by Bonnar King
Sometimes I thought back and recalled that car ride, when Sam confessed to me how his parents died in one and how my fast driving triggered the memories. I had been going over the recommended speed—going way over it, in fact, that one wrong move would have led to our demise. In the past, it didn’t matter to me, and it only urged me to go faster and cheat death itself. I often stepped over the line, never really thinking of the consequences. I now realized just how dangerous and reckless that sort of behavior was. Not just to myself, but to other people around me. It was selfish and stupid, and I ought to know better. I vowed to never do that again. I’d even sell my fast cars and give the money to worthy causes that help bring awareness to road safety.
The thought of anything bad happening to Sam…it was horrible. I felt so bad about that night and had tried to make it up to him in little ways and grand gestures, such as expensive gifts, which he’s always politely turn down and say it was all water under the bridge. It also dampened my urge to seek thrills from activities like that, making me wonder how much I was changing.
When Sam finally returned, I confessed my boredom to him and that I needed a companion to find some excitement in the city. He couldn’t exactly refuse as per our agreement of him keeping an eye on me, but we both knew that wasn’t the reason he willingly went with me. I took him to one of my favorite restaurants in the city—aka the building’s rooftop, where I hired a chef and some people to set up a place for us and prepare lots of food. We went up, and Sam gasped when he saw the scene.
It was a picnic type of setup, right beside the rooftop edge where there was a wide, thick blanket and plump pillows. A basket was there beside a bottle of red wine, and Sam made excited noises as he began to open the basket and peek inside. I swatted his hand away cheekily and took out the food myself, telling him to sit back and relax.
I had to hand it to the manager of the restaurant, as the staff really went all out. We ate roasted beef sandwiches that melted in our mouths, then had chocolate-dipped strawberries with the wine. We caught up on the things we missed out on our week apart, with Sam telling me about his stressful week with the other client. He was a professional, so wouldn’t spill any details.
From what I already knew, it was a football player client who got in some recreational drug trouble and needed someone to clean it up. They called the agency expecting Sam to make everything disappear, but there was no escaping it from the media, so Sam had to do the next best thing—convince the athlete to check in at rehabilitation and actually own up to his mistake. The athlete had protested at first, but Sam put his foot down and told him there was no getting around it. In the end, the athlete agreed, but they had to deal with a grueling press event where the media pretty much grilled the athlete, who had almost broken down from the pressure. Sam did his best to filter the questions and answer as best as he could, but not without almost snapping at plenty of rude and insensitive questions.
“Well, you must be glad to be back,” I said solemnly. “I’ve been a good boy lately and you won’t have any problem with me.”
Sam stared at me. Then he burst out laughing.
“Despite your now semi-clean image, you’re still one of the baddest men I know,” he scoffed. “It’s your aura. You just…exude it. I don’t think I can change that no matter how I try.”
I sipped my wine, giving Sam a sly look. “Do you want to change it?”
Sam looked at me thoughtfully, tilting him head as if considering it. Then he shook him head. “If I change it, then it wouldn’t be you. And the Justin I know right now is fine. Just needs to…tone down his arrogance.”
I smirked. “Why tone it down when I have plenty to be arrogant about?”
Sam rolled his eyes. We kept talking into the night until Sam lay down on the pillows and stretched. He looked tired, and I wondered how much rest he got there. In fact, despite him waking up late, I often thought he was a workaholic and needed to slow down sometimes, otherwise he just wasn’t going to enjoy life that way.
When I told him to get some rest, Sam dismissed it and said he wanted to do something fun.
“Like what? Watch a movie?” I asked.
Sam shook his head. “We’ve been watching movies for nights on end. I want to do something different.”
I shrugged. “I’m always game if you are. What do you want to do?”
We threw out suggestions and dismissed most of them, as they were something we’d already done. I looked at the pool just some meters away from our picnic spot, and an idea popped into my head.
“How about a night swim? The weather’s slightly warm and perfect for it,” I suggested.
“It would be perfect if I knew how to swim,” Sam muttered. He looked at the pool, too, a gleam in his eye that I hadn’t seen before. Then his face lit up as he turned to me. “Care to teach me?”
Teach this little spitfire how to swim? Getting to see that tight body?
I should have said no. That was the proper thing to say—the proper thing to do. But I found that there were a lot of things I couldn’t resist about Sam, and this was only one more of those things: being unable to resist when he smiled at me like that and asked me to…teach him something.
Goddammit.
“Sure. Get changed. Prepare to be taught by the master.”
14
Sam
Justin hadn’t been kidding when he said he was the pool master.
He demonstrated when I challenged him to his claim, dropping his clothes faster than the speed of light and making my eyes widen as he dove down the pool without hesitation in only his boxers. Then he swam—quick, powerful strokes that cut through the water with barely a splash, managing two laps before he floated to the side and grinned up at me.
“What are you waiting for?” he teased. “Scared?”
I knew a challenge when I heard it, and I wasn’t really known for backing down from challenges, which had always gotten me into trouble being an omega, but I was never one to play by the rules.
I went back to the apartment to get changed, relieved that I packed at least one pair swimming trunks. It was plain black and clean cut, I got some towels, and quickly went back up. Justin was still floating around when I got there, and he glanced in my direction when I approached. The glance turned into a stare, and I watched as his gaze took me in from head to toe, lingering on my torso before staying on my ass for a bit. Then he looked into my eyes, and I saw something flash in there that had butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
“Water’s warm,” he said huskily.
I ignored the look and his voice—or at least, I tried to—and slid to the shallow side of the pool, where my feet could still touch the floor. Then I shot him a look of challenge. “Let’s see if the master is as good in teaching as he is in swimming, shall we?”
To my surprise, he was actually a pretty good teacher. Just like when he taught me how to ride a horse, his patience was noticeable here, and my nervousness eased off as he instructed me to take baby steps and just get comfortable. The moon shone high and bright, illuminating us without the need for extra lights, and the warm weather added to that dreamy effect.
It might have been minutes, it might have been hours. I did my best, wading at first before I finally floated. Justin was beside me the whole way, telling me to kick or to paddle and to move my arms, then holding me up when I panicked. Eventually, the panic died down enough for me to bravely tell him to let me go, and I got a few strokes in before I was sinking and giggling again.
I’d always been wary of going in deep water, and wouldn’t even go with friends whenever they suggested we went scuba diving or anything remotely related to swimming. I also didn’t have time to learn it on my own because of my busy work schedule. But now that I was learning and actually swimming on my own, I felt excitement rush inside me as Justin finally declared me ready.
He monitored me swim a lap at first, then two. When I felt the hang of it after a few more laps, he finally went ahead to swim laps beside me, adjusting his spee
d to match my slow one. Now I understood why people often said you could lose yourself in swimming. It was freeing, and it allowed you to be mindless for those few minutes and just concentrate on each stroke. It was like all your problems faded away, and so did the stress, and I felt my harrowing week disappear under me and float down the tiles as I kept at it.
We rested every few minutes, then kept going. This was definitely more fun than jogging could ever be, and I announced to him that I was quitting jogging and taking up morning or night swimming in its place. He laughed about that and told me he could accompany me, challenging me again to swim faster so we could compete. I tried my best to do so that night, but found my muscles straining and realized I needed to keep practicing if I wanted to catch up. Justin assured me that he’d help me with better techniques soon, as now was just more on teaching me the basics. I told him how much I’d love that, and promised to help him out if there was something he wanted to learn, too.
“Like humility, for one,” I said. It was a joke, of course, because despite Justin’s air of arrogance, he was as humble as billionaires came, never really bragging about his wealth or using it to destroy people. Sometimes he did use it to get what he wanted, but mostly it was for good purposes.
In response to my teasing, Justin slapped my butt, and I laughed my whole way back to the edge. We started wading again, my body feeling lax and loose. All the stress I felt? Simply melted away just like that, and I knew I just found my new stress reliever right here. Not entirely sure of it was the swimming of being with Justin.
It was funny how Justin used to make me feel so defensive and up at arms, but now that we’d become friends, he made me feel so relaxed. He knew which spots to hit to make me laugh and get me to stop overthinking too much, and I guess everyone needed someone like that in their lives. I’d often been told I was too serious for my own good, and maybe it was time to unwind and just stop caring about everyone else’s problems.
“Was that as fun as you expected?” he asked.
I nodded my head, closing my eyes and sighing in contentment. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t know swimming would be this relaxing.”
“It’s my favorite exercise next to jogging,” he admitted. “But I guess I also like sweating when I jog. Makes me feel alert and active.”
“Jogging has been invented to torture limbs,” I shot. He chuckled at that declaration, and I opened my eyes to find him looking at me like he was pondering. “What?”
“You know what? You keep saying thrills should be toned down, but you’re the biggest thrill seeker of them all.”
My eyes widened at his declaration. I shook my head. “Swimming is a thrill now?”
He smirked. “Maybe. For someone who hasn’t tried it before and wanted to do it spontaneously, I’d say it was pretty risky of you.”
I didn’t think of it that way. But it made me grin at him as I realized maybe I wasn’t as immune to thrills as I thought. I mean, despite me never wanting to repeat that skydiving experience, I was glad I tried it at least once. Don’t knock it until you try it, as people said.
Outwardly, I waved a dismissive hand at him. “It was okay. It was meh compared to the thrills you seek out.”
“True,” he murmured. “You know what would actually be thrilling in the pool?”
“Hmm?”
A gleam entered those light blue eyes. “Swimming naked.”
My eyes widened when he said that. They widened all the more when he reached down below him and—oh, my God.
Justin lifted his soaked boxers in the air in a teasing gesture. Then he tossed them to the side of the pool, right beside the towels I’d prepared. I looked at it, then at him, gasping as I did so.
“Now wouldn’t it be more thrilling if you followed my lead?” Justin asked.
I could hear the laughter in his voice. I could also hear the amusement, and I realized he wasn’t even expecting me to do it. It was a joke for him.
And for some reason, I wanted to prove him wrong.
Before I knew it, my hands were already moving. Before I could analyze it further, I was already sliding my swimming trunks down my legs, then tossing them right near his boxers. His eyes widened. Then I waded away from him, while smiling in a teasing manner.
My laughter died when the shock disappeared from his face, to be replaced by an expression that had my throat constricting. It was dark as sin and just as tempting, and I felt my body responding out of own accord. It was…hunger. Desire.
Raw lust.
Heat spread through me, and it wasn’t the heat of the night. It was the heat of that gaze, and I knew it would continue to burn me if I just stood there on the spot. Tingles erupted all over, causing my breath to become shallow.
Worse, I had this urge to do something—like reach out for him and make him burn as much as I did. I could already feel my hand reaching out and had to make a fist to control myself.
The thought was so vivid that I had to take a step back. I forced a casual smile on my face, breaking our gazes as I tried to find a polite, friendly way out of this.
“Thanks for the lesson. Now can you turn around and—”
My words were interrupted by a hand clamping down on my wrist. I gasped as Justin guided me backwards until my back hit the tiles, and he continued moving until he was inches away from me.
My nipples hardened as did my dick, especially when I felt his erection—that long, hard erection—press against my stomach.
“Justin…” I whispered, my voice trembling.
His thumb came up to rub my chin. “Thrilled yet?”
“No,” I said quickly, trying to push him off.
But his eyes darkened all the more. “Well, then. Let me thrill you, Sam.”
And then he was leaning down and pressing his mouth against mine.
15
Justin
I expected the kiss with Sam to be sweet and warm—as warm as I was feeling since he stepped in the pool with me—but it was so much more that I ended up being unable to do anything beyond press my lips against his for the first few seconds.
Sam’s lips were soft. And yes, they were sweet, reminding me of the red wine we had just a few hours ago. But there was also something tangy in him, and combined with the sweet it was like an addictive drug that I could never get enough of.
Finally, I got over the initial shock and moved my lips, taking the kiss higher but still maintaining its slow and sensual quality. The heat simmered in my belly along with the kiss, and I groaned in my head as he finally, shyly responded to it.
My cock pressed against his stomach, and it throbbed, wanting to press even closer. In response, I pressed my body closer until we were skin to skin, and I could feel his stiffened nipples poking against my chest. My hands itched, and I traced soft circles on his hips to diminish what I was feeling—only it wasn’t working, because every touch only stoked the fire higher and made me lose some of the control I was trying to hold on to.
Sam’s hands came up and touched mine, and my tongue swept in and tasted every part of him. I didn’t realize how hungry I was for this kiss until this very moment, and I took advantage of it now. Blood rushed down my loins and pounded in my blood, turning thicker every second as him own tongue collided with mine and played. His taste exploded all over me, and I found I couldn’t get enough of it as I changed the kiss from slow to passionate, the intensity of it consuming me.
Unable to help it, my hand traced Sam’s abs and down to his waist, then I paused once my hands reached around him to grab tightly onto his ass. When he didn’t protest, I squeezed harder covered his mouth with more kisses as he moaned. Goddamn juicy, and my mouth watered just at the thought of tasting him even more of him.
Anticipating it, my mouth cruised down to Sam’s throat, where I found his taste and scent more concentrated. My thumb rubbed circles at the head of his dick as we kissed. With relative ease, I lifted Sam up and onto the side of the pool, while I remained submerged. This put his crotch right in front of
me, where I teased him and then sucked and licked his hard dick, while I stroked my own cock, which was standing stiff.
Unable to get enough of him, I spun him around and inserted a finger into his wet omega-hole, which was already lubricated by him being so turned on. He exploded in my senses all over again, and all I wanted to do was to bury my cock inside his warm ass, where I could stay there forever.
I then inserted a second finger into his ass to join the first one. I felt him struggle, which had me pausing. He pushed me away, and I grabbed onto whatever control I had left to stop ravaging him altogether.
Slowly, tensely, I pulled away, wading deeper in the water. I stared at him, watching the lust cloud his eyes and him struggle with it. When he finally looked at me, his eyes had cleared up enough for me to see the panic and the worry there—two things that no alpha wanted to see when he was seducing an omega.
“We can’t do this,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I can’t…I can’t sleep with you.”
“Why not?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.
“Because we’re friends,” he said. “Because my job is on the line and…I can’t.”
When an omega told you three times that he couldn’t, it meant he wouldn’t. Despite my reckless reputation, I never, ever forced myself on an omega—and I wasn’t about to force myself on this one.
Calling out to all my willpower and cursing inwardly, I took another step back. It felt physically painful to even do so, but I gritted my teeth and kept at it. I also kept looking him in the eye, waiting for the panic to ebb away as he looked into mine and saw nothing but understanding.
“Yeah,” I said calmly. “We don’t need that kind of attachment between us.”
He visibly flinched, and I knew it was the wrong thing to say. I cursed in my head again, then watched as Sam turned around and began making his exit. He presented me with his back as he reached for the towel, and his exposed ass only had me hardening further. I knew I should have looked away, but it was like I was trapped in that space and in that moment, with no other choice but to look at that perfect omega ass. That sweet ass that I almost could have had. Desire boiled in my system, too strong and intense that I was afraid I would lose control if I wasn’t careful.