“You have sexual experience,” Barnaby said. “Considerable experience, by your own account and by the account of every tabloid I’ve had the misfortune of reading since Tokyo. I have almost none. I was a disaster my first time with you.” He paused, not for dramatic effect, but because the next sentence required him to look at the shape of his own failure and describe it aloud to the person who had witnessed it. “I seized up. Both times. I couldn’t let go, even though you were patient, and it made no difference. I’ve spent three weeks thinking about why that could be.”
Lex’s expression hadn’t changed. He was listening with his whole focus, the way he listened in the common room at three in the morning. The steadiness of his attention was the only reason Barnaby could keep going.
“Sex isn’t limited to penetration,” Barnaby said. “There are other things that can be done. A great many other things, presumably, that I have no experience of and no confidence in. I suspect I’d be less catastrophic if I had someone patient enough to practise with. Someone who already knew my body and wasn’t going to be put off by the learning curve it needs.”
He let the words settle between them.
“That’s what I’m proposing. You teach me. I learn from you, and we stay friends. We have a — ” He hesitated, and the word cost him, because it belonged to Peregrine’s vocabulary and not his own. “A situationship. A pleasant one. Where we get each other off in every way except the one that doesn’t work.”
Lex looked at him for a long time. The room was quiet. Florence’s tail thumped once against the rug.
“You want to use me,” Lex said, slowly, “to learn to be better at sex.”
“We would be using each other,” Barnaby corrected. “The situationship would be to our mutual benefit. You get regular access to someone who is, by your own repeated assertion, gorgeous, and I get a patient instructor who won’t make me feel like a failing student. It’s practical. It’s contained. It doesn’t have to change anything.”
Lex leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. The posture was familiar. It was how he’d sat on the common room sofa the night he’d told Barnaby to take the win. “And the friendship?”
“The friendship stays. That’s the whole point. The friendship is not negotiable.”
Lex sat with it. Barnaby watched him turn it over in his mind, his dark eyes tracking across the rug as he worked through whatever calculations were happening behind that broad, battered face. Barnaby held still and let him think, because he’d made his case, and the rest was not his to control.
Then Lex sat back. His knees fell open, his thighs spread wide against the cushions, and the posture was such a deliberate signal that Barnaby’s mouth went dry.
“Come here, then,” Lex said.
Barnaby stood. He crossed the distance between the armchair and the sofa, and knelt. The carpet was thick beneath his knees. He settled between Lex’s legs, his hands resting on his own thighs, his chin level with Lex’s belt.
Lex’s hand came up. His palm cupped Barnaby’s jaw, thumb settling against his cheekbone. His fingers were warm and rough. Carefully, he tipped Barnaby’s face upward, holding him there.
“You sure about this, Barns?” His voice was low. “I really like being your friend.”
Barnaby turned his head a fraction and pressed his mouth against Lex’s palm. He felt the calluses against his lips, the thick ridge of scar tissue along the base of his fingers. He breathed in, and Lex smelt of the Dior Homme that Barnaby pretended to hate out of principle.
“And we’ll stay that,” Barnaby said against his skin. “We’ll just have fun together along the way.”
Lex leaned forward and unbuckled his belt. The sound of the metal was loud in the quiet room. He popped the button of his jeans, drew down the zip, and lifted his hips to push the denim to his thighs. His cock was already hard, thick and dark against the pale fabric of his boxer briefs.
Barnaby watched Lex push his boxers down. His cock sprang free, curving upward against his belly, the foreskin peeled back from the swollen head. A bead of precome had gathered at the slit. Barnaby stared at it, at the wet shine of it under the room’s lighting, and his stomach clenched with want and nerves in equal measure.
“Hey.” Lex’s voice was soft. His hand came down and cupped Barnaby’s chin, tilting his face up. “Look at me.”
Barnaby looked up. Lex’s dark eyes were warm and steady, stripped of their usual bravado. “Use your hand on what you can’t get into your mouth,” Lex said. “Don’t try to take it all. Nobody takes it all, outside of porn. Just focus on the head, yeah? That’s where I feel it most. Use your tongue. And if your jaw hurts, you stop. No pushing through. This isn’t a fucking endurance test.”
Barnaby nodded. His heart was slamming hard against his ribs.
“One more thing.” Lex’s thumb swept across Barnaby’s lower lip. “You’re going to be brilliant at this. I already know.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“I know you. You’re good at everything you commit to. Now open your mouth.”
Barnaby opened his mouth, leaned forward, and took the head of Lex’s cock between his lips.
The taste of Lex hit him first. Salt and skin and something heavier underneath, musky and warm. It sat at the back of his tongue long after he’d drawn back for breath, richer than he’d imagined, and he found himself chasing it on the second pass. He sealed his lips around the crown and pressed his tongue against the underside, and Lex exhaled above him, a slow, controlled breath that Barnaby felt as validation. He pressed his tongue harder against him. Lex’s thigh tensed beneath his hand.
He took another inch in. His jaw was already protesting, the hinge aching as it stretched around the width of Lex’s cock. His lips felt stretched. Spit pooled in the base of his mouth, and he swallowed around the head, which made Lex hiss.
“Good,” Lex said. “That’s good, Barns. Just like that.”
