Page 13 of Just the tip

Ryan

Iwasn’t sure how much longer I could take the chill between Graham and me, and no way did I want to leave for school in the fall without talking to Graham and clearing the air somehow. Yet again. Man, our track record was pretty shitty at this point, and part of me wondered if it was futile. Maybe we just weren’t meant to get along. But even if we hadn’t been particularly close in months—if ever—it still felt…weird. The elephant in the room had become a rhinoceros, and while I’d been too chickenshit to say anything, it was time for me to grow a pair and confront him.

I’d planned out how it’d go, how I’d walk into Graham’s room and tell him I had thesefeelingsfor him, these confusing-as-shit fucking feelings that were driving me crazy, that I couldn’t imagine ignoring for the rest of the summer, that were in the back of my mind when I woke up in the morning and when I went to bed at night. When I was out at parties and found myself looking for his surly ass, and even when I was driving around delivering pizzas, for fuck’s sake.

So I’d decided I’d approach him tonight. After my shift at Gino’s Pizzeria.

Most likely. Maybe. Possibly.

Shit.

I tugged on my red Gino’s polo, grabbed my ball cap from my desk chair, and flinched back with a startled curse when I realized Graham was standing in my doorway. “Jesus, dude. Scared the shit out of me.”

“What, don’t like being snuck up on? Having your privacy invaded without your express permission?” Graham cocked his head at me and drummed his fingers slowly on the door frame.

My cheeks flamed, but, interestingly, his smile seemed almost…playful?

I blew out a resigned, shaky breath. I guess we’d be doing this now. “Yeah, so.” Fuck, how to even start. “I need to apologize to you for—”

“No,” Graham chided me with a tick-tock movement of one finger. “What you need to do is be quiet.” While I bristled at the command, he sidled to the edge of my bed and sat down. “Remember when I wrote that paper for you?”

I nodded. I definitely remembered how fucking pissed I’d been when I thought he’d thrown me under a bus. And I definitely remembered the shady moments where I’d trawled his Instagram pics, too. And how cute he’d been in them.

“And you said you’d do me a favor.” He continued, a hot little lilt in his voice.

“Yeah.” I frowned, wary. What the hell was he up to?

“And you agreed that it could be anything.” The way he softened his tone around ‘anything’ sent arousal thrumming through my cock. It was the tone of voice I’d imagined in my ear a hundred times since that night. It was the voice that had groaned out those soft sighs when I’d been pressed up against his body.

Damn, I was getting hard right now, and there wasn’t a good way to hide it. I lowered the hand holding my ball cap, which was so fucking obvious, but whatever.

“Yeah.” I glanced at the clock. “What do you want?”

Graham lifted his chin slightly. “Come over here.”

I steeled my posture and strode over because fuck slinking over like a kicked puppy. I stopped a couple of feet from where he sat and folded my arms over my chest in an insolent prompt that, annoyingly, made him grin a full-on impish grin like he had a secret.

“Ask me that again, what I want? I liked that.”

When he raised a brow, I narrowed my eyes at him. “Fuck, you’re a shithead, do you know that?” I blurted, even if I’d kinda liked asking him, too. And I liked thatheliked it.

Graham’s smile didn’t diminish even a little at the insult. Nope, it grew to a dangerously sexy curve. He reached out and knocked the hat out of my hands, the bulge in my shorts on prominent, vulnerable display. A shudder ran up my spine.

“What do you want?” I gave in, finally. There was a tiny note of plea in my voice underneath all that demand.

“Did you ever think…” Graham traced one finger in slow circles over my comforter, the graceful movements hypnotic, “that maybe we both kind of get off on this tension between us? That maybe it’s kind of ourthing?”

“I—” My mouth twisted up, and I frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah.” But now that he’d said it, I understood what he meant completely, the complex latticework of desire that existed behind our taunts and insults, the fascination with him that came on the heels of my frustration. “So what do we do about that?” God, why did I sound annoyingly breathless?

“I want to see your dick, to start with. Seems only fair since you were sliding it between my legs and asscheeks the other night, pressing itallllllllup against me.” Graham smiled coquettishly, clearly enjoying how flustered I was, then licked his lips. “I can’t stop thinking about how it felt. Can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Fuck.” I felt that inhale like a knife deep in my chest, and the way his voice had gone soft with that last sentence made my whole body tingle.

Graham settled back on his hands and spread his legs wide, an answering bulge in his pajama pants I struggled to look away from. Once again, memories surfaced of that party, of that guy on his knees in front of Graham and the tantalizing, taunting flash of flesh his lips had been wrapped around.

I took a step forward and then another, gratified by the flinch of surprise I caught in the way his brows flickered together briefly.

“Is this what you do with other guys?”