Torn Between Tides

Chapter Thirteen

Roman was terrified. A part of him wanted to run, but the other part had his body paralyzed. He stared up at Colt, confused about the sudden change in what he was saying he wanted. From what it seemed like, Colt had been just as reluctant as him to pursue anything between them. And now all of a sudden he wanted to give things a shot?

This raised a few red flags in Roman's mind. The indecision was confusing, and Roman usually preferred to stay away from fickle people. But at the same time he couldn't find it within himself to say no. Even when he parted his lips to say the word, no sound came out.

He always believed that he was a rational person. That he saw the world with only a pair of practical glasses and didn't let much cloud his judgment. Then why did he seem to struggle so much when it came to Colt? This, on it's own, should've been enough for Roman to send him packing. But once again, he felt as if his legs were frozen on the spot.

"Can we...can we take this slow?" Was what Roman finally came up with. The two were running in circles, they knew it, but they didn't know how to break out of the cycle either.

Colt let out what seemed like a sigh of relief as he nodded, before taking a step closer towards the swimmer. Colt touched Roman's face with the back of his fingers, gently grazing the soft skin. Roman bit the inside of his cheek, not knowing why the simple touch was enough to bring him to the edge of insanity.

Nobody had made him feel this way before. No kiss or touch had ever made his knees feel weak. His heart had never sped up that he feared he may be going into cardiac arrest. And he had certainly never wanted to get dicked down by a particular someone so goddamn badly prior to meeting Colt.

Roman inhaled sharply the moment Colt touched his lower lip with his thumb. Roman grabbed Colt's bicep, feeling the hard muscles under his palm. He used his other hand to hold Colt's wrist, making him pull away from Roman's face. Colt furrowed his brows, confused, but he took a small step back nonetheless. The last thing that Colt wanted to do was step over some boundaries and fuck up.

"Slow, remember?" Roman reminded, even though he wanted nothing more than to jump Colt's bones. And from the way Colt had been reacting to him, he was pretty confident that the feeling was mutual.

It took immense self control on both their ends to part physically, but they did so anyway. Roman had a few questions to ask, he wanted to know what this meant for this and where they will go from there. But before he could do so, he was interrupted by a rather intense smell.

"Don't tell me the stove is still on," Roman said.

Colt whiffed the air, his eyes widening slightly as he rushed out of his bedroom and went to the kitchen, only to find steam blowing out of the pot. Roman, thankfully, had caught on to it before the smoke could trigger the fire alarm, or else Colt would have had a lot of mess to clean up.

"Goddamnit," Colt muttered as he realized that lunch was now completely burnt. It seemed like the whole mate rejection ordeal was affecting his senses too, otherwise he would've smelt it way sooner, at the very least before Roman could.

Roman chuckled as he followed up to Colt, wrapping an arm around his shoulder while grinning to lighten up the situation.

"How about we order in some pizza? My treat," Roman spoke.

"Sorry," Colt muttered.

"Don't be," Roman shrugged. "Now, tell me what toppings you like then go put on some movie while I make the call."

Colt did as was asked, and Roman joined him a couple minutes later on the couch. They watched the action-thriller that Colt had chosen in silence as they waited for their food, only stealing the occasional glances at each other.

"Oh come on, there's no way he could've gotten out of that without getting shot at least thrice," Roman said, before taking a bite of the pepperoni pizza.

"He's got the protagonist armor protecting him," Colt replied.

"It's stupid, he wasn't even wearing a bullet proof vest!" Roman exclaimed. "This is why I don't like action movies. They're more unrealistic than the standards romance movies set. And don't even get me started on how bad the horror movies are now. Not like they were much better in the past either. I would rather rewatch The Princess Diaries over and over again than this bullcrap."

"What do you like watching, then?" Colt questioned. "Apart from The Princess Diaries, apparently."

"Fantasy, mostly, or documentaries. Not a very big comedy fan though I'll watch it here and there. And I prefer psych mystery thrillers more than these action ones. I can tolerate some historical drama if done right, and reality shows are my guilty pleasure. Don't tell that to Trevor or any of the other boys or I'm going to have to cut off your tongue." Roman answered. "What about you?"

The two barely focused on the movie after that as they spent the time asking each other questions back to back and getting to know one another. It didn't feel forced, but both seemed rather interested in learning about the man in front of them. Soon, the pizza was over and the end credits started rolling, but neither cared as they carried on.

Neither Roman nor Colt could recall the last time they just sat with somebody and spoke to them about everything and anything for hours on end. Going from movies to school to politics to any topic that they could think of. Soon, they started sharing childhood stories, especially embarassing ones that Roman apparently had a fair share of.

"—now I didn't think that any artist would tattoo a fifteen year old so I just went along with the bet. Stupid move on my part because my friend apparently knew that one of his elder sister's friends had a tattoo machine so he somehow managed to get his hands on that and well..."

"I don't remember seeing a tattoo on you," Colt said, after all he had seen Roman almost naked in just his swimming trunk, which didn't really cover much skin.

"Thank fuck he respected that I am a swimmer so he tattooed my hip bone, but it's so stupid I used to die internally each time I saw it," Roman chuckled.

"Past tense?"

"Yeah, I've gotten used to it now so it doesn't bother me per se," Roman replied.

"What is it?"

"A tiny dick," Roman confessed. Colt stared at him with a blank face, but he couldn't do that for long as he burst out laughing. "I know, I know it's ironic. But I was kind of in the closet then so he thought it would be funny."

"It is funny," Colt stated, trying to control himself from laughing.

"It's a weird dick too, not very... anatomically correct. Not very sexy either. "

"I've got to see it someday," Colt said.

"Someday," Roman grinned, before winking at the other man. "If you're lucky, that is."

"I was really only talking about the tattoo," Colt mumbled, not meeting Roman's eyes.

"And pray tell, what do you think I was talking about?" Roman questioned, shifting so that he was slightly closer to the Alpha. Colt looked at him again, the previous signs of humor gone from his face now.

Colt was new to this. People had flirted with him before, sure. But he had never felt the urge to respond to their advances. He either politely declined, or ignored them altogether. All of his hook ups had been just sex, nothing more and nothing less.

Even though Roman had said that he wanted to take things slow, apparently that didn't apply to his teasing. And Colt was slowly beginning to lose his self control and patience.

"I can't read minds so maybe you should tell me what you meant," Colt replied.

"Turning this around on me, are you now?" Roman chuckled. He stared at Colt, a fox like expression on his face before continuing. "You know what? You can see the tattoo under one condition."

"And what might that be?"

"You can see it if..." Roman paused, the corner of his lips rising up in a sly smirk. "If you're the one taking off my clothes."

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