Ficorpio
Chapter 1
My roommate is always asking to kiss me to blow off steam.
At first it was just a quick brush of the lips. Later he said he was under too much pressure, so the kisses had to get a little deeper.
He usually takes good care of me, so letting him get away with a little too much never felt like a big deal.
A few times, I even asked if he wanted one first.
That was before his stress got bad enough that he climbed into my bed in the middle of the night, pinned me down so hard I couldn’t move, and stared at me with burning eyes.
“Do you think,” he asked, “we could take this a little further?”
Last night, Damian came home late, reeking of alcohol, and kissed me awake. This morning I overslept again. I was standing at the sink yawning and brushing my teeth when a pair of strong hands locked around my waist from behind.
I turned my head, instantly guilty for no reason at all.
“W-what?”
Damian stared at my mouth like he was possessed. Apparently he still wasn’t fully sober.
With a silent sigh, I spat into the sink. Before I could even straighten up, he had me boxed into the corner and bit down on my lips in a rough kiss.
While he kissed me, he even wiped the toothpaste foam from the corner of my mouth with his thumb.
So impatient. He wouldn’t even give me a second to get ready.
I patted his back with exaggerated patience, trying to calm him down.
Seriously, I wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t like he had to eat his money’s worth at an all-you-can-eat buffet in one sitting. Why did every kiss have to turn into some life-or-death struggle? We were two grown men. It was kind of ridiculous.
Besides, who knew if I’d rinsed all the toothpaste out properly? The tube I was using was the cheapest bargain-bin crap I could find online, some bulk discount deal that worked out to almost nothing a tube. It had this faint plasticky taste to it. I had no idea whether a rich guy like Damian Sterling would find that disgusting.
I had only just started to lean away when he grabbed me right back and kissed me again, completely ignoring my attempt to escape.
“Don’t dodge me,” he said, clearly displeased.
“I was out drinking with clients all night. I’m in a bad mood.”
Fine. Fine. I wouldn’t dodge.
So I let him hold me there and kiss me for half an hour, right up until my phone started screaming with calls from the Carter Lab, everyone shrieking at once for me to get back to campus immediately because the research group meeting was starting and Professor Carter was about to lose it.
Only then did Damian finally pull away, reluctant and unsatisfied.
He licked his lips like he was still savoring the taste of me, then fished his car keys out of his pocket.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you.”
Chapter 2
“There’s breakfast in the back seat. It should still be warm. Just pick whatever you want.”
Damian leaned over to fasten my seat belt for me, then pointed toward the stuffed paper bag on the back seat. It was crammed with food—to-go coffee, breakfast sandwiches, pastries, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, milk, the works. An absurd amount, honestly.
Silently, I counted the different items and couldn’t help marveling at how outrageously generous rich people could be.
He was handsome, loaded, and apparently committed to throwing money around. This pile alone was enough to feed me for three days. If I rationed it out, I could even save on food.
Like he could read my mind, Damian said, “Stop thinking about saving money all the time. Eat something with actual nutrition. I’ll send you a day-rate job later—work it for a week and you’ll have enough for half a semester’s living expenses. Don’t make yourself miserable.”
I looked at him with watery eyes.
Ever since I’d somehow stumbled into becoming his apartment roommate, he’d taken ridiculously good care of me. He found side gigs for me, took me on trips, and whenever I ran into trouble, he’d listen if I asked and help me think through a solution.
He looked cold. Distant. Like the kind of person no one could casually approach.
But underneath that, he was warm.
I still had no idea why someone like him had chosen to rent that rundown off-campus apartment with me in the first place. I’d asked before, more than once, but every time he just gave me that cryptic little smile. After a while, I stopped asking.
Maybe a wealthy heir-entrepreneur like Damian Sterling had his own weird secrets.
As for everything he’d done for me… I was just a broke grad student. I really had no way to pay him back.
So I turned to him with complete sincerity. “Are you still stressed? If you want, you can kiss me a couple more times.”
Damian was great in every way except for one small, deeply bizarre habit: he liked using kissing as stress relief.
At first, he’d been too embarrassed to tell me. Instead, he kept taking cold showers every half hour. When that stopped working, he’d punch the wall in silence until the backs of his hands split open.
I was his roommate. There was no way I could just stand there and watch him hurt himself.
That day, I’d been anxious and honestly kind of heartbroken for him. “Isn’t there any other way to deal with it?”
He’d gone still, staring straight into my eyes. After a long silence, he said, “There is.”
“What is it?”
“Can I kiss you… just once? To get it out of my system?”
Huh?
And for some reason, I nodded.
To be fair, the first time, he really hadn’t taken advantage of me. Our lips had only barely touched before he pulled away. It ended before I even fully processed what had happened.
Damian had smiled and said, “Thanks. I feel a lot better now.”
That was it?
Chapter 3
If that was all it took, I would’ve let him do it ten times a day.
I hadn’t hated it. Hadn’t even minded. If anything, there’d been a strange tingling in my chest.
What I hadn’t expected was for him to take me completely seriously.
After that, he kept finding excuses to kiss me every few days, and each time, he kissed me a little deeper than the last.
At the red light, Damian turned and glanced at me, the faintest smile at the corner of his mouth. “We’re almost at campus. Go to your research group meeting first. I’ve got a business dinner today, so we’ll talk tonight.”
“You got it.”
I walked into the conference room glowing and slid into my seat literally one second before Professor Carter arrived.
Thank God Damian had driven me in. It had shaved a good thirty minutes off my usual bus commute. If I’d been late, Professor Carter—who had a gift for tearing people to shreds—would’ve absolutely destroyed me.
One of the people from the Carter Lab frowned at my mouth. “Evan, what is going on with your lips? It’s been, what, two weeks? Maybe you should see a doctor. Your chapped lips excuse is getting pretty unconvincing.”
“Uh—really? I think it’s fine. I’ll just pick up some ointment or something.”
I touched my mouth guiltily. Next time I really needed to set some ground rules with Damian. Kissing was fine, but no more biting. If he kept that up, I was going to run out of excuses.
Professor Carter asked us for updates on our papers. Luckily, I’d come prepared.
She skimmed through mine and looked pleased. “Evan, this is strong work. A colleague of mine has an academic conference in the next city over. If any of you are free, you should go. Travel’s covered.”
Then I’d have to ask Damian for leave, I thought. These days, if he didn’t kiss me and “relieve some stress,” he acted like he couldn’t sleep. Hopefully he could survive until I got back.
I texted him: “I’m going to an academic conference in the next city next week. You… gonna be okay?”
The second I sent it, I realized how that sounded. Like Damian genuinely couldn’t function without me.
As if I was that important.
I was just a nobody, a grad student who’d barely made it in off the waitlist.
Damian, on the other hand, was brilliant even outside his own department, the kind of wealthy heir-entrepreneur who seemed good at everything. He had money, grades, and a startup that had hit the ground running—three months in and already pulling over a million in profit.
His reply came instantly.
“Not really.”
I crossed one leg over the other and, for some reason, felt a little pleased.
Someone beside me tugged my sleeve and teased, “Wow, fully funded conference travel has you that happy? You can’t even hide your grin.”
Heh.