Page 68 of Nova Academy

Stars damn it.

Tonight was going to betorture.

I tried to grab Adara’s attention, or stars, I would have taken thecaptain’s. Neither one of them looked our way as we entered the suite, and they left us standing in the living room while they headed straight for the bedroom. We stood there, and awkward silence punctuating the atmosphere of the room, and listened as their bed squeaked. It settled quickly, so despite the excessively uncomfortable moment where we thought we might be subjected to the sounds of fucking, we both released simultaneous sighs of relief.

‘So… time for bed?’ asked Bromm in an obvious attempt to break the tension. Instead, he only succeeded in ratcheting it up.

I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah. Bed. For sleep.’

‘Right. Sleep. That’s what beds are for.’

‘Yup. Rest and relaxation,’ was mygeniusreply.

He chuckled and made his way into the second bedroom. After a beat of hesitation, he proceeded to remove his clothes and strip down to only his underwear, much like he had the last time we’d shared a bed.

I debated sleeping on the couch.

‘Come on, Arty,’ he pleaded softly. ‘Let’s just get some rest and try not to think about anything else right now, yeah? This doesn’t have to be weird.’

Admitting defeat was difficult for me, but he was right. I was the one making this weird while he was simply going about his nighttime routine. I needed to pull my head out of my ass and work through my emotions without forcing him to work through them with me. After rejecting him, he didn’t deserve that from me too.

Instead, I hid behind the door of the bathroom to change intomy nightwear and returned to find him already settled beneath the covers. His arms were crossed behind his head to prop them up, and the sheet coiled low to cover his lower half but left his chest bare and on full display.

He looked delectable, and though I had my suspicions he was trying to show off to draw me in again, I couldn’t deny I wanted another taste.

‘I meant it,’ I said when I pulled my side of the blanket back and climbed in. I figured the best course of action here was to be as open and honest as I could afford. ‘Nothing can happen between us.’

He turned to the side, keeping his head propped up with one hand while he faced me. ‘Why is that? You never really explained. Not that you owe me an explanation or anything…’ he tagged on at the end.

‘Because I can’t be with someone like that,’ I replied after thinking through my answer. I needed to be vague, but not so vague I didn’t make sense.

‘Why not?’

I mulled over my answer again before I spoke. ‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ I settled on.

‘But I do,’ he pushed. ‘I want to understand you, Arty. I think it’s clear that I’m attracted to you, but I also like you as a friend and I want to know what goes on in that pretty head of yours.’

I did my best to ignore the compliment, even when it lit me up inside.

‘I can’t really get into it, but in order to be with someone… likethat, clothes kind of need to be removed. Mine need to stay on.’

He frowned down at me. ‘Are you shy about your body?’

If only he knew… ‘Um, I guess you could say that.’

‘You don’t need to be,’ he assured me. ‘You’re beautiful, Arty.’

I didn’t want to laugh, but the irony that he found me desirable when I wasn’t evenmeburst out in a quick, sharp bark. His face twisted in his confusion.

‘Sorry,’ I said, sobering again. ‘We really shouldn’t be talking about this.’

‘Let me just say this and then we never have to talk about it again.’ He paused, waiting for my approval and only continued when I gave him permission.

‘All I can think about is you. I dream about you at night, fantasise about you when I need a release, and I want nothing more than to touch, taste and discover every inch of you. You said no, and I’ll respect that, but that won’t stop me from wanting you. You’re my friend first, and that’s not going to change just because all I want is to strip you bare and lay you out beneath me to devour at my leisure, but I won’t until you tell me you don’t want me. Because you may have rejected my advances before, but you still haven’t said you don’t feel the same way. And after the way you kissed me back I know you do.’

My jaw was flapping open like a fish out of water. I didn’t know what to say to that, because while it was all very flattering and terrifying, everything he said about me was true.

‘You’re right,’ I admitted, but I held up a hand to stop him when his eyes lit up and a mischievous smile started to pull at his lips. ‘I do like you, Bromm, but it doesn’t change anything.’

---