Noah’s lips drew down into a pout. “Huh. Well, I definitely thought it.”
He slid off and stood at the foot of the bed, gave Ramin a scorching grin, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Now get naked.”
Ramin’s breath lodged in his throat.
Noah tossed his shirt over his head, slid down his shorts, so he was standing there in nothing but blue spandex, the heavy tube of his cock bulging to the right. He looked like a dream. Ramin’s wet dream.
Ramin just stared, mouth dry, pulse racing, until Noah’s voice cracked like a whip.
“I said, get naked.”
Noah pulled his arms out of the singlet’s straps, rolling it down to reveal his chest. Noah’s pecs were firm, round, crowned with nubbylittle pink nipples, dusted with hair in the valley between. And below, he had abs. Actual abs.
Even Todd had never had abs, something he’d constantly lamented.
Noah’s abs weren’t cut like a movie star’s. Or carved like a model’s. But they were there, strong ridges and shadowed valleys. They looked like Noah actuallyusedthem, like they braced his core while he built a cabinet or framed a house or picked Jake up for a hug. Even now, they flexed and relaxed with his breath.
Noah was a work of art. He was stunning. And Ramin was just… Ramin. What if Noah saw him, stretch marks, dunlop and all, and was disappointed?
Or worse,bored?
Ramin knew his heart couldn’t take it.
“Ramin?” Noah’s whole demeanor softened. His voice gentled. His face opened in concern. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
Baby.Ramin’s heart squeezed. How could Noah call him that?
Noah clambered back onto the bed.
“Red light?” he asked.
Ramin shook his head and bit his lips.
“Talk to me.”
Ramin couldn’t. It was too embarrassing. Too messed-up. It was his problem, not Noah’s, he knew that. It was his own fears, his own insecurities, swirling and building until they burst from his mouth before he could stop them.
“You haveabs.”
Noah’s stomach barely sagged down, even when he was above Ramin like this. Ramin clenched his own core, like that would make any sort of difference.
“Yeah?” Noah’s brow drew down. “Does… does that bother you?”
Ramin closed his eyes tight, shook his head.
“You’re beautiful.” So beautiful. More beautiful than Ramin could stand. More beautiful than he deserved. He tried to silence that voice inside him, the one that sounded like Todd, like the assholes he’dhooked up with in college, like the mean boys in high school who’d teased him for being a chubby crybaby. Usually he could.
But now, looking up at everything he ever wanted, those voices were all he could hear.
“Baby.” Noah’s quiet voice cut through the storm, a lighthouse beam through the fog. The tenderness framing that word made Ramin’s heart crack in two.
“Tell me what’s wrong?” Noah pleaded.
Ramin let out a shaky breath.
And then he said, “I don’t look like you.”
“So?”
