Page 1

Chapter One

He’d made me a superhero, once. Now I was to be a slut.

My arms stretched out, high above me. Fingers laced, and just enough of a twist to leave my triceps bulging, my biceps fat. Sleek muscle coaxing attention down to my bare chest: pecs swollen and abs clenched. Trying to make it look natural, unstrained, even as I arched my back ever so slightly, tilted my torso just so.

My breathing the only sound in the room, that and the faint scrape of Clay’s pencil.

He glanced up - from my desk chair, sketchpad propped on his knees and a frown beneath the fan of ink-black hair - to examine me.

“Tilt your head slightly. No, other way. Okay, stop.”

I fought the urge to nod. Concentrated on staying as still as humanly possible; twice already he’d scolded me for moving.

“Not much longer.”

I trusted him; had seen Clay sketch before. Marveled at how what seemed like haphazard lines suddenly coalesced into a human body. Broad sweeps of his pencil somehow infused with tension, and strength, and urgency.

“Lift your hips a little.”

I bit back my chuckle, though I knew my amusement would still be clear.

“It makes your Apollo’s belt more obvious,” he said, airily.

“Oh, so not my dick, then?”

A quick glare. “Eoin.”

“Clay?”

He shook his head at my feigned innocence, like I was borderline irredeemable, but I could see the hint of a grin as he pointedly focused on his sketchpad.

I’d worried about teasing him, when we first met. Afraid of his reaction, the way he’d bottled up his emotions and his appetites. Fearful I’d blunder - the thoughtless jock - and say the wrong thing. Read intent into the hungry glances I caught him flashing me, and presume my reaction in kind would be equally welcomed.

They had been, once. That first time, on his bedroom floor, when I’d been Clay’s superhero or the scaffold for it, anyway. His first sketch of me and the first time he’d touched me. Jerked me off, only for regret to flood in straight after. So strong I’d very nearly lost a friend, never mind a friend with benefits.

The freshman sketching out the curve of my cock through white briefs was not the same one I’d watched spiral into panic that day.

“Are your arms tired?”

“They’re fine,” I told him, because you couldn’t aspire to membership of the seniors’ wrestling team without being at least a little bit cocky.

Clay’s glance suggested he saw through it, anyway.

“I’m almost done.”

“You’re quick.”

He made a face, the expression fleeting. “It’s just the basics. I’ll fill the rest in later.”

“It’s not that you’re hurrying so you can move on to Brayden?”

Clay looked unimpressed by my knowing grin.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he told me, dryly.

I ignored the denial. “Have you decided on his pinup pose yet? Or are you just going to let him call the shots?”

A snort at that idea. “Letting Brayden ‘call the shots’ is a fast track to ending up on all-fours.”