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I look to the hallway. My bedroom waits. The room where I hid the evidence like a criminal.

Clint follows my gaze.

“You can say no,” he says.

I swallow.

“And if I do?”

“Then you say no.” His jaw tightens. “Next new rule: we try saying shit out loud.”

My pulse moves strangely. Fear, shame, want, gratitude.

A humiliating soup.

“You’re saying if I don’t strip, I have to leave?”

Clint clicks his tongue. “Let’s call this one more of a guideline than a rule.”

I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to reach for the top button of my shirt.

Clint’s eyes drop to my chest. The room changes temperature.

One button. Then another.

My shirt opens.

I think of every time I watched him strip on camera.

Clint doesn’t look away. Neither do I.

I let the shirt slide off my shoulders. It lands on the floor with less drama than the moment earns.

My sandals come next.

Then my shorts. The zipper sounds obscene in our silence.

I push them down, step out, and stand there in my underwear, already aware of myself in every possible way. My chest. My stomach. The hairs on my thighs. My confused cock thickening.

Clint’s gaze drops, holds, then returns to my face.

No smirk. No performance.

I hook my thumbs under the waistband of my boxers. For one insane moment, I almost make a joke. Something about needing to trim first. Thankfully, I don’t do it.

I push them down and step out of those too.

There’s nothing left to hide. No image I can control. My body gives me away immediately, my erection rising fuller under Clint’s watchful eyes, helplessly honest in a way my mouth has rarely managed.

I fight the urge to cover myself.

Clint’s jaw shifts. “That’s new.”

“What is?”

“You’re not hiding.”

I laugh, thin and nervous. “It’s been thirty seconds.”