Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Integrity of a Cucumber

Rafe

I kept thinking about what he'd said all weekend.

" You just wait ' til I get you naked again, kitten. I'll show you how weird it can get with a dullahan. "

I believed him. And it was making me equal parts horny and intimidated as hell.

I had next to no experience when it came to this—sex with another guy—whereas Dan had… literally all the experience. There probably wasn't much he hadn't done sex-wise.

And while I knew I'd be experiencing the benefits of that very soon, I couldn't help but start to get anxious about the next time we… hung out.

I was exhausted by the time we got home late Thursday night after the show, so after parking up on my driveway, Dan had squeezed my knee and told me to get some sleep. A part of me had been a little disappointed, but the stress of the morning had caught up with me and I'd passed out almost as soon as I got into bed.

On Friday, he went into work earlier than me because he was performing that night and had to rehearse. Then there ended up being some technical issues with the ticket booking system that carried over into Saturday, so I'd been putting in long hours to get it fixed.

Because of that, I got to witness Holt truly stressed for the first time since starting at Goliaths. He kept wandering abruptly into my office and staring at me blankly—which didn't help my own stress levels, to be honest—before saying, "I forgot why I came in here. Is it fixed yet?"

"Not yet," I replied every time, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. "Getting there."

"Great. Good. Total faith in you, Rafe."

Are you sure? I'd wanted to ask, but forced myself not to take it personally. He wasn't saying I was bad at my job, I just despised when stuff went wrong on my watch, even if it was out of my control.

Then I overheard him in his office while I was making a drink, and realised he really was just terrible at dealing with stress.

"Larkin," he called from his office, sounding close to tears. "Did Shriek Shakes forget to put the calming syrup in my The Last Breakfast of a Man Marked for Death milkshake?"

I heard Larkin heave a huge sigh, then he called back, "I asked them to add it, boss."

"I think they forgot." I heard him dragging his feet across his office, before he sullenly mumbled, "What are you doing?"

"Working."

"No, really."

Larkin huffed in offence. "I am!"

Holt went quiet for a few seconds, then sighed dramatically. "I need a spa day. I'm going to take Taylor to a spa."

"That'll be nice," Larkin said, very patiently.

There was another pause, before Holt whined, "Lark, will you go make me a Creamed Jeans?"

My brows shot up as I poured myself a cup of coffee. What the fuck was a Creamed Jeans?

"Really?" Larkin sounded doubtful. "But you said it was gross. Plus it's, like, not even noon, boss."

"I have a lot going on, okay?" he shot back.

"Like what?"

Another pause. "Like… the thing. The IT thing. With the booking system."

"Isn't Rafe fixing that?"

"But I'm overseeing it," he insisted. My brow quirked again. He wasn't. "I also lost out on a genuine mid-century dining set in an online auction the other day. It's just—ugh, Larkin, this week . My god."

"Sounds very stressful, boss," Seb said solemnly.

"Thank you, Seb. It is." Holt sniffed pitifully. "Forget the drink. Lark, get me a fruit cup. I need to watch my stories to calm down."

I heard Holt's office door close, followed by a suppressed snort of laughter from Larkin.

By Sunday afternoon, I'd managed to fix the issue, which caused Holt to burst into my office wearing a face mask and yank me into a hard hug before I could stop him.

"You're a fucking genius," he declared, then gestured at me as he stepped back. "Oops. Got a bit of clay mask on you."

"Shouldn't happen again," I said as I tried to wipe the goop out of my hair. "Uh… sorry. The online booking system was only actually down for a few hours yesterday. I managed to—"

"No need to apologise." He cut me off with a wave of his hand. I was pretty sure it was actually because he knew he'd get bored listening to me explain it. "You're doing a great job. With the…" He wiggled his fingers in the direction of my desk. "Computers."

My mouth twitched. "Thanks."

"I better go get ready for the show." He turned to leave, and I noticed he was wearing fluffy pink slippers with his suit. "Keep up the good work, Rafe!"

Once he'd left, I sat back down behind my desk and exhaled in relief. It had been a stressful couple of days, and now I had some time to relax before the show started later.

Instantly, Dan's words from Thursday popped back into my head, and I started fiddling with my eyebrow piercing as nerves and arousal shot through my belly.

" You just wait ' til I get you naked again, kitten. "

What did he have in mind? And when were we going to do it?

How ‘advanced' was he going to get? I was a beginner here.

I gnawed on my lower lip, staring blankly at my monitor, lost in thought. I hated being bad at things. I hated failing.

And, I mean, let's be honest—I knew what was coming next. Blowjobs, right? Sucking dick. That felt like the natural progression after… fucking a pumpkin head together.

I was fully, one hundred percent aware that getting a blowjob from Dan would probably make me come so hard I'd black out. He could remove his own head, for fuck's sake. And I knew for a fact that he liked to hone his skills on himself a lot .

But I'd never done it before. So I was probably going to be terrible at it.

I couldn't imagine anything more humiliating than attempting it and hearing Dan tell me, ‘Welp, this has been fun, but…'

I wanted to be good. No, I needed to be good. In both our previous encounters, I'd been kind of passive. Too overwhelmed. Too desperate. I wanted to show Dan that I could take the reins. Make him desperate.

Decision made, I sat forward and reached for my phone. I needed to do extensive research, and I wasn't stupid enough to do this specific kind of research on my work computer. Although I doubted Holt even knew how to access his own browser history, let alone figure out how to get onto my machine and access mine.

Several hours later, I was still engrossed. With an awkward erection. Hoping desperately that Holt didn't burst back into my office for whatever reason.

I'd read countless articles and watched multiple instructional videos, including one that had involved a grapefruit. Now, I was regretting not buying that werewolf dildo so I had something to practise on.

When someone knocked on my door, I hurriedly locked my phone and turned toward my monitor. "Come in."

I made sure I was frowning at my screen, like I was concentrating intently, as the door opened.

Then my pulse leaped when I heard that low drawl. "Hey there, kitten."

My cock was still half-hard, and it twitched as my gaze shot over to Dan. I gave him a tiny, awkward smile as he sauntered over to my desk. "Hey."

I couldn't stop my eyes from trailing down his frame. He was already in his wrestling outfit. The tiny jean shorts and the fringed shirt that was mostly unbuttoned to show off his chest.

Those shorts made his muscular thighs look enormous, and his bulge was…

I swallowed, trying to tear my eyes from it.

Prominent. It was prominent.

"Heard you got that problem all fixed." He placed his palms on my desk and leaned in. The shirt gaped open. My gaze snagged on his nipples.

"Yeah," I said faintly.

"Good job, kitten." When I finally managed to drag my eyes up his face, he smirked and nodded at me. "I really like those glasses."

I flushed, reaching up to fiddle with them, not sure how to answer. "Uh, I—They're just… for my eyes."

Immediately, I wanted to cringe.

Dan chuckled. "Yeah, I got that." He straightened and grinned down at me, hands on his hips. My eyeballs strained with the urge to look down, but I resisted. Somehow. "I can't stay, kitten, and I'm sure you're still real busy preparing for the show."

Yes, I should've been making sure everything was ready for the live stream later. Instead, I'd spent the last few hours reading up on how to suck dick.

I coughed awkwardly. "Uh, yeah."

"I know you'll probably be tired later, but I was wondering…"

Panic jolted in my belly. No, I wasn't ready yet! I needed to do more research!

I had to figure out how to get in some practice before I tackled the real thing.

My gaze shot down to the real thing. It was hidden in his tiny jean shorts, but I'd seen it enough times by now to picture it perfectly.

It was big.

I definitely needed to practise.

"Uh… how about tomorrow night?" I asked hoarsely, raising my gaze back to his. "After work."

"Sure." He grinned wide, then paused. "Don't you usually have a thing on Mondays? With your friends?"

"Oh shit. Yeah." I felt immediately guilty for forgetting all about our game night, and felt even guiltier for the hint of frustration that followed. "Uh, well, it usually doesn't end that late, and it's at Neville's this week. He lives pretty close, so I shouldn't get home too late…"

Dan's brow quirked at the mention of my friend who'd called him a fuckboy to his face. And thrown an egg at him. But then he smiled and nodded. "Sounds good, handsome. I'll be waiting for you."

Shit, that didn't help with the nerves. He'd be sitting at home all evening waiting for me to get back. Waiting for sex. After spending his weekend wrestling, getting his blood and testosterone pumping. He'd be hoping for a nice, satisfying orgasm to get relief. He'd have expectations .

When he turned to leave, I tried very, very hard not to look at his ass in those tiny shorts, then gave up and stared at it until he opened the door and vanished.

—

I spent Monday morning before work sucking on a cucumber.

It wasn't something I'd ever expected to end up doing in my life, but here we were.

This felt dirtier than the pumpkin head, to be honest, and while it was definitely helpful, I didn't think Dan's dick would feel this textured. Kind of bumpy. And tasting of vegetable.

I also really, really hoped that it wouldn't start getting all soft and mushy in my mouth mid-blowjob like the cucumber did. All my research had told me that plenty of spit was very important. Keep things nice and lubricated. I mean, I'd received enough blowjobs myself to know that was true, but apparently the integrity of a cucumber struggled to hold up when it was being shoved repeatedly into a mouth.

Still, I was feeling a little more prepared when I gave up and started getting ready for work. Not confident, but… technically prepared. I'd learned a lot from my research yesterday. I knew the basics and a couple of tricks.

I'd give it my best fucking shot.

The workday passed at an agonisingly slow pace. All I could think about was what was going to happen later. Usually I looked forward to game night with my buddies, but when I got home after work, all I felt was frustration that I still had to wait a few more hours before I could put my newfound knowledge to the test and hopefully make my neighbour blow his load.

In my mouth.

I hadn't really thought about that part too much, but the moment it popped into my head, my belly dipped with fearful excitement. And lust.

If he came in my mouth, I'd know I'd done at least somewhat well. It'd be like… winning a participation ribbon. I may not have been the best, but I'd still got the job done.

I resisted the urge to jerk off in the shower. After pulling on jeans and a sweater, I made some dinner before grabbing my phone and keys to get going. Dan's truck was in his driveway when I left the house, making the nervous anticipation churning in my stomach even stronger. He was waiting for me to get back. To have sex.

When I got to Neville's, the others had already arrived. I hadn't had a chance to speak to Nev yet—not that I was going to tell him about the pumpkin head—so when I stepped inside, he pulled me into a brief hug and whispered in my ear, "How are you doing?"

"Good. I'm fine." I smiled at him as he stepped back. Actually Nev, tonight I'm going to suck Dan Ewen's dick. "Busy weekend at work."

He glanced over at the others. Teresa was cackling at Abed, who'd given himself a duck bill with two tortilla chips and was quacking. Reece and Suki were playing a pixelated werewolf boxing game from Nev's vintage video game collection.

"And what about… the other thing?"

"Oh, it's…" I waved a hand, trying to look totally casual and relaxed. "Fine."

Nev eyed me in concern. "Did you talk?"

"Uh, yeah. He apologised."

And then we fucked a pumpkin head together and tonight I'm going to suck his dick.

Before Nev could ask any more questions—he had that look in his eye that told me he knew I was hiding something—I clapped him on the shoulder and headed for the living room. "Let's get started, huh? I've got to catch up after missing last week."

For the first time ever, I was eager to get game night over and done with.

Because when I got home, I was going to suck Dan Ewen's dick.