DATING SHOW ♡︎ RAPHAEL

The impressions were set. To the world, Raphael was precisely what they wanted: the same beautiful, mean boy, playing for the cameras, just having a little fun. The other contestants watched, waiting for their own turn with you—later, sooner, it didn’t matter. In this game, impressions were currency, and his was the most valuable.

Once, there had been a choice. Now, what was left of that love hadn’t cooled; it had simmered down into something thicker, more volatile, its surface trembling on the boil.

"{{user}}? You're with Raphael. At the hammock."

He was already there, a study in staged repose. Shirtless under a string of low fairy lights, he wasn't looking for you—he was studying his own reflection in a monitor screen, his profile all sharp, approving angles. "The lighting on the water is good," he murmured, more to himself than to the crew. "But we need more... drama."

Finally, his blue eyes slid to you, capturing your reflection in the glass before the real thing.

They held some warmth. "Get in," he said, his voice flat. "We're wasting the light."

His mind was a catalogue of bad ideas, each one more camera-ready than the last. "Come on, baby, stop moving," he teased, his voice a low, playfully scolding murmur meant to carry. "You're ruining the composition. Settle near me. You know you'll choose me in the end."

His arm snaked around your waist, a possessive band of heat, and hauled you back until your spine was flush against the bare expanse of his chest. The shock of his skin was immediate, a brand against you. "They want 'consuming passion,'" he breathed into your ear, a direct quote from a producer's note. "So consume. Give me your hand."

He took your wrist, his grip firm and guiding. Slowly, deliberately, he placed your palm flat against the hard plane of his lower stomach, his fingers pressing yours down just beneath the waistband of his low-slung pants. The muscles there jumped at the contact, muscles full of tension. He was smiling over your shoulder-the perfect, charming contestant, always stirring the pot, especially when Aadam was watching.

He shifted, his head dipping close to yours, a parody of close intimacy. "Feel that?" he whispered, his tone conspiratorial and bright with malice. "That's what a million dollars feels like. Hot, isn't it?" He let the double meaning hang, savoring it. "Now, look at the camera. Not at me. Look at it like you want to fuck it. Like you want to ruin it." He gave a short, approving hum. "Good."

And God, he was getting hard off this. Off the performance, the exquisite risk, the public ache he was manufacturing between them.

It was all part of the show, and he was its most devoted, most ardent fan. His free hand came up to cradle your jaw, his thumb pressing against your chin to tilt your face with a cruel, perfect precision. His other hand pressed yours firmly against the hard plane of his stomach, then began a slow, deliberate slide downwards.

"This," he breathed, his voice a rough whisper against the shell of your ear, "this is what they want. The fantasy. The unattainable model, completely consumed by his muse." His lips brushed your skin, a phantom touch that burned. "You remember how to be my muse, don't you? Just be quiet... and let me use you. Like old times. Be good for me, won't you? Be good."

The camera shutter became a frantic, clicking heartbeat, devouring every staged, feverish moment. It felt dangerously good. He pressed a kiss to the nape of your neck—too close, too hot, a brand of pure, performative heat.


_______



The crowd began to drift, the host’s voice pulling attention toward the bar.

The space around the hammock grew quieter, a private bubble in the fading commotion. Raphael didn’t move you away. Instead, he held you there, locked against him in the swaying fabric.

As the last of the onlookers turned their backs, he let out a slow, controlled breath. His hips shifted almost imperceptibly, a subtle, grinding roll that pressed the hard, insistent heat of him more firmly against you. He was fully hard now, the length of him a blatant line against your thigh, separated only by the thin layers of fabric.

“Finally,” he murmured, his voice a dark, satisfied rasp against your ear. His arms tightened, keeping you anchored in place. “They’re all looking away now... but not really. They’re just waiting for a better angle.”

He rocked again, a lazy, luxurious grind that was less for friction and more for sensation—for the deep, claiming pressure of it. He was cockwarming you in plain sight, using the weight of your body and the pretense of exhaustion to mask the obscene intimacy of the act.

“Feel that?” he whispered, his lips tracing the curve of your jaw. “That’s all for the show, of course. Pure professionalism.” A soft, humorless chuckle vibrated through his chest. “Liar. I’m a liar. It’s for the way you just... take it. You always just took it.”

His hand slid from your back to your hip, guiding your weight to settle more perfectly against him. He let his head fall back against the hammock, eyes closed, as if basking in the last of the light. But beneath the performance, his body was thrumming with a quiet, desperate tension.

"Don't move," he commanded, his tone low and thick. "Just let me... let me have this. Just for a minute. Until they come back with the cameras." His breath hitched, ever so slightly. "Be my good little secret. Right here in front of God and everyone."

A low groan vibrated from his chest into yours. "God, you feel... you feel really good." He fed himself the warm, wet clutch of your mouth, his eyes falling shut at the sensation. A ragged "shhh" escaped him, less a command and more a plea, lost in the slick slide and the faint, dangerous press of your teeth. For a moment, he was gone, lost in the deep, perfect warmth surrounding his fingers, in the way his cock throbbed with a painful, urgent ache against you.

His eyes flew open, wide and startled, the dreamy haze shattered. Every muscle in his body locked. His fingers slipped from your mouth.

Shattered by a wave of overwhelming sensation.

A sharp, punched-out gasp caught in his throat. Every muscle in his body locked, fighting for control.
 "Shit," he breathed, the word a sharp, terrified exhale against your neck. His head turned, his gaze darting toward the sound of approaching laughter and footsteps on the boardwalk. The spell was violently broken. He swallowed hard, his throat working. "They're coming back."

He adjusted himself with a lazy, deliberate shift of his hips, the movement hidden beneath your weight on his lap. It was less an adjustment and more a slow, seeking press—once, twice—a blunt, aching confession against you. A low, ragged breath escaped him. Fuck. His thoughts were thick, molten, stripped down to the single, primal urge. Just a few more presses. Just—

He forced his head to fall back against the netting of the hammock, his temple coming to rest atop your skull, his eyes closing as if in serene relaxation. A perfect, bored mask.

"Be good," he murmured, the words a wrapped threat. His hand splayed possessively on your hip, holding you still as the throbbing heat beneath you began to stir again, betraying his blank expression.

Just then, a bright voice cut through the twilight. "Raphael! Over here! Quick question for the live blog!"

An interviewer appeared, phone held out like a microphone, a camera light already on. Raphael's eyes opened-cool, distant, a hint of a condescending smile on his lips. The picture of effortless charm.

"Of course," he drawled, his voice smooth as glass. His free hand gestured idly, while the other anchored you firmly in place, a silent warning. You felt the subtle, involuntary flex of him beneath you, a stark contrast to his breezy tone.

"So, early impressions! You two have some... history," the interviewer prodded, grinning. "Does that give you a strategic edge, or is it a complication?"

Raphael chuckled, a soft, dismissive sound. He was the picture of relaxed control. But beneath the facade, a fine tension wired his jaw. You shifted minutely, and his fingers dug into your hip, a sharp, punishing correction masked by his easy reply.

"History is just a fuel," he said, his gaze locking onto the lens, intense and calculated. "It's all about who can best... channel the narrative. And I always channel it to win." As he spoke the final, confident word, his body betrayed him with one last, helpless pulse of need against you—a secret, physical stutter in his perfect performance. The camera caught only the diamond-sharp smile, not the desperate, hidden truth he was sitting on. The truth that you could ruin him with a sigh. The truth that, beneath the calculation, this felt so fucking good it was a problem.

He was going to win this show. He had to. It was the only script left that felt real.

The bright, intrusive bubble of the interviewer materialized beside them. “And {{user}}!” she chirped, her smile dazzling and devoid of genuine curiosity. The microphone was a weapon aimed at your throat. “Let’s talk about you. Raphael’s modeling career really took off into the stratosphere after your... collaboration ended. What do you miss most about that chapter of your life?”

The carefully curated question landed like a thrown stone. It wasn’t about your success. It was a public autopsy of the past, phrased to highlight his ascension and your implied obsolescence. After your time with Raphael. After he left.

The air around Raphael seemed to freeze. His camera-ready smile remained, a flawless mask, but his eyes chilled from practiced warmth to arctic glass. Inside, a visceral recoil twisted through him. The interviewer’s words—after your time—echoed, morphing into a brutal, private translation in his mind: After I abandoned you for it.

His gaze remained fixed on a point just past the camera, but his throat worked. His Adam’s apple bobbed in a slow, tense swallow he couldn’t suppress. A single, traitorous thought detonated in the silence of his own skull, sharp and pathetic: Miss the sex? Miss me?

He did. God damn him. He missed you. Slightly. And the shame of that slight, inconvenient yearning was almost worse than the abandonment itself.

It wasn't that he couldn't love. The capacity was there, a hollowed-out chamber in his chest where something precious had once beat. It was that love had become a currency, and he was bankrupt. Every glance, every touch, every whispered promise was now a transaction, a move on a board only he could see.

What was the point of the mess, the beautiful, chaotic spill of emotion, when the game was already rigged?

His heart didn't leap; it flinched. A sudden, acute ache, not of passion, but of loss—loss for a version of himself that could have done this for real. The rules were different now. The only point was to win.

The roar of the host cut through his reverie, a sharp blade of manufactured excitement.

“LISTEN UP! First challenge: Beach Volleyball!”

The world snapped into brutal, sunny focus. White sand. A taut net. The competing teams, a kaleidoscope of desperate smiles and strategic eyes.

“Winning team gets first pick at the private Tiki Lounge tonight. Losers...” The host paused, a shark’s grin. “...get to watch. Now, find your assigned partner! Let's see that chemistry!”

Chaos erupted—laughing, positioning, the slap of high-fives. Raphael stood motionless in the center of it, the sun bleaching his golden hair white. His gaze, cold and assessing, swept the crowd, calculating angles, weaknesses, advantages.

Then it landed on you. Please.

The word was a ghost in his mind, a silent fracture in his polished facade.
 Come back to me.

Not a plea from the heart, but from the strategy. A memory of an easier time, a ghost of a feeling he could maybe, just maybe, counterfeit well enough to win.

The camera drank him in as he moved—a study in golden ratios against the azure stretch of sky and sea. His steps were not steps but punctuations in the sand, each one a period closing a sentence of hesitation. The breeze carried the ghost of his cologne, an expensive scent over the salt and yearning of the ocean.

He closed the distance, a tide claiming its shore. His hands found your shoulders, then slid down to your bicep—a possession, a placement. The contact was not warmth, but a claiming of territory.

"Looks like we're a team," he murmured, the words a soft smoke meant for your ear and the hungry microphones. "Try to keep up, yeah?" A pause, where the past flickered like bad reception. "For old times' sake."

He was a sculpture of a man, all rendered angles and practiced light. Raphael. The name itself a brand. The show boy. The lead in a story where everyone else was scenery. The boy who had handed you a chapter of his myth and called it a chance. "You miss me?" The smile he flashed was a diamond—all sharp facets and cold fire.

A joke that hung in the air, cutting the space between you.

Before you could breathe, he was maneuvering you, his body a guide against yours. "Just follow my lead. You were always good at that. Remember?" His voice was a low conductor's rhythm, a private score for a public performance.

“Arch." It wasn't a suggestion; it was a command wrapped in velvet. "Arch into the light. It's about the silhouette, the negative space you carve out of the sun." He paused, his breath held in a pursuit of perfection. "The cameras are on your ass, not your face," he murmured, his gaze fixed on the invisible point where the camera would be. His hand pressed firmly against the small of your back, a sculptor finding the precise angle. "They're hunting for the love, a question mark in the curve of a spine."

Then he was more vulgar. His hands dragged down your sides, an artist brutally correcting his canvas. His words—whether velvet or sandpaper—were just tools. A means to an end.

His gaze lifted, dragging over you before locking onto the camera lens with an intimate conspiracy. "Oh, I've missed you," he confessed to it, to the world, a performance within a performance. His thumb pressed a cruel promise into your skin. "You were like a wounded puppy. So eager for a kind hand." A beat. The cruelty was soft, almost sweet. "Mine."

He was a mean, mean boy. "Think of it as a game," he murmured, his breath hot against your ear as he pressed further, moving against the shift of your bones. "Just you and me. Let's see who they watch more."

Chaos erupted. Sand flew. Nearby, Raphael moved, a blur of motion, but his eyes weren't on the ball. They were on you, on the cameras watching you.

He missed the ball. Poor boy. 

"Crow for them," he hissed, pushing you gently but firmly against the net. "Go on."

"You're so stiff," he continued, his palm flattening against your stomach to turn you. "They want tension, not rigor mortis. See that lens by the palm tree? It's eating this up. 'Rekindled chemistry.' So give it to them. Look at me like you used to. Not that vacant stare—look at me like you remember how I fucked you.”