KAGE (KAGE Trilogy #1) (18 page)

“I guess that is what it sounds like. I’m sure there was more, that’s just all I remember.”

“Damn, Jamie.” Kage ruffled my hair. “That brain of yours must be busy as hell, because you were literally only out for a few seconds. How did you have time to dream all that?”

“I think you may be lying to me about the time frame.”

He chuckled. “Maybe I should get a video of it next time so you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

“Next time?”

“Or not.” He shrugged. “But you were adorable when you were convulsing and drooling.”

I felt the blood rush to my face. “Are you serious? I was drooling?”

“Nah, not really. I’m just fucking with you. You weren’t drooling… but you did convulse a couple of times. And before you freak out, that’s perfectly normal.” He laughed and stood up, pulling me onto shaky legs. “Let’s go get some grub. All that talk of zombies and bad school food has got me hungry.”

“Yeah, I could use some food, too. But could we go to a burger place? Just this once?”

He shot a chastising look in my direction. “Jamie, have you looked in the mirror lately? Your abs are really starting to get ripped. You look too amazing for me to let you put garbage in that body.”

And just like that, he had me puffed up with pride. If a guy like Michael Kage thought I looked amazing, there was no way I was eating a greasy hamburger. Ronald McDonald himself could not have talked me into it.

We ordered baked fish, brown rice and asparagus from room service, and we ate it on the glass dining room table in Kage’s apartment. The food was delicious, and the conversation was easy, but I couldn’t help thinking how surreal it was that getting groped and choked unconscious by a guy had actually become a part of my life. Even more puzzling was the fact that it really didn’t bother me that much.

When we’d both scraped our plates clean, Kage leaned his chair back on two legs and rubbed a hand absently over his flat belly. “I think I should have ordered two pieces of fish. I’m still hungry.”

My eyes instinctively followed the movement of his hand as it moved down his belly, and his fingers dipped into the waistband of his shorts and stayed there. When I looked back up, he was watching me with a half-smile on his face.

I stammered. “Um, let me, uh… I’ll just take these dishes out into the hall.” I bustled around the table stacking the plates and silverware. Anything to take my mind off of Kage’s hands and the memory of what it felt like to be touched by him. And the fact that the same hand he’d slipped into my shorts earlier was now in his shorts.

When I set the plates down on the floor in the hall, I glanced back through the open door at Kage, who was still watching me with that amused expression. That’s when I knew that I could not go back into that room. Not that night. Maybe not ever. My mind was playing tricks on me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what Kage had done during practice, or if it was because we were spending too much time together. Maybe I just wasn’t used to this kind of friendship. I’d never been friends with a fighter, and never with someone like Michael Kage. He was unpredictable and flighty, he took chances, and he was consummately physical. The man was a superstar in the making. And gorgeous. God, was he gorgeous.

And it was time for me to go back to my room.

“Goodnight, Kage,” I said just loudly enough for him to hear me.

“You’re going already?” He looked surprised. “It’s still so early. I thought maybe we’d catch a movie on TV or something.”

I faked a yawn and felt guilty for it. “I’m tired. Not used to working out so much like you are. Maybe it was being choked unconscious that did me in, I don’t know.” My attempt at humor fell flat. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for dinner. It was much better than fast food. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking suggesting burgers.”

Kage lowered the front legs of his chair back down and smiled, but I could tell he was disappointed. It probably got lonely living in an ivory tower, but there was nothing I could do. I had to get away and regroup before I embarrassed both of us.

“Goodnight,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.” I closed the door and listened to the click. Then I made my way slowly back to my own room, knowing I wasn’t going to sleep when I got there. It was his fault— Kage’s fault for touching me like that. I just haven’t been touched in a long time.

Once I was behind the locked door of my own room, I gave in. I stripped my clothes off, and my hand was around my stiffening cock before I even made it to the bed, stroking and pulling like I’d wanted to all night, easing that excruciating ache. I dropped onto my back on the bed and allowed myself to think the thoughts I’d been pushing away all night— unacceptable thoughts that I knew I’d try not to acknowledge ever again. Imagining it was Kage’s hand stoking my cock, I came onto my own belly in less than a minute. It was the most forceful release I could remember having, like a million demons were flying out of me, and I had to throw my forearm across my mouth to stifle my lusty groan.

“Well, that was amazing,” a said aloud, blinking up at the ceiling as I floated back to earth. “But it’s out of my system now. When I wake up tomorrow, all of this will just seem like a really funny dream. I’ll laugh, and I’ll say,
Jamie, that was so stupid!
And then I’ll never think of it again.”

I went to sleep believing that. But when I woke up, the first image that flitted through my mind was of Kage’s hand on my cock.

11

WEDNESDAY night found me in my room brooding. I was feeling increasingly confident in my professional abilities, but not so confident in my social skills.

For one thing, Kage had been distant to me all day. I had a feeling it was because I had run out on his invitation to hang out after dinner the night before. It had definitely come off as rude. I knew that. But everything was getting too confusing for me, and I’d had to get away from him.

It hadn’t helped much that I’d gone straight to my room and fantasized about him, but he didn’t know that part. All he knew is that I said no.

Practice had been intense, like he was driving himself— and me in the process— even harder than usual. He’d barely spoken to me except to order me around. Hell, even Marco had noticed the difference in Kage’s demeanor, and he kept giving me dirty looks like it was my fault.

I suppose it was.

After practice, he had slammed out of the gym without a word. Then Marco had followed suit, leaving me standing by myself in a place I barely belonged.

So now here I was. Another night with just me, the hand, and acres of free porn choices on the internet. I climbed out of the shower, dried off, and padded naked to the bed, where I already had my laptop setup and ready to go.

I knew the fact that I had showered and planned a night of porn was problematic. Next, I’d be having one of those inflatable dolls over for dinner in my kitchenette. But I’d worry about that after I came and was wallowing in post-wank shame. Right now, I had a hot date with the internet.

I pulled up my favorite free site and scrolled through all of the categories:
Big Boobs, Facials, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Water Sports, BDSM, Blondes, Brunettes, Redheads…

Of course, nothing seemed like it was going to hit the spot. It never did. The problem was, I had an itch that none of the videos on this particular site were going to scratch. I knew why, because it had been a long time coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.

There had been plenty of warning signs, plenty of vague urges tamped down with a swift efficiency that only the human mind had the power to pull off. We humans were masters of hiding from ourselves when we wanted to, carefully skirting those darker places in the corners of our imagination, chuckling to ourselves as we passed safely by. Closing our eyes and pulling the covers up over our heads, thinking
No way, buddy. There’s no monster in my closet
.

But there
was
a monster in my closet. It had been okay as long as I could keep my head down and skirt those dark places, dodge those close bullets, go over to my girlfriend’s place and fuck the ugly thoughts away. But the last few weeks had been different, because now the monster was right smack dab in my face.

He was a rough-hewn, muscular, hundred-ninety-pound monster, and he meant business. No way could I ignore the overwhelming presence that was Michael Kage.

No sense denying it now, cause porn don’t lie.

You can lie to everyone. Your parents, your friends, your preacher, your girlfriend, even yourself… But when you click that play button, your heart rate doubles, your dick gets axe-handle hard, and you come like a freshly-tapped fire hydrant… that’s truth right there.

And my truth was that I had been jerking off to advertisements for a long time. You know those rotating gifs that tease you with the best shots from the pay sites?

Well, one time I
accidentally
clicked on the gay portion of my go-to porn site. I’d clicked right back out again, but the damage had been done. Now the all-powerful advertising engine knew what I craved, and it was relentless. It showed me men sucking other men’s dicks, hairy asses getting pounded bareback, twinks getting creamed in the face in group orgies. The fact that I had
favorite
ads was even more damning.

Yeah, I’m ashamed to say that I could sometimes hit pay dirt within ninety seconds simply by watching those gay banner ads.

Why the hell would a person do that, you ask? For me, it was simple.

As long as I didn’t click, I was straight.

I dropped the towel from around my waist and fisted my hard cock, checking out the ads the website was so graciously serving up for me. I started to move my hand over my full erection, tentatively at first, barely skimming the surface of the flesh. I was a preteen again, exploring the joys of masturbation for the first time, and lord have mercy was it ever good. Brand new sensations flooded my system. Only they weren’t new; they just felt new every time.

I knelt up on my knees on the bed, got a full-access grip on my dick and squeezed. I looked at the largest ad on the page and groaned out loud as my favorite part flipped past— a little blond baseball player on his knees, his tongue snaking out and tasting the strands of white coming at him from both sides.
Str8 Turned Out
, it said. I wondered what the two other guys looked like— the ones unloading on him. Were they muscular? I hoped they were athletes, too. I always imagined they were big, hot, muscular baseball players who just caught this little guy in the showers. But you could tell by looking at him, he was definitely up for it. He wanted their big cocks, needed to feel them in his mouth.

Yesss,
I thought with a groan.
He needs that so much.

I leaned down and clicked on the ad for the first time. Suddenly my laptop screen was full of vaguely suggestive images of men and a huge button urging me to pay to come inside.
Thirty bucks a month, dammit!
And there was absolutely no satisfaction on this page. I needed to see the full video of that baseball twink sucking two monster dicks, and I was going to have to find my credit card to do it. Why the hell hadn’t I done that ahead of time?

Because I’d never paid for internet porn before.

I rolled off the bed and went to grab my wallet off the bedside table, and that’s when I saw that I had a text message and missed calls on my cell phone. I swiped the surface of my phone and discovered that it was none other than Kage who had been burning up my phone.

Oh, the irony.

I quickly returned his call, all too painfully aware that I was doing so naked— and with a raging boner.

“Hello?” he slurred happily into the phone. “Jamie. What a nice surprise. I was just thinking about you.”

“Kage? Are you… Where are you? It sounds loud.”

“I’m at a party,” he said, his slurring making it all too clear that he’d had a few too many drinks. “In a hotel room. Been calling you. Need you.”

My heart jumped up into my throat.

“You need me?”

“Yeah, I can’t—” It sounded like he dropped the phone, and there was laughter. A woman’s laughter that instantly raised my hackles.

“Who is with you, Kage?” I don’t think I disguised my irritation in the least.