Page 2 of Played By Design

My dick throbs, already half-hard before his fingers even brush my waistband. He tugs the drawstring loose, the knot giving way with a whisper of fabric. His palm slides beneath the elastic, calloused fingertips scraping my skin, and my thighs instinctively fall open. The first graze of his thumb over my leaking dick pulls a whine from my throat.

His thumb circles my tip, smearing my pre-cum, before his grip closes around my hard length with the same confidence he brings to everything. Coding. Music.

This.

“Kain…” My hips buck up into his touch.

His other hand plants flat on my sternum, pinning me to the couch as he works me. His lips brush my ear. “What will we do if this starts to distract you?”

“It won’t,” I moan, my toes curling. “Don’t stop.”

The tension in my shoulders melts, my spine arching as I pant. A hidden knot of stress unravels, my body turning pliant beneath his touch.

I come with a broken cry, my release spilling over his fingers, my thighs trembling. He doesn’t stop jerking me until the last shudder fades, and I begin to wiggle as oversensitivity sets in.

A whine escapes me as I bat his hand away.

He withdraws and grabs a tissue to wipe my cum away, fixes my sweats, and returns the tablet to my hands.

My fingers are still tingling and slightly damp. The strike zones are still cycling blue, green, blue, green, as if nothing had happened. As if the last two minutes were a pause button pressed on the game, and now we’re back.

I blink, push my glasses up, and refocus on the screen.

The beat-map resets, and I start tapping again. A clean streak of green flashes across the hexes. The familiar rhythm settles me, pushing the questions about romance paths to the background where they belong.

Kain settles back into his spot. His arm warms mine as he tracks my combo count on the screen, and his hum of approval rings through me like a struck chord.

I sink into the game, the world fading until only the glowing hexes remain.

The music becomes data, a layer I process without hearing. I’ve memorized all the maps. They’re supposed to be random, but nothing ever is. The pattern always exists, waiting to be found.

I clear three full beat-maps without a miss. The high score notification pops, and a satisfied noise escapes me as I start the next round.

Each completed map bleeds into the next, the cycle of tap-and-clear so automatic that everything beyond the hexes disappears.

At the end of the third cycle, a three-note riff from the house speakers breaks through my focus. Downshift. It’s another of Kain’s, less a song than something he toys with while thinking between tracks.

All at once, I realize my wrists ache from being locked into the same position for too long.

The living room resolves around me, dark except for the glow from my tablet and the lamp beside Kain. Code scrolls down the terminal window on his laptop, but as I shift, he closes it and sets it aside.

His large hand closes around my ankle. “Gym.”

I groan like a teenager being told to take out the trash, and one corner of Kain’s mouth lifts. I shut down, my tablet going dark.

With a smirk, he hauls me off the couch.

Our footsteps don’t echo on the solid oak basement stairs. I count them as we descend, one hand on the railing, the other clutching my tablet.

The gym air is thick with the scent of rubber and the faint electrical hum of equipment on standby. Black flooring gives beneath my feet.

Kain taps his phone, cutting off Downshift halfway through the chorus. A second later, the opening notes of Save Point come through the speakers down here.

I step onto the treadmill, and the dark TV screen reflects the honey-blond hair falling across my forehead and the way my glasses catch the light. My mouth presses into a flat line of displeasure. I’d rather be anywhere else.

The bass line settles into a steady thrum, vibrating in my molars.

Kain taps the control panel on the treadmill, and the belt whirs to life beneath my feet.