Sab forces his eyes open, something far deeper than shyness lurking in his gaze. “I don’t know how to say it. It’s too fucking weird.”
“Bet it’s not.”
He starts to look away.
I catch his jaw in a firm grip he can easily break if he wants to. “There’s nothing weird about taking the scenic route to figuring out what you really want.”
Sab’s lips twitch, a reluctant half-smile breaking through. “It wasn’t scenic. I saw my brother getting banged through a window.”
“And?”
“And what? You don’t think it’s fucked up that seeing my brother getting fucked cemented this shit in my head?”
“Not really.”
Sab huffs a humourless laugh.
I squeeze his jaw tighter, just enough to make him look at me again, hawk-eyeing the real discomfort marring his features, knowing he could shut down in a heartbeat if I don’t handle this the way he deserves. “I mean it. There’s nothing fucked up about seeing something that flicks a switch for what’s already there. Your brother or two strangers in the park pavilion, it doesn’t matter. It woke you up, that’s all.”
Sab doesn’t say anything.
I let my thumb graze his cheekbone, letting him feel how steady I am on this.
He sighs. “Got an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“Feck, no. I just fell down the rabbit hole a few years before you.”
“How many years?”
I think it over, searching for the point in my life where Sab’s distressed consternation might’ve been mine. “Eight, give or take. I’d been with loads of girls before I realised I was enjoying shower time at work way too much.”
“Then what?”
“Then I got myself a Grindr account and made a right mess of it for a while. I went too far the other way, you know? Shut off anything that wasn’t dude central. It took a minute to find the balance in the middle.”
Sab takes it all in, every word I’ve never got round to sharing with anyone else. Then he sighs again. “Tam’s like that…the middle part, I mean. And what he did to get there. I should’ve had this conversation with him a long time ago.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Lots of reasons.” Sab tips his head to free himself from my grasp. “And because I don’t want to tell him I got a semi over his husband.”
Laughter bubbles in my chest. I force it down, but give him the truth. “You got a semi over wanting the experience, not your brother-in-law. But even if it was Nurse Bhodi, I’ve met him, remember? All this would be a heck of a lot stranger if that smiley cutesterhadn’tturned your head.”
“He turn yours?”
“Not that I can remember, but I’d definitely watch him bang his husband if your brother looks anything like you.”
Sab cuts his gaze back to me.
I hold my hands up, letting him know I’m only halfway serious. Thank feck, helaughs, and that sound, it does something to me.
Fuels me.
I take a breath, then I’m on him, kissing him hard. Wet and rough. Tasting myself on his tongue for as long as I give him to slow this down. To stop me moving lower, down his chest and abs, worshipping pinewood and vanilla skin already burning from what he did to me.
Anticipation hums in my veins.
I nuzzle the line of his stomach, lost in his hot and uneven breaths. In the way his leg curves on instinct, curling round my pain-free shoulders. Lost in the hot pulse of his cock waiting for me.
