Karim Knight 

Tino pushed off the bed with a grunt, showing off as he stood up, exposing himself. Barely suppressing an eye-roll I watched as he pulled his jeans over his bare ass. He leaned forward and bent over me, fit, chiselled body looming above me. With a smirk dancing over the edge of his lips, he placed his hand around the back of my neck leaving his thumb to stroke above my carotid. I shivered as the intensity within his dark eyes washed over me. A sharp jolt of electricity coursed through me originating from the warm spot where his fingers lay against my skin, travelling down my naked body. Even with a playful smirk on his lips, he looked more threatening than usual. 

I grinned at him, placing gentle fingers against the large scar that cut straight from under his eyelid, across his jaw. Tino stared into my eyes, jet black hair barely grazing his forehead. The electricity within the room was palpable and I swallowed every single puff of breath he exhaled. He trailed his hand from my neck onto my chest with barely present light movements. 

I preened under his touch, drawn to him and his fingers like the first time I had felt them against my skin. When it came to Fortino's touch, it always felt addictive and electric, almost as if he could control my desire like a puppet on his strings. Maybe his rough, calloused and cold to the touch fingers were to blame or maybe he just knew the right spots to touch.

 His fingers were always cold under all the pattern of scars that seemed to marr his skin, even after spending what felt like a lifetime feeling me up his hands always failed to take some body heat with them instead they elicited heat where they touched my skin, pulling it from within me instead.

 Tino lowered his head, forehead hovering above mine and with a short smile that was close to condescending he said, "Why won't you let me love you?"

I closed my eyes, distracted by the hand he had wrapped around my cock. With a shaky exhale I opened my eyes, pushed my body up and caught his lips within mine. I kissed him, dragging every single breath out of him and with my hands now wrapped around his looming torso I bit his lip, harshly. Satisfied with the copper taste on my tongue I released his lip, pushed him off me and rolled out from under him. 

"You know how I feel about that?" I frowned, looking at him. 

He chuckled, rubbing his middle finger over the wound. He pulled his finger away and watched as the blood on his finger slide past his knuckle. With cruel eyes trained on mine he placed the same finger into his mouth licking the thick red liquid wrapped around it. 

He didn't say anything, instead, he pushed himself off the bed and bent over to pick up his t-shirt. He pulled it over his head and patted the pockets of his jeans. Around the third pat, he found what he was looking for. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. With one end lit and the opposite between his lips, he leaned over the open window and smiled. 

The smile was short, tight and somewhat cruel and yet its presence sent a sharp thrill through me. It was the kind of smile I suspected he would have given his victims had he followed in his father's footsteps. I flopped back onto the bed watching Tino's back as he dragged out yet another puff. He looked over his shoulder, cruelty shining within his eyes he said, "I respect that." 

They were genuine words, words from someone society deemed to be a monster, to someone he felt should actually be called a monster. I rolled onto my stomach and winked at him. The only reason ‘it’ worked between Tino and I was because of our understanding, that and the fact that he was the only other person who knew me beyond my glamour, not the only person but the only person I could stand. Without those two things whatever we had would have never worked but that didn't mean he wasn't inclined to a few moments of stupidity, like this...

"I have so much to give." He sneered from the window. 

Even without him stating what he had to give I knew what he had to give. But that's not what we had here. If anything, bringing in something as messy, complicated and entirely worthless as love into what we had would ruin everything and I thought Tino understood that. Blue silk sheets slid against my naked body as I stood up from the bed, the fabric pooled at my feet onto the dorm's wooden floors. I stepped over them making my way to the small, brown dingy desk in one corner of the minuscule room.

 "I hate the first two weeks of the semester." I groaned, wiping my palm over my face, the taste of Tino's blood still lingering on the tip of my tongue. 

Tino leaned against the window, smile slow and lazy, with his cigarette dangling between his fingers over the window ledge he ran his free hand through his hair before stating, with an amused voice, "You say that every semester."

"Because it's true," I ruffled through the stack of papers on my desk. The bunched up pieces of paper mocked me with their mediocrity and repetitiveness. 

I groaned, pulling one of the newer plays from the top of the pile. The play was unnamed, scrawled across the white page in red ink and yet, out of all the others scattered across my desk it was the only one that actually showed promise. 

"Axel Hines?" Tino asked, looming over my shoulder. 

I shrugged, flipping the play script over, "His was the only decent one among all the ones offered to me." 

Tino took a step closer to me, crowding behind me as I crouched over the small wooden desk. He scoffed breath ghosting over my neck and with another smile that I could feel along the nape of my neck he pushed my hair over to the left side, clearing up space for him to kiss, right before he said, "He is only using you to get into the castle. You should choose someone more dedicated to their work." 

I shuddered against the vibration of his lips, "Isn't that what this is? I asked pointing at all the other plays. In the end, we are all just using each other for the chance of moving into the castle." 

Tino scoffed, wrapped his arm around my abdomen and he pulled me against his body, "Yes but not all of us are that blatant about it." 

"Maybe you lack ambition?" I smiled, turning to look over at him, "In any case, some people are just better at manipulation than others. You should know that?" 

Tino didn't reply, choosing to place shallow empty kisses across my shoulder blades instead.

"I don't understand why I can't initially start in ‘The Castle’? We already know I always take first place. I have never been a minor character my whole life." I scowled over Hines' play script. It was nothing short of a masterpiece but with it, I had to do something I had promised I would never do. I bent lower pushing against Tino as I reached over for a highlighter. With the yellow cap between my teeth, I highlighted Hines' names across the white page. 

Tino leaned over me, plastering his body against my back. With a tiny disapproving grunt, he bit the edge of my collar bone. I had a feeling it wasn't the play he had a problem with, most likely its writer. But what Tino thought about Hines didn't have anything to do with me. Not now and especially not this semester. The stakes were much higher than just, ‘getting into the castle.’ "What are you going to perform, another Romeo and Juliet?"

"How can you even suggest that?" I whipped around startling Tino. With one hand still hovering over his t-shirt, I pushed him back and he stumbled, falling back onto the unmade bed behind him. 

His eyes grew darker and his tongue flicked out to lick his bottom lip. He grinned up at me as I straddled him with a different play script stuck in my left hand. I sat on top of his legs choosing to focus on the white sheets of paper within my palms instead of answering his jab. 

Tino might not have understood much about plays but his major was cinematography and film which meant he understood something about good stories so him pocking a jibe at me about Romeo and Juliet was one of those things he did when he was annoyed. 

Even with all that knowledge he still didn't really understand, he wasn't like me. His ambition was short-lived if ever-present. If anything people like him didn't really belong in the school but then again when he put his mind to it he had this uncanny tact of proving he belonged at Bradford. I scowled looking over the chicken scratch scrawled across the sheet in my hand, "Only amateurs do Romeo and Juliet."

Tino's laugh was soft, gentle and warm as it reverberated in the tiny room, finding a way to coil around my insides as his body shook below mine. I shivered above him, eyes glaring into his cold dark ones. I looked away from him and the uncomfortable unease crawled at the edges of my skin.   

"Ok, then how about playing a villain this time? You clearly have the face for it?" Tino mocked, hands firmly held around my waist. Smoke filled the space between us and with a corky smile that shone through the smoky fog he had created, Tino winked at me. 

"I have a face for villainy?" I asked, chucking the papers in my hand away.  What did that even mean face for villainy? I bent forward pushing the heel of my palm into the groove of his shoulder. 

Tino smiled, eyes growing impossibly darker. I hovered over his body digging my palm deeper and with a smile darker than usual he said, "If you push that arm any further you just might prove my point." 

I frowned, removing my hand from his body to place it on the bed. With a smile that didn't feel real, I loomed over him, "I don't play villains," I glanced over my shoulder, mind straying back to the highlighted script resting on the small desk, "but you already knew that."