“Rich said something about Foster, but he wasn’t sure.”
“What about Chris?” Ronan asked after Rich’s best friend. He was young, previously engaged to Rich’s younger brother Anthony. But Anthony had died tragically years before, and Rich and Chris had become as close as brothers after that. Where Rich was consumed by Sam, Chris had his hands full with two boyfriends, a pair of mismatched twinks—Bennet and Aiden, who were as full of mischief as they were obedience.
“I think they’re going out with another triad they’re friends with.”
“I can’t imagine the chaos that brings.” Ronan chuckled, and I scooted closer, trying to subtly bury my face in his crotch. I think I could have gotten away with it had I not taken a deep inhale, trying to catch the smell of Ronan’s musk beneath the smell of latex and the hospital grade soaps and sanitizers he used all shift.
“You don’t think you could handle two of me?” I asked.
“I can barely handle one of you.” Ronan gave a gentle tug on my hair and I looked up at him. “Do you think Chris and the boysminglewith their friends?”
I shivered.
“Do you like the idea of that?” Ronan asked, his lips twisting into a smirk, eyes darting toward the list in the middle of the table.
“Sharing?” I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t something I’d given a lot of thought to before that moment. “Or swapping?”
“Either.”
“I don’t know,” I answered tentatively, running scenarios through my head. I thought about what it would be like for Ronan to be with another man, if I could really participate or watch him bring someone else the pleasure he brought to me. Then I flipped it, wondering what it would be like to have another man’s hands on me, whether by Ronan’s instruction or of their own free will. If it would feel good or unwelcome. If it would make me hard.
Neither scenario evoked a sense of jealousy within me. If anything, just a deep and lingering kind of possession that made my bones ache with it. Then like a flash, the realization…it didn’t matter who touched me or who touched him—Ronan was mine and I was his, body and soul.
“Where is your mind?” Ronan asked, seeing right through me.
“It’s not off the list,” I answered. “What do you think about it?”
“Are we doing this now?” Ronan trailed his hand down the side of my face, cupping my cheek in his hand. I leaned into his touch, forcing my eyes to stay open so I could watch his face for the truth.
“Just this one thing.”
“I don’t need it,” he answered carefully, his stare dragging across my face. “But if you wanted it.”
I cut him off “That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s complicated, yeah?”
“Yes,” I agreed with a small frown, “but everything else seems so easy, this shouldn’t be a hard question.”
“You said you didn’t want to talk about this now,” he reminded me.
“Ronan,” I groaned, very much wanting to talk about it right then. The question had brought up a plethora of scenarios and ideas that I didn’t know how to see to completion.
“Go do the dishes and meet me in the shower.” He stood quickly, brushing past me with a gust of cool air in his wake.
It took me a beat to gain my composure, standing on trembling legs and gathering up the plates from dinner, trying to ignore what felt like a brushoff. Down the hall, Ronan turned on the shower, and I turned on the taps in the kitchen, waiting for the water to warm. I scrubbed at the plates, thinking about what it would feel like to be watched by someone else, to be seen by someone who wasn’t Ronan. I didn’t hate the idea.
The longer I scrubbed at the plates, the further my brain wandered. How easy it would be to go from watching with eyes to touching with hands. Maybe I didn’t want to be with someone else, but what would it be like to watch Ronan with someone else? Maybe not for sex, but for the build-up?
Foster’s face flashed in my mind, a sharp reminder that Ronan had a life which existed before he’d met me. Foster was one of his best friends and they’d spent years playing together, doing Lord knows what. Ronan had called it off not too long before we’d met, and I’d never felt weird about their shared history.
In fact, Foster and I had become close friends over the time I’d known him, and he seemed like someone who could be trusted if I ever did decide I wanted to see Ronan like that. I swallowed, dropping the plates into the drying rack on the counter and turning off the water.
I needed to clear my head, and I didn’t think the way to do that was to continue analyzing about the various interactive ways we could bring new people into our bedroom. How had such a big idea been planted with such a tiny seed?
“Kevin!” Ronan hollered from the bathroom. “Are you coming?”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me and scampered down the hallway, finding Ronan in the shower with his head sticking out from the curtain.
