Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

We stopped for a late dinner at a small diner just off the interstate in some rural town in Illinois. The waitress was an old lady who gave us strange looks the entire dinner. I tried not to read too much into it, tried to convince myself that it wasn't the fact that we were flirting in a clearly conservative part of the country. The food was good, and even if the elderly waitress gave us the stink eye, we had great service. We stopped at a truck stop for gas and hit the interstate again.

It was late when we entered Kentucky. By the time we neared the Tennessee line, I was yawning.

"Think we should find a hotel soon," Callum said, reaching out and squeezing my leg again. Since we gave into the tension between us on that Illinois highway, he'd been doing that a lot. Every time, it distracted me more.

I could only think of his hand on my leg, my mind filling in the blanks of what a hotel room might mean. I could imagine that commanding voice of his being used in bed. I could imagine those strong hands maneuvering me around the bed, the feeling of him entering me. I already knew how his strong hands felt, how his mouth felt, and I wanted to know how everything else felt.

"Think we can make it a bit longer," I told him, even though all I wanted was to pull over, find a cheap motel, and have him take full advantage of my body. I just wanted to give into the lust between us again. My head cleared when he withdrew his hand.

"Want me to look up some hotels?" he offered. "Can't afford anything too nice, but I can book us something."

I shook my head. "We'll find something on the road. Pick a sign and take the exit."

"Jasper," he started, shaking his head, "do you really think that's the best plan?"

I didn't know. I'd done that in Illinois, and the motel had been terrible. If a hotel could have a negative star rating, that hotel would have one. "You might be right, but you're not spending the money on a hotel. This is technically a work trip, so as long as I stay in budget, the company pays for it."

"You don't have to twist my arm. Pull over at the next exit." I looked over at him. He wasn't using the same tone that he'd used when he was jacking me off, but there was still the undertone of a command, one that I was powerless to resist.

Two miles later, we found an exit. I pulled into the parking lot of a closed Cracker Barrel and pulled my phone off its mount. I could see signs for several hotels from the parking lot. A quick search told me that one was full. Another looked about as nice as the hotel I'd stayed at in Illinois. That was an immediate no. The final one, a Red Roof Inn, looked promising. I checked the prices and availability, and then I showed it to Callum, seeking his approval.

Once he gave it, I changed the navigation to the hotel. "Well, that's simple," I said with a laugh. It was on the same road as the Cracker Barrel, a few streets down. About two minutes later, I pulled into the nearly empty parking lot. "Wait here," I instructed Callum.

He nodded, and I went into the hotel's lobby. A tired looking man stood behind the counter. "Welcome to the Red Roof Cadiz. Do you have a reservation?"

"No. I need to book a room," I answered.

We went through the standard booking formalities. Despite the fantasies playing in my head, I asked for a room with two beds. I handed him my credit card at the end of the transaction, and he passed it back to me with an envelope holding two room keys. "Second floor," he told me in an expressionless tone.

I went back out to the car. "Got us a room," I told Callum when I opened the back door to grab my bag. He climbed out and grabbed his backpack and suitcase. We walked up the stairs together and found our room. I pulled one of the keys out of the envelope and used it to unlock the door.

It was an improvement on the room in Illinois. A massive improvement. The room looked clean. The bedding on the two queen beds actually looked like a maid had touched them in the last month. It was decently decorated with a red accent wall and a generic, cliche painting hanging on the wall. "Bed preference?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Not really." He paused for a moment and then exhaled loudly. I raised an eyebrow at him and fought the urge to remind him to use words . "I sleep better closer to the door."

"Sounds good." I went to the bed nearest the window and put my suitcase on it. I dug around until I found my shower stuff and the sweats I slept in. "You mind if I go take a shower?" I asked. I managed to contain myself and not ask if he wanted to join me.

He looked up from looking through his backpack. "Sounds good. I'm gonna send my friend an email. Let him know that I should be in King's Bay tomorrow. Also give him a heads up that I might need a lift from wherever you're stopping."

I almost dropped my bag. "King's Bay?"

"Yeah. Silas lives there. His uncle owns the tech company I'm going to try to get on at."

"No fucking way," I laughed.

"I feel like I'm missing something."

"I live in King's Bay. Get your friend's address if you don't have it. Tell him we should be there sometime in the evening. It's about nine or ten hours without breaks."

There was a sparkle in his eyes when he nodded. It really was a small world.

Callum took a shower after I did. I listened to the water running through the bathroom wall and imagined what he looked like naked. I really needed to get some kind of control over my brain. Otherwise sleeping with him in the same room was going to be a nightmare. I was already convinced I was going to dream about his mouth and hands that night, replay everything that had happened and imagine what could have happened had we not been on the road.

Maybe one day, I'd find out.

After all, we were both going to be in King's Bay. Assuming he got that job. I'd never hoped for someone I barely knew to get a job in my life. I was intrigued by the man. I wanted to get to know him better. I wanted to take the time to explore the heat tension between us, learn if it could be translated to something more. Because I thought it could be. I'd never met anyone like him before, someone so easy to talk.

I heard the water shut off. My mouth went dry. In a few moments, he'd be coming out, sopping wet. I could imagine his dark hair dripping water down the back of his neck, down his bare chest. It was positively pornographic. I was not going to be able to not stare at him. I needed to distract myself. I fumbled through my bag for my Kindle and found a semi-interesting book in my library. One I'd already read, because I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on the book either, not with him so close.

By the time he came back into the room, I was leaned back on the bed and seemingly invested in the book. I stole a glance at him from the corner of my eye. He wasn't shirtless, sadly, but his muscular arms were on full display in a muscle tee. He wore a pair of black basketball shorts, and I was distracted by his long legs and muscular calves. I could see a tattoo peeking out from the leg of the shorts, but I couldn't make out the details. He turned to put the clothes he'd been wearing in his suitcase, and I noticed more art on the opposite arm, interrupted by the thick strap of his shirt, and disappearing down his back.

Focus , I scolded myself, and not on the tall mountain of muscles in the room. I forced my eyes back to my Kindle and tried to take in the words on the screen. Honestly, I couldn't tell you a single thing that was happening in the book. At least it looked like I was focused.

I heard his heavy footsteps in the room, and then I heard the sound of him plopping down on his bed. "Reading anything good?"

"I mean it's good, but I've read it before," I admitted.

I could feel his eyes on me, and I closed the cover to my Kindle.

"Do you read a lot?" he asked.

"I usually read a bit before bed. It helps me turn my brain off. I used to doom scroll on my phone, but then I'd stay up too late."

I snuck another glance in his direction, and he held up his phone. "I'm guilty of the doom scroll," he admitted with a chuckle. "What kind of books do you read?"

I felt my cheeks flush. I hated that question, because I couldn't answer it with anything that sounded deep or meaningful. "Spicy romance novels," I admitted. "Usually gay ones."

"That's a thing?"

I nodded. "That is a thing. They're pretty good."

"So when you say spicy?"

I knew the ending of the question. "Explicit sex scenes."

He shifted in his bed and positioned himself to look at me better. I matched his position on my own bed. His wet hair was just as distracting as I'd imagined it would be. "Is it just vanilla sex or…" he trailed off.

"Depends on the book."

"The one you're reading?"

My cheeks burned hotter. Why were we talking about this? Apparently, reading was not the distraction I'd hoped it would be, because it opened up the door to this conversation. "This one has a mix of both, but most of it leans to the kinky side."

"Let me guess," he started, tapping his index finger on his chin. He cocked his head in thought as he studied me a bit further. "Exhibitionism? Maybe some light bondage? I'm thinking, if it's going off things I know about you, a bit of a praise kink?"

You could light a cigarette from my face with how hot it was. "Bondage, a bit of a praise kink," I told him. I was talking about the book. It wasn't my fault that it happened to mirror a few of the things I also enjoyed. "There's also some degradation in it."

"Is that the stuff you like?"

If my dick hadn't been in his mouth earlier, I might have been a bit concerned about the change in conversation. Instead, it just gave me dirtier and dirtier thoughts. "Some of it. What about you?"

"You first. Tell me what else you like." There was that commanding tone again. I felt chills run down my spine. I didn't answer immediately, because I was too busy trying to think of how to answer that. Some of the things I was into might scare him and make him question being anywhere near me. I'd made the mistake of telling an ex-boyfriend one of my fantasies, and he'd suggested therapy. "Or I can go first. Voyeurism and exhibitionism, obviously. Knowing people could see us while I sucked you off earlier?" He hummed. "I like to be in control of my partner's pleasure. Edging my partner can be fun."

"Being edged is torture," I groaned.

"And torture can be fun."

"So you have a sadistic side?"

"Not in the traditional sense." There was a thoughtful look on his face. "I don't get off on inflicting extreme pain. I don't mind a little, but when I say torture can be fun… I mean turning my partner into a writhing, begging mess. And then, when they're begging and desperate for more, I like to take it further." I exhaled. I was determined not to have a reaction to him, but damn, it sounded hot. "Your turn. You find edging to be torture, but you seemed really into being told what to do earlier."

I nodded. "I was. A lot more than I thought I'd be. Most of my partners have been pretty vanilla. Some light bondage, things like that, but they weren't all that bossy."

"And did it make you want more?"

I swallowed before nodding. "I've wanted more for a long time."

"What kind of more did you want?"

"I've always been curious about sensory deprivation. Being restrained and blindfolded, not being able to tell what my partner's going to do to me next." That was one of the tamer fantasies. For a moment, I wondered if he'd be scared off by the darker ones, by the secret ones I kept close to my chest after my ex told me that I needed some serious therapy about it.

"What about fantasies?"

"You tell me yours first."

"Not this time," he countered. "You still haven't given me much." He laid back on his back. "Tell me your hottest fantasy."

"You might judge me." My voice was small as it traveled the space between our beds. "One of my exes told me that I needed therapy when I told him."

"First, kink shaming is never okay. Second, this is a judgment free zone," he assured me. "Finally, I will tell you mine if you tell me yours first."

"Why can't you tell me yours first?"

He didn't answer immediately. The silence didn't feel as comfortable as some of the quieter moments in the car. The sexual tension was there, ramped up to thirty, but it had an awkward twinge. The awkwardness faded away when he spoke, slowly and thoughtfully. "I want to hear your actual fantasy. I don't want you to edit it to match what I say. I don't want you to match my energy and something tells me that you'd try."

I felt called out, but I also felt seen in a way I'd never been before. I laid back on my bed, looking at the closed window instead of him. "I'm asleep. Deep enough that I don't hear the door. I don't feel the man get into my bed. I stir a little when he touches me for the first time, but I don't start to wake up until he slams into me with no prep. At first, I think it's some kind of dream, but eventually, I realize what it is. A stranger in my room, fucking me senseless, holding me down. No matter how much I struggle, he won't stop…" I close my eyes as the mental images flood my brain. I'd jacked off to this fantasy more times than I could count, but I'd put it firmly in the fantasies I'd never live out. "He finishes inside of me, and then he pulls out. I try to see him, but the room's too dark to make out his features before he turns away. I never find out who he is, just someone that uses me and leaves."

I couldn't look at him after I finished. I didn't want to see the judgment on his handsome face at my fantasy. I wished I'd told him one of the tamer ones, one that was just bondage and sensory deprivation or something else that didn't make people look at me like I was fucked in the head. I was having flashbacks of my ex-boyfriend and the look in his eyes. We'd been together for months before I told him, and we'd broken up shortly after. Now I'd told it to someone that was basically a stranger.

Damn him for being so easy to talk to.

"So somnophilia and a little bit of CNC," he finally said. "Did you ever try that with anyone?"

"No. Like I said, most of the guys I've dated have been pretty vanilla."

"But the stuff you have done, did you have a safe word?" The question caught me off guard. "I know you said it was only light stuff, but did use one?"

I could feel his eyes on me, and I braved a glance at him. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw no judgment on his face. Just interest and curiosity. "Pineapple."

"Pineapple?" he asked with a laugh. "Your safe word with your past partners was pineapple?"

The way he said it sounded so ridiculous that I couldn't help myself from laughing. "What kind of safe words have you used?"

"That's changed based on the partner," he admitted. "We used the stoplight system a lot."

"Okay, your turn."

Callum told me his fantasy: spending the entire day with a partner, fucking them until they were on the edge and then stopping, giving them discreet hand jobs under the table, blowing them until they were going crazy, everything, but never once letting them get off. Finally, at the end of the day, when they felt like they'd die, he would take them to bed and spend hours taking them apart before finally allowing them to get off.

He did say that he was into edging, but that seemed a bit extreme. Hot as hell, but extreme.

We talked a little longer before we noticed the time. We turned on the hotel television and found an old movie. I fell asleep before the movie ended, exhausted from the long day on the road and completely at peace sleeping with a man that was practically a stranger in the other bed.