Page 24 of Conceal

I gasp, and then breathe my orgasm out silently through my nose, painting the walls with my cum.

Is jacking off to images of my best friend when she’s only a room or two away pathetic? Sure.

Do I have any pride or self-preservation instincts when it comes to her? No.

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And if I’m going to stand any chance of cuddling with her, holding hands with her, or spooning her tonight without begging her to touch me, I have to set my pride aside and take the edge off where I can. It’s not her fault I’m so turned on by her. It shouldn’t be her burden, either.

I’m careful to wipe the remnants of my orgasm off the wall and run a washcloth over it so she never suspects, before rinsing her soap off my spent cock and shutting off the water.

When I step back into the bathroom, though, I know I’ve fucked up.

I forgot to bring my clean clothes. That’s my routine - I always bring my clean clothes into the bathroom with me, so she doesn’t see my secret.

Before my first shift at the rescue, Lev drove me back to the apartment to pack my own bags, but I set them in the room across the hall from Tati because the closets here are much smaller than the apartment.

Shit. I left my phone in that room too, so it’s not like I can ask Tati or Lev to bring me clothes. I drag my piercing under my top teeth and tongue as a nervous habit.

No, this is fine. Tati was taking a nap when I went for my shower. It’ll be two seconds, and I can dart down the hallway and put clothes on.

Taking a fortifying breath in and out, I wrap the towel around my waist and bolt out of the door.

I’m halfway down the hall when her laughter rings out, and I freeze. She’s not in her room taking a nap. She’s in the goddamn kitchen, with a direct view of my tattoos.

She turns and does a double take when she sees me - her eyes widening and her smile falling as she takes in my body.

Fuck!

I’m frozen with indecision. Do I run back to the bathroom? Do I run to my room? Or do I face the consequences of my own actions?

“Mik?” she asks, and it snags the attention of Lev and Roman from where they’re on the couch.

“Oh, shit,” Lev says, at the same time Roman says, “Wow.”

I tilt my head back, refusing to be ashamed of my body and the art that adorns it.

Tati walks up to me on socked feet, but I can’t meet her eyes. I’ve thought about this day from the second the artist put the needle to skin. It was the night of her very first date in high school. Lifting weights, punching a heavy bag, and jerking off so much my dick hurt hadn’t dulled the anger and fear inside. She’d looked so excited as she was getting ready for that date. Excited like she might be going out with ‘the one’, and it had twisted up something dark and dirty inside of me.

So, I found a shop: Twisted Ink. Axel specialized in hyperrealistic and watercolor designs, and he was happy to work on me in silence. Over the years, he knows more about my body than even Tati, even if we’ve never had a conversation.

A part of me wants to feel bad for hiding this from her, but how could I show her? It would ruin everything.

Just like right now.

This is going to go one of two ways: she’ll play it off like it's nothing, or everything I’ve worked so hard to hide will blow up this carefully constructed balance we have.

I flinch hard when her hand touches my pec. I wasn’t expecting it.

Blue eyes look up, searching mine. “What...”

The pec she’s touching has one of her paintings from high school on it. It’s a man’s hand wrapped in a woman’s, like a prayer, wrapped in a red ribbon. It’s imperfect. She’d just started learning how to sketch, but it had meant something to me.

I swallow around a ball of emotion as I wait for her to see the rest.

Along my ribs is an angel, half draped in a robe with one breast exposed, while a female devil has a hand wrapped around her ankle, trying to pull her down. Tati painted this freshman year of college. On the other side of my ribs is the back of a woman’s head, hair splayed around, underwater, shoulder and arm extended, reaching towards the surface of the water.

On my other pec is a pomegranate she sketched in class. It looks like it’s been bitten or ripped open with fangs or sharp teeth, seeds and juice spilling out and sprayed onto the ground.

Both of my arms are covered in shoulder-to-wrist sleeves with small sketches, paintings, and the impressive way Axel’s managed to use vines, flowers, feathers, and ribbons to make them all a unified canvas.