Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
As if it’s something casual: Bring a weapon, obviously. To the fucking crime you’re about to commit.
I listen to our footsteps on the stone walkway.
Fuck it.
I need more risk in my life.
A threat of violence, even if everything will probably be fine.
I’m going to do it.
Finally we’re in front of Onyx House.
Old Victorian style down to its bones, and a classic stone-and-iron look that’s exactly my favorite aesthetic.
Instantly my guard goes up, wondering where Torin will be.
So fucking weird that he’s in there now.
Since he arrived, Torin’s already been walking around Onyx House like he owns the place. He took it upon himself to bring one of the old, weathered bookcases into the backyard on the first day and brought out all of his tools to sand, re-stain, and repair it.
Some of the guys praise him for it, but they don’t know him like I do.
Torin just has to put his mark on everything.
Has to be noticed.
Exhibit one: he always does his woodworking shirtless, in the morning heat.
Exhibits two, three, and fucking ten million: he does push-ups everywhere, outside, inside, and all around the house, and he practically lives in the pool out back, swimming all hours of the morning, the afternoon, and one night at three in the morning.
He had to get involved in our poker game last night, cramming in at the table beside me and rinsing me in every round. Late in the game, Weston made a joke about me having a good poker face, and Torin had a reply:
“True. Noah performs best when he’s being watched.”
It took restraint not to pin him on top of the table and sock him in the face.
I just.
Can’t.
Fucking.
Escape him.
Hence the reason I went to the Luros House party in the first place, trying and failing to forget about the past two weeks.
We step inside the house, and luckily Torin’s nowhere to be seen.
As I head up the staircase alone, I’m turning the conversation with Roman over in my mind.
Do I have a good enough weapon?
Does the cute little black switchblade Hunter gifted me this past Christmas count?
As I walk down the upstairs hall I pass by Torin’s room.
The door is wide open. I glance inside, seeing the glow of the handmade wood and iron lamp he put on his bedside table. The room is empty. Torin’s probably out back in the pool again.
I glance back down the hall and see that no one else is up here right now.
And a small surge of adrenaline hits me.
Fuck it.
I take a step into his room like a fucking creep. It smells like him in here, that woodsy scent hitting me all at once and instantly plunging me back into memories from the night at the hotel room.
He has a crate in his room that’s full of smaller pieces of wood, in all different shades. There’s a carving tool in there next to them, and various pieces have different intricate patterns carved into various parts of them.
I pick up one amber-colored piece of wood and run my fingertips over the precise, dark patterned lines carved into the grain.
It’s smooth, not splintery at all.
The pattern on this one forms the shape of an abstract wolf, and I can see the beginnings of a forest that Torin’s been starting to carve in behind it. It’s impressive artwork. Torin is skilled at so many things that he could build or craft anything he wanted, and it’s…
Beautiful.
Too bad it was made by an asshole.
I drop the piece back down into the crate and look around more. The patterned solid silver cuff he sometimes wears around his wrist is sitting on the table, and I run my fingers along its cold metal.
He has a stack of condoms out on top of the table, too, naturally.
Is he already taking hookups back here?
Has he been fucking different people every night, and does he choke them like he choked me, too?
I exhale, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment.
I've tried to push the thought of it out of my mind for two weeks now, but what Torin didn’t know is that… I like being caught. And I also like the feeling of a hand on my neck.
It was the most confusing feeling I’ve ever experienced, that night, having things that turned me on so much coming from a person I cannot fucking stand.
But I’ve known it for a while. One wild night last year, Stephanie Kim was riding me and reached down to playfully choke me as she bounced on my cock.
I liked it then, too.
But it felt very different with Torin’s hand.
He was stronger.
Less playful.
My cock perks up under my pants, and I know I need to get the hell out of Torin’s room.
There is something seriously wrong with me.
Or wrong with my dick.
I reach down to rearrange my bulge beneath my pants, but I catch another whiff of Torin’s scent standing near his bed and it throbs again.