Page 23 of Want Me
Eric:The first time you use my number and that’s what you ask?
And then a second later, another message:No. I told you that. Ask the question you really want to ask.
I pressed my lips together. I couldn’t get mad at him for putting out that impression when I was desperate to keep what we were doing secret. Hell, he was doing me a favor.
Nate:That was the question I really wanted to ask
Eric:You sure?
I glimpsed the back of his head as he walked toward the exit.
Nate:Are you leaving?
Nothing. Shit. Had I pissed him off? I wanted to go with him home. No one would be back at the house, but I was on cleanup duty. I bit my lip, wondering if I could make it there and back before I was needed.
A long minute later, I got another text that threw my heart into a pathetic hummingbird frenzy and sent a flush racing up my neck. I wrapped my hand around my phone, shielding the screen and the fat erection he’d just sent me a close-up view of against wandering eyes. In the photo Eric’s fist was wrapped around the base of his swollen shaft, the whiteness of his knuckles telling me how tightly he was holding himself. Fuck me. I think I did start drooling then.
Eric:Want this?
The bottom dropped out of my stomach as if I’d gone flying over a hill in a roller coaster.
Nate:Yes
He took longer than expected to reply.
Eric:Surprised me. Thought you were going to do your usual one step forward two steps back thing.
Nate:Whatever. Where? I’m on clean-up crew. Have to be back here in an hour.
Eric:Give me a few. I’ll figure it out.
Mark clapped me on the back, sending my phone skittering out of my hand. I yelped and launched after the thing as it spun across the floor in a kaleidoscope of fleshy purples and pinks, managing to snatch it up while it was still spinning.
Mark laughed hysterically at my glare, then shoved a drink in my hand. “Finish it for me? I’m so fucking baked.”
His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, and I had an idea the combo of weed and the whiskey I detected in his drink would have him clinging to the toilet before the end of the night. I pasted on a grin and accepted the glass.
“Are we cool, dude?”
I blinked. “Yeah, of course. Why?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. You’ve just been acting a little off lately.”
“Naw. I’m just…”Letting one of our roommates pound the hell out of my ass with increasing regularity and loving every fucking second. “A little overloaded this semester.”
“Sure. Cool. Just checking. Marty said you gave him the thumbs-up on Ashley, wasn’t sure if maybe…”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I hiked my thumb toward the entrance before he’d finished speaking. “Gotta piss.”
He nodded and turned away, absorbed back into the dancing as I headed off. I finished his drink and set the empty glass on a table as I passed, alcohol a gentle current in my body, making me loose and more than a little reckless.
Eric’s texts directed me to the left stairwell that flanked the inner vestibule. Both it and the one on the right had been roped off with orange cones and signs. With a glance around to make sure no one was coming down the hallway and that the attendant at the door to the ballroom was looking away, I launched up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and was breathless by the time I reached the top. Only a third of that was due to actual exertion, though; the rest was pure, dick-twitching anticipation.
I hung a left down the hallway, passing a few closed doors until I arrived at the second to last one near the end of the hall. No light came from beneath it, so I double-checked Eric’s text before turning the handle and slipping inside, then closing the door after me.
There was a love seat against the left wall and a bank of windows that overlooked the ballroom, I guessed, which was the only source of a soft-glow wash of lighting that haloed Eric’s figure where he sat on a large, polished wood desk facing the door, knees wide, posture loose, his palms planted to the surface behind him like some debonair executive calling in the secretary he was sleeping with.
“This is someone’s office,” I said stupidly, redundantly.