“That’s it,” Cormal said resolutely. “Come on. Up.”
It wasn’t exactly easy to do without music, but Cormal started to hum, insisting that they move to the rhythm, and after a couple of minutes, they actually managed something that was a cross between formal dancing and the sort people did in the pub, just without the touching. They could still stand very close.
“And look on the bright side,” Cormal pointed out with a smile. “No need to worry that your partner will step on your toes.”
Kinan laughed, but then his expression fell again. “But there’s some things you can’t do without touch. There’s noreplacementfor them.”
“I’m sure we can—” Cormal started.
And then Kinan met Cormal’s gaze again, eyes dark and hot, and Cormal realized belatedly what he was talking about. Oh.Oh. A prickle of awareness swept through him, and then his body began to run hot, hot, hot.
This was a terrible idea, and he honestly couldn’t even tell if he was hovering on the brink of doing it more because he wanted it so much or because he wanted for Kinan to not look socrushed.
“It’s not the same, but you don’talwayshave to touch.” Cormal frowned suddenly. “Wait, you can touchyourself, right?”
Kinan scoffed, his eyes dropping away from Cormal’s as he went to sit down again.
“You can’t imagine what it was like, realizing that no one could see me or hear me except for my six-year-old sister, and I couldn’t move far away from her. You have no idea how careful I was and then howdesperateI was, mostly ignoring everything, occasionally stealing a moment here or there—but how often are you in the mood to do anything when you’re trying not to wake your sister and she’s in bed a lot because she’s so sick she might die?”
Cormal sat down in the other armchair by the fire, managing with an effort not to look as horrified as he felt. Or maybe not, because Kinan let out another sick-sounding laugh.
“It was almost seven years of trying not to think about it. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want it, didn’t mean I didn’t sometimes—”
But he cut himself off.
And Cormal, faced with all that desire and all that pain, wanted to make it better.
And just plainwanted.
“Sometimes what?” Cormal asked, voice low and raw. “Sometimes you might… slip your hand under your shirt and run your fingers over your nipples?”
Kinan’s eyes snapped to his, hunger flashing in them at the same time as surprise washed across his face.
“Wh-what?” he asked.
Cormal, nearly trembling with desire, seeing that same desire echoed in the taut body across from him, the one that he couldn’t touch, didn’t back down.
“Slide your hand under your shirt and brush across a nipple. Just a light tease. Are your fingers a little bit cool? Does it feel good when they touch your skin? I bet you could tease your nipple into a hard nub pretty quickly.”
Kinan’s jaw hung open for an infinitely long moment, and then it snapped closed with an audible clack. He swallowed hard… and then unbuttoned his vest and tugged his shirt out from his trousers. He slid his hand under his shirt, making it ride up a bit so that Cormal caught a tantalizing glimpse of skin. Kinan moaned, his gaze never leaving Cormal’s, and Cormal’s lips tipped up. He could already feel himself getting hard, and a glance down Kinan’s body showed that he was in the same state.
Cormal hadn’t really thought about it before, getting aroused when you couldn’t touch anyone else. Thank goodness Kinan could touch himself.
“Pinch your nipple,” Cormal told him, voice still lower than normal.
Kinan did as he was told, whimpering as he did so, the sound going straight to Cormal’s cock.
Kinan’s eyes were avid on Cormal’s face. “What next?”
This was a man who’d been trapped alone since he was sixteen, who’d just confessed that he hadn’t even been able to explore much on his own because he’d been tied to his younger sister. But he clearly wanted, and he seemed to trust Cormal to deliver.
Cormal swallowed heavily. He’d never wanted anything so much.
“Can you get rid of the shirt?” he asked.
He’d never thought about that, either. Where would the clothes go if he took them off? Would he be shirtless for the rest of his life—no, no, just until they figured this out!
Kinan’s eyes closed, an expression of concentration on his face, and a moment later, he just… wasn’t wearing his coat, vest, or shirt anymore. Between one blink and the next, it was all justgone, and Cormal would definitely have concentrated more on that were it not for the fact thatKinan was no longer wearing his coat, vest, or shirt.
