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I try to warn him. My mouth opens around his name, but then I’m gone, coming hard over his hand and mine, hips jerking, breath breaking into something that sounds almost wounded.

Clint freezes for half a second, then makes a sound I have never heard from him. Soft. Shocked. Hungry.

His release follows, hot over my fingers, his body folding toward mine like he’s giving in and fighting it at the same time.

His hand grips the back of my neck. I’m still coming as his mouth lands on mine.

We stay that way, lips pressed together, as the last of our shared orgasm pulses over our fingers.

His head drops against my shoulder.

My hand, still wrapped around him, loosens by degrees.

And then, as the temperature drops in the room, we finally let go together.

Chapter thirty-five

Firsts

Clint

One minute, he’s there with my dick still hot in his hand. The next—gone.

There’s not a single chance I misread the signals. I’m new to this, sure, but I’m also a dude. If a dude with a hard-on kicks a mattress to wake someone up, it isn’t to recite poetry to them.

Maybe he’s embarrassed. Maybe he can’t stand tacky fingers.

Still… did I do something wrong? Am I so dense that hand-on-cock action is beyond me?

I lie on my back with the sheet twisted around one leg, staring at the ceiling while my body keeps replaying what my brain hasn’t fully organized yet.

My hand still tingles. That’s the part I keep noticing. It isn’t my dick. He’s sated and resting quietly.

My fingers feel electrified. My palm is hot. I hold it up in front of me. Still me. Just coated in a cloudy film of not-my-cum.

My skin remembers the slick heat of him, the way he came like he had been holding back from more than just this morning. The way he froze for half a second, shocked by himself, then stayed with me anyway.

Where the hell is he now?

I should be the one freaking out.

If this is freaking out, it’s not what I expected. No identity crisis doing cartwheels through the room. No urge to grab my shit, flee to the airport, and return to Louisville to play a deeply heterosexual redneck.

Mostly, I just feel awake.

Scared, sure. Confused, maybe. But also like something in me opened one eye and said, Well, finally.

Somehow, this is bigger than the hallway. That felt inevitable. I could have stopped myself this time if I’d wanted to. I thought about it and didn’t say no.

From the next room, something clatters, and Paul mutters a soft, offended little “shit.”

I smile and rub my tingling hand against the sheet once, then stop.

No. I want to remember it a little longer.

Paul has turned his studio into a crime scene.

Not an actual crime scene, probably, but there are small canvases propped against walls like evidence, paint tubes on the desk, and a towel on the floor soaking up something vaguely purple. Paul’s standing in the middle of it all, his hair sticking up because he hasn’t stopped moving long enough to care.