Scratch the Surface

Who was he?

I recalled miles of sleek tan skin over carved, corded muscle; big, strong capable hands holding mine; the beard on the side of my neck; lips stretching around my cock; and those honey-brown eyes crinkling in half with a smile. I had to take a moment to breathe.

“Cam, can you open the door?”

I could, but why would I want to? If I had been traveling with Nadav or Whip, it would have been a different story. I would have needed to ask them if I looked any different, because I certainly felt that way. By the same token, if I’d been with Nadav or Whip, we would have gotten one room with double beds, and I would have never met the guy I spent the night with because I would have been spending time with a friend.

“I have to get in the shower,” I answered almost angrily, and then it hit me that maybe Doug had gotten his name.

After finding my pajama bottoms and T-shirt and pulling both on, I bolted to the door, unlocked it, and threw it open, startling Doug, who had turned away, I was guessing, to get in the shower himself.

“Jesus!” he yelled, gripping the edge of the desk beside the door, in the same location as the one in my room.

It took me a second to get my bearings, because he looked as though he’d been run over by a truck, and it was both alarming and surprising. “Are you all right?”

“No,” he groaned. “And you’re lucky I didn’t throw up on you when you scared me.”

That was when the smell of vomit hit me, and I took a step back into my room, which did not, in fact, smell like puke.

“What happened last night?” he asked me plaintively, and I realized another thing off with him was his coloring. From what I’d observed, his complexion ran to ruddy, but this morning he was absolutely ashen.

“You don’t remember?”

He squinted as he stared at me. “I was having a drink with this guy who nearly made me swallow my tongue.”

“Pardon me?” What was he talking about?

“Holy shit, Cam, you should’ve seen him,” he whimpered. “When I waved, I never thought he’d come over, and then when he asked me what I was drinking, I couldn’t believe he’d actually crossed the room to talk to me. I mean…God. He was the sexiest man I’ve ever seen in my life, you know?”

Ah. Swallow his tongue because the stranger was so hot. The picture was becoming clearer.

“He had the warmest eyes I’ve ever seen, and his shoulders and his––”

“Yes, yes,” I snapped, because I’d seen more of the man’s body than Doug had, and thinking about him in any more detail was not going to get me in and out of the shower quickly. Even worse, listening to Doug lust over my bed partner would drive me quickly homicidal. “What was his name?”

“His name?”

“Did he buy you a drink?” I asked, hoping if he had, maybe he used a card, and if he used a card, perhaps a big enough tip could get the bartender downstairs to give me a name off a receipt. “Did he have a tab?”

“I don’t know, but I bought him a drink, and he asked where I was from, and that got me thinking about home and Tim and––”

“So you didn’t get a name?”

“I don’t—oh no,” he groaned loudly. “Did I get drunk at the bar?”

“Yes,” I growled, frustrated and annoyed. “You passed out on him, and he carried you up the elevator and brought you to your room.”

He put his face in his hands, utterly mortified.

“Really, Doug,” I said snidely, my voice full of judgement and recrimination, and it was awful and hypocritical, and logically I knew that, but I was also livid it hadn’t been me the whole time. If I had gone to the bar, I would have been the one he was hitting on. “You’re here on business; one should act accordingly.”

Or maybe not.

As a rule, people didn’t approach me. My friend Mike assured me it was because of the stick wedged securely up my ass. My brother, Cody, said all his friends found me cold, which wasn’t the nicest thing to say. Apparently I was where conversation went to die, and that was why I was always the designated driver. My boss, Lucas Stein, said I appeared to be annoyed ninety-nine percent of the time. It wasn’t my fault. I just needed people to get to the point. All the lead-up, the explanation of things, was exhausting. It was why I became an accountant. Math was the only thing fast and precise; there was nothing subjective about math. Things did or did not add up. All that said, perhaps the man who gave me exactly what I had always wanted––a dominant, rough but equally tender and giving time in bed––wouldn’t have come anywhere near me.