoral degree in psychology, and the fact that I’ve taken hundreds of instructional hours studying behavior management, it’s as though I never learned a single thing. I run my hands through my hair frantically as I try to maintain myself, knowing that I'm losing ground fast.
For all I know, he’s going to stiff-arm me in the jaw. Doesn’t matter. I lean in and wrap my hands around the thick muscles in his back. His lips quiver as I move my mouth towards his. But when our lips meet, his shaking stops completely...
And so does mine.
I close my eyes and taste the sweetest lips known to man.
He’s super intrepid, and it’s official that even if he has thought about hooking up with another man, this is the first time he’s actually gone through with it.
I laugh to myself in my mind. Insanely. Because this is my first time too… my first time making a pass at one of my clients. And the first time I ever risked everything for one stupid kiss.
Then again, this isn’t just any kiss. Something in my bones is telling me that this is so much more than just a run of the mill kiss.
If my father only knew…
But he won’t know. Can’t know. Nobody can know.
As the weight of the ramifications sets in, it’s my last fleeting chance to put a stop to all of this.
Dumbass.
I do the exact opposite and push Ethan up against a wall. He has no fight left in him, and that only makes me want him more. I throw his head back with my hand. His cheeks lift, just a bit, showing me a subtle, almost untraceable smile. I noticed it though.
I pin his bare shoulders up against the wall. Then I slide my needy fingers into his briefs and wrap my hands around his cock. He’s rock hard, so I no longer have to wonder if our attraction is mutual.
I run my thumb across the top of his dick, wiping the pre-cum off and smearing it along his shaft.
I get down on my knees, and commit the sin of all professional sins as I unbutton his pants and pull down his silky red briefs.
I wrap my hands around his girth and press the side of his shaft into my cheek as I reach for his balls with my tongue. My tongue makes contact, causing Ethan’s hips to jerk forward…
Then I make my move. I start from the base of his cock, and work my way up and down the entire length of his shaft with my tongue. My dick is now aching in my own pants, ready to blow any second.
This is really sick, I know.
But I can’t stop, no matter how much I know I should.
And neith
er can he.
We can’t stop.
I methodically caress the head of his cock with my tongue, taking my time and savoring every single moment. Then I go for it, taking him into my mouth inch by every hard inch, all the while working up as much saliva as I can to lubricate his beautifully manscaped cock and make it as wet as his rain-soaked clothes.
I cup his balls in my hand, and use my other hand to stroke his shaft in tandem with my mouth as it bobs its way up and down on him.
His tip reaches the very back of my throat and with both hands I reach for a chunk of his ass and squeeze. I let go with my mouth and look into his eyes as I catch my breath.
He looks stunned and drunk. Bewildered and ecstatic. Confused and clear.
I grit my teeth and set out to finish him off.
“Mmm,” I moan as I take him back into my mouth. When he hears this, he can’t help but jam his cock deeper into my throat.
I use my fingers to climb my way up his chest. Both nipples are like granite and I can’t help from circling their edges.
Ethan’s breathing is choppy, and he finally allows himself the pleasure of an uninhibited moan.
I spit on his shaft and start to run my hand up and down the length of it with increasingly fast strokes.
He mutters my name through a heavy breath, “Garrett, please...”
Please what?
Without any warning whatsoever, he starts to ooze warm, thick come from his dick, the first load smashing my chin. I open my mouth, something I’ve never done for any other man, and take in the next few waves of his come.
I find myself trying to catch every last drop with my mouth, somehow savoring something I used to think was gross. But not with Ethan. His come drizzles down my throat like a river flowing back into the ocean.
I know, I’m fucking crazy. More mentally tapped than any of my own clients.
Ethan covers himself up right away with his briefs and then pulls up his jeans.
“Fuck, what just happened?” he says, only he’s not looking at me when he asks the question, and I can tell by the way he rushes for his bag that he doesn’t want an actual answer. It’s as though he’s talking to himself, and I’m no longer in the room with him. “I need to leave,” he says.
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