Page 43 of Newly Tied

“Is that a good thing?”

His heated gaze met mine, and I nearly swallowed my tongue. The intensity in his dark eyes was not something I’d ever had focused on me before. “It’s a very good thing.”

He was quiet, and I took that moment to make my lungs work.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said, studying my face. “I understand the point of the lesson you were giving me.”

“I didn’t mean it to be no lesson. I’m worried, is all.”

“That this might wreck us.”

I nodded.

“Because?”

“People get emotionally attached to you, and then you bail,” I explained, trying to remain calm. “That’s the truth, and I can’t have that happen to me.”

“That won’t happen,” he replied flatly. “Because I’m already as attached as you are.”

“Are you? You’re not confusin’ it with friendship?”

“No, sir,” he informed me, grinning.

“And there are other things as well.”

“Like?”

There was no way to have a discussion standing as close to him as I was.

“I know,” Lang said simply.

“You don’t.”

Stopping, he dropped his arm and stepped back, walking a few feet away before turning to face me. The way he was looking at me, like he was deciding something, hopefully not that he was done with the idea of us already, made it hard to breathe. “You’re having thoughts like, how the hell is bed supposed to work when we’re both tops.”

There was that. Sort of.

“Except you’re not,” he said.

“I’m not what?”

“The guy always doing the fucking.”

“Crudely put.”

He shrugged. “I watch you all the time, and I’ve seen some guys drag a hand over your ass, and I’ve seen your reaction.”

I nodded. “Watch me a lot?”

“Constantly. That’s how I know everything about you, and yet I still never get bored.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t know. That stung a bit. “We should get movin’,” I said, and started walking, fast. “We’re gonna pass out standin’ up if we⁠—”

“Stop,” he ordered, and when I froze, he caught up with me easily, stepping into my space and taking hold of my hips. “I meant to say, I didn’t know—past tense—and that’s what was messing me up. That’s what I had to figure out in my head.”