The Rebel (Red's Tavern 2)

“You don’t understand,” Liam said, giving me a hard glare.

I shrugged one shoulder, reaching for the cabinet above the coffee maker. “Do you want the penis-shaped mug or the one with the snowman on it?”

“Red,” Liam said, still staring at me as I set down the mugs.

“Okay, okay, I’ll let you have the penis-shaped one.”

“This isn’t a joke,” he said.

I let out a long breath. “Why are you upset about this? Isn’t this exactly what you wanted? People are going crazy for Hardy Productions and we only have one video up. Imagine the potential if we do more. Hell, if we do what we did last night, but in front of the camera—”

“We aren’t doing that,” Liam said, turning and making his way back to the kitchen table.

“Why the hell not? It was hot as hell, and I’m sure other people would think so, too.”

He spun around. “You… you don’t know what it’s really like to be a porn star,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to manage people thinking they own some part of you, just because they’ve seen you naked. Or what it’s like when they expect so much out of you, like you’re a dancing monkey they’re tossing coins at. The whole world is going to want you, Red. They already fucking do.”

I paused for a moment, just watching Liam. He’d gone from zero to sixty in about two minutes flat, and his lack of sleep was clearly showing now.

He was hurting. I’d known he had fallen out of love with his life as a porn star, but I’d never known it affected him this much.

“Turn around,” I said softly, crossing over to where he was standing, leaning against the kitchen table.

“What?” he said, furrowing his brow.

“Please, Liam,” I said.

His confusion was obvious, but he finally turned, facing away from me. I gently pushed the fabric of his robe to the sides of his shoulders, and I rested my palms on his skin. I began to massage him.

“You are wound up like a damn spring already, this early in the morning,” I said, kneading some of the tension out of his muscles. He rested his palms flat on the table, relaxing immediately under my touch. I worked my fingertips from his neck all the way down his shoulders, in long, slow strokes.

I was keenly aware of how naked I was all over again. I wasn’t trying to be sexual in any way at the moment, but touching Liam and being near him at all made my cock respond. It was out of my control. It was like proximity to his body directly affected how hard my penis was at any given time.

“God. In another lifetime, you must have been the world’s best masseuse,” Liam said, all of the anger gone from his voice now.

“I can just tell when you need to wind down,” I said, “and you really, really needed it right now.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Of course.”

After a good five minutes, he had relaxed again, and he turned to face me. The skin below his eyes was dark, but he finally didn’t look like he was about to pop.

“Okay,” I said calmly, reaching for the mugs again. “I’m going to take the penis mug, and you will get the snowman one. Clearly you need the cuteness right now.”

He puffed out a weak laugh. “I would be honored to have the snowman mug. And the penis mug would be… fitting for you right now.”

I looked down at my cock. “I can’t deny that I’m about seventy-five percent hard right now, but I promise you that it’s only because my hands were on your ludicrously soft skin.”

Liam grinned. “Not because the penis mug just turns you on so much?”

“Penis mugs are not my fetish, no,” I said.

“But massages definitely are,” he said.

I shook my head. “I just like touching you.”

He went quiet, and I decided not to press the subject. My cock finally started to behave again as I poured big cups of coffee for each of us, leaving Liam’s black and grabbing milk for my own. I handed the snowman mug to him and we went to sit on the couch.

“Thank you,” he said after a minute. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.”

The light was starting to shine in through the small window in the living room, casting the side of his face in a diffuse golden haze.

He looked like some sort of fallen angel. I’d always been outrageously attracted to Liam, but he had only become more refined with time. Maybe it was the lack of drugs and alcohol making him look healthier, or maybe it was just that I’d forgotten exactly how much I could feel just from looking at his face.