Page 25 of Susie's Orc

Chapter 10

Susie

For the first time since he helped me off with my coat, Jonah hesitates. It’s slight, but impossible to miss. His body tenses, and when I lean back to look at him, his expression is blank and guarded.

“I’d rather leave it on.”

It takes my sex-mad brain a few moments to catch the full weight of his discomfort, and my heart sinks. He’s clearly not comfortable with what I just asked of him, and even if I don’t know why, I wish I could take it back.

“O-oh,” I stutter. “That’s alright. Sorry, I didn’t mean to push you. If you’re not comfortable with it, that’s fine.”

He lets out a harsh breath. “Don’t be sorry. It’s my own hangup.”

A heavy pit settles into the bottom of my stomach. I withdraw my hand.

I don’t know what to do, what to say, how to dispel this awkward tension.

How badly did I just fuck up? It drives home the fact that I don’t know Jonah, not really, and the idea that I might have just crossed some big red line of a boundary for him makes me feel awful.

“It’s just… I’ve just…” He starts and stops a couple times, like he’s trying to think how to explain.

“It’s okay,” I say quickly, stomach sinking even lower as I watch his face fall.

Jonah shakes his head. “No, I want to tell you. I… I’ve lost some weight over the past couple of years, and I’m not really comfortable being naked. Around other people, I mean.”

He’s lost weight? I run through my memories of him and yeah, I guess I can see it. I’ve always found him so damned attractive that it didn’t really register with me that his body was changing, but he’s definitely leaner now than he was the first time I saw him.

Suddenly those baggy khakis make sense.

So does the way he pulled my hand away when I was playing with his clothes in my apartment, and the way he zeroed in on my hands when I grabbed his shirt at work.

“It’s alright,” I assure him. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

He shakes his head again. “I want to. With you… I… I don’t want to let it be something I’m self-conscious about.”

Without waiting for me to say anything else, he reaches down and pulls his shirt up over his head, tossing it aside and letting out a short, tense breath.

He’s got a great body.

Sure, his skin hangs a little loose over his chest and stomach, but it’s not something that bothers me in the slightest. He’s clearly put in a lot of work, if the muscles beneath that skin are any indication. It’s probably not something I would have even noticed, and definitely not anything I would have commented on or been turned off by if he hadn’t said anything.

Still, he was brave enough to share that insecurity with me, and I don’t want to take it lightly.

“Can I touch you here?” I ask him, hand hovering over his bare chest, and he gives me a jerky nod.

Jonah’s skin is warm and covered with a thick mat of coarse black hair. The muscles in his chest bunch and shift as I run my hands over him, and when I lean in to trace my lips along the path my hands have made, his breath catches in his throat.

“It doesn’t turn you off?” he asks. “Me being insecure like this?”

I pull back slightly and give him a wry smile. “Not at all. It’s not like I don’t have my own insecurities, too.”

The look he gives me is wide-eyed, disbelieving, and so adorable that I laugh out loud.

“You seem so confident. This whole time, you’ve been so damned sexy in going after what you want. Making the first move when you invited me over.”

“Yeah,” I say, laughing again. “Sure. After crushing on you for like two years and not doing a thing about it.”

I didn’t mean to make that particular confession tonight, and a second after it slips out of my mouth, I realize what I’ve done. Cheeks burning, I wait for Jonah to look uncomfortable or horrified at the realization of just how long I’ve been pining for him, but all I see is a slow, pleased smile breaking over his face.

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