He had no idea what to do with that feeling. But what he did know was that he had a small box in his car, and at the very least, he could help Peyton work on finding pleasure in himself again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TheBakerByTheSea: Morning everyone. New product going up soon. A minty, rich, dark chocolate brownie, available gluten-free. I think I’m going to call them Hudson’s Heaven, and if my product tester was right, they will transport you to paradise.
Peyton wasplenty used to finding random boxes on his doorstep. Half the time he ordered supplies online, then forgot until they showed up a few days later. But this was…unfamiliar. The company logo wasn’t a business he’d worked with before, and it was small and a little unobtrusive. It was also lacking a shipping label, though the rest of it looked pretty official.
He supposed.
Looking left and right, Peyton tried to quash the fear that maybe it was from Austin considering the guy hadn’t stopped texting him since Hudson had stepped in a week and a half ago, the night Austin not only crossed the line, but obliterated it.
The texts were all pretty much the same bullshit, too.
I know what you’re thinking…
I know what Hudson must have said about me…
There are two sides to every story…
I promise you this isn’t like me…
It was a tale as old as time, and while Peyton had been lucky he’d mostly avoided dating men like Austin in his past, he knew enough of them. And he’d seen the pain in Hudson’s eyes when he confessed who Austin was, and what he’d done. All it had really accomplished was validating all the red flags Peyton had seen.
He was no longer afraid he was imagining things in order to prolong his self-imposed celibacy. Austin really was just a shit person.
With a sigh, Peyton took the box over to his kitchen table and snatched up his letter opener. The tape was brown paper so it tore easily, and he pulled the sides apart. Nestled in a small collection of cushioning was a box with a discrete logo in navy blue and white. He knew that kind of packaging well.
He was a young, gay, single man after all. He’d seen more than one sex toy.
His heart began to thud because if this was some kind of dildo, he was going to lose it. He was already on the verge of just giving up for good—though he knew Linden and Taylor would throw him in the metaphorical stocks if they thought he was going to call it quits after one bad date.
But this would just be insult to injury.
He shook out the tension in his fingers, then finally pulled the box out and grabbed the little note that started to flutter down toward the table. Setting it aside, he pulled the tab and the whole box dropped its sides and opened.
It was…interesting. It looked like some weird weapon on Star Trek with the round hole, and the finger grips and the little knob at the base. But the longer he stared, the more he realized it was making sense.
“Fucking Taylor,” he whispered, because the only person he could think of that would send him a sex toy would be his best friend. A small part of him wanted to call up Taylor and ask him what the fuck he was thinking, but he knew it had been done with the best intentions.
Turning the toy in his hands, he dropped it in the box and started to walk away, stopping halfway down the hall as a sudden and burning need rushed through him.
Fuck it, he thought.
Snatching the box up, he marched into the bedroom and dropped it on the end of the bed. He sifted through all the packaging and eventually came up with a little bottle of cleanser which fit in the palm of his hand.
It was a nice little squeeze bottle that popped right open, and he let the water run until it was hot before giving it a thorough scrub. Cleaning was almost hypnotic in a way, and he lost himself in watching the bubbles flow down the drain as he rinsed.
Oddly, he was calmer, even if a warm, pulsing thread of desire was burning in his gut. He wasn’t hard, but he wasn’t entirely soft, either. Running his hand over his bag to make sure it was still empty, he moved down to cup his crotch and let his dick plump up a little against his palm.
Moving into the bedroom, Peyton shed his pants, then slipped under the covers and settled against his pillow. He felt foolish, but since his surgery he’d only been able to touch himself while he couldn’t see what was below his chest. It was a little hypocritical, he knew, asking someone to want him when he couldn’t even stare at himself.
But he wasn’t in the mood to psychoanalyze shit. He just wanted to get off.
Taking a breath, he fumbled in his nightstand for his lube which was barely touched, and he squirted some on his palm. His dick remained stubbornly half-hard as he slipped it through the sleeve—loose enough not to feel intense, but tight enough that he could see how good it would feel once his cock got with the program.
Closing his eyes, he pressed the little knob against him, but instead of resting against his taint, it squished against his balls instead. He hissed and tried to figure out what the fuck to do about it, but his finger slipped and hit a button, and the knob flared to life. It hit him in the balls with just enough blunt pressure to make him lose his breath, and out of sheer frustration, he sat up and tossed the damned thing across the room.
It hit the wall with a dull thud, then he pressed his hands over his face. His left one reeked of lube, the right of sugar and flour, and he started to laugh…before he started to cry. Why was everything such a goddamn failure all the time?