Page 39 of The Diamond in the Rough

It was late,and while I wastired, I wasn’t falling asleep. The next day was Friday, so I still had to go to work, but lying in bed and staring at the ceiling at ten p.m. hadn’tdone anything to help me actually fall asleep, so I’d tried reading. But picking up2312hadn’t really worked, either.

Because that had made me think about Rajesh Parikh. In a way that I really shouldn’t have been thinking about him.

It had honestly surprised me.

I mean, yes, I’d noticed that he was an attractive man. Tall, muscled broad shoulders, bright golden-brown eyes. The dark facial hair that made him look rugged beneath well-defined cheekbones. Long fingers that he used to toy with all sorts of things—his water glass, a pen, a small figurine of an elephant that had been on his desk.

Fingers that I couldn’t help but think about toying with other things.

My own, for instance. What it might be like to feel his long fingertips play with mine. Trace a path along my skin. Run through my hair.

I shifted, uncomfortable for more reasons than one.

Maybe it had been that stupid pencil, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Him.

I let my hand wander lower, slide into the waistband of the thin knit shorts I wore to bed, wrap my by-now-familiar fingers around the semi-soft flesh that grew hard beneath them.

It was difficult to imagine what it would actually be like, to have his hands on me. To know how he would choose to touch me. Where I would like him to touch me.

I knew his hands were warm—warmer than I was, anyway—because he’d touched me on the arm or the shoulder. A chaste, ordinary form of contact over a sleeve or shirt. But I’d felt the heat of his palm. Imagined that if his hands were that warm on a cold day, the rest of his body would be even warmer. Imagined that heat pressedagainst my back, the hand stroking me bigger than mine. Warmer.

Tried to imagine the kind of low, deep sound he might make if I touched him. If I let him press into me, filling me.

I panted a little, my cock hard in my hand, hot, as I imagined his skin would be.

I imagined the strength of his hands, fingers digging into my hips hard enough to bruise. Hard enough that I wouldn’t need to touch the sheets to be reminded of what he’d done to me.

A moan escaped me at the thought, my stomach muscles tight with want.

I imagined the kind of low, guttural sound he’d make as come spilled out of him, and gasped as mine coated my fingers and dampened the fabric of my shorts.

I lay still as my breath slowed back to normal, my cock soft again between sticky fingers. And I wondered what was wrong with me, that I’d fantasized about a man I worked with—a man who was, even if temporarily, kind of like my boss.

It wasn’t really appropriate.

No, that’s not true. It wasn’t appropriate at all.

And yet, here I was. I hadn’t really thought about actually dating in probably… six months? Longer? I wasn’t honestly sure.

I’m not asexual. Demi, maybe, but I’ve had boyfriends. Well. Lovers would be a more accurate term, I suppose, since most weren’t serious romantic commitments.

There was an orderly at Tranquil Brook—not like that, a man who was only a handful or so years older than me. Chris. He’d been kind. Had talked to me about what was happening outside in the world. Smuggled in books so that I could read. Had been tender and gentle.

Until one day he didn’t come back.

I’d assumed he’d found another job or another, saner boyfriend or girlfriend, and simply hadn’t returned to Tranquil Brook.

Now, knowing what I knew about the people who had run the asylum, I wondered if he was even still alive. But I wanted to not know more than I wanted answers. I wanted to keep hoping that he was alive somewhere, living his life. Being happy and whole, in spite of what he must have witnessed. What I didn’t want to think was that he was dead, a hole in his chest or his head that had been written off as a robbery or a suicide that just went cold and unsolved.

There had been a few other patients at Tranquil Brook, as well, although we hadn’t done much more than hold hands and steal occasional kisses, since anything else was impossible under the ever-present eyes of doctors, nurses, and orderlies.

Since then—just the occasional disastrous date, really.

I have a sex drive, as should be evident from the mess I’d just made of my shorts. It was just… more controlled than most guys’, I suppose. I don’t go around asking people how often they think about sex, but if movies, TV, and books were any indication, I’m definitely on the lower end of the sexy-thoughts spectrum relative to most men.

And, usually, I was the sort of person who needed to be emotionally invested in someone before thinking about them that way?—

But for some reason, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Raj Parikh.