Running From Him (ManxMan) ✔️

Chapter 21: Eating Me From The Inside Out

🏃🏼‍♂️Clark's POV🏃🏼‍♂️

I stared at the array of books in front of me, the titles all varying. Some were huge hits, new to the store by popular demand, others were smaller titles that were picked up because of necessity for students, or a timeless popularity that has them asked for regularly by a range of people.

We were a smaller, non-chain bookstore, we got a shipment of new books every 4 months ish. Because of this, there were a lot, and it was currently my job to place the customized barcodes on each and to put them where they belonged. In theory, it should have been easy, but with over 150 books to go through and only a couple of hours to do everything, I was sweating within a half hour.

The task took time but became routine quite quickly. Soon my mind wandered to the events of the night before, the events of the twins' birthday party. I had gotten drunk, to put it simply, and I let myself do things that I usually would have thought twice before doing. One of those things was dancing with Santiago.

My cheeks warmed from the memory and I thumped my head against the book I was holding. Gosh, Santiago. I don't where that came from. Suddenly asking me to dance was one thing, but the way that he had so smoothly brought me against him for the slow dance . . .

We had been dancing casually. I had been close but it was more of just stepping side to side than really touching him. But, the Ed Sheeren song came on. I had been worried that it would get awkward when we separated, so I made a joke of it, and he had barely laughed.

His eyes had been on something else, my hips. I wondered why until he tugged me against him. I had first tensed up because I was not sure if I could relax. But eventually, I relaxed. Had that been a mistake? I had put my hands at his hips to make it seem less romantic but we still ended up so close. Had I made it worse? Did I move in closer or was it all him?

I hated how comfortable I had been, how I enjoyed it so much, and how I . . . wanted more contact, more than we already had.

Goodness, I did want him to touch me more. I had a boyfriend! By this point, I had gone through more than a hundred of the books, but I suddenly had the urge to rip them all up out of frustration.

But I did get more contact, didn't I? He had . . . kissed my neck, nibbled my ear, and whispered,

"Clark."

I blushed harder and let myself sink down to the floor. And I had moaned then too. I moaned! Why did I have to moan?! I audibly groaned and sighed before getting back to work. I had enjoyed it, so much. I hadn't had sex with Liam yet, I wasn't sure that I wanted to. I did not feel like I needed sex to enjoy a relationship with my boyfriend. We had gone further than just kissing, but we never got to anything below the belt. Yet, in just a few seconds Santiago had gotten me so worked up and so ready . . .

I shook my head, standing back up and working even harder and faster than before. I shouldn't have let it happen, shouldn't have succumbed to whatever that was. I was not a cheater and would never be. I wasn't . . .

Sighing, I let my shoulders slump. That was why I pulled away. I knew it was wrong, from the moment I let him hold me so close. I had run to find Liam, hoping to apologize for what he saw but he hadn't even seen. Liam had been talking to some girl because she had been wearing socks for one of his favourite animes and didn't even notice what I did.

I had wanted to be relieved, but Liam had been so sweet that I just felt guilty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Really?" I asked, stunned to believe that Liam hadn't seen, that I would get away with doing what I did. "You didn't see?"

Liam frowned in confusion and turned to face me. He had been washing his hands at the sink because I had followed him when he had been trying to go to the bathroom. He had explained who he had been talking to for the past ten minutes while peeing in a stall with me standing outside, asking him questions. Now he was drying his hands with a paper towel and watching me with a curious concern.