“When you’re—you know. The kissing and the touching.”
Sebastian furrowed his brow. “You are already good at both of those.”
“That’s not—”
“Like, you aresogood—”
“Very flattering, but not what I meant.” Wesley cleared his throat. “When we’renothaving sex. How do you know what to do?”
Christ, who asked a question like this? Surely every human being on earth was born instinctively knowing these unwritten rules, and Wesley was simply broken?
But Sebastian wasn’t laughing. “Oh.” He rolled offWesley’s chest but stayed close, his head now pillowed on Wesley’s arm as he lay on his back on the mattress in a mirror of Wesley’s pose. His air was thoughtful, like he was giving the question serious consideration. “I don’t think it’s all that different from sex, actually.”
“They’requitedifferent, I assure you. Or else I’ve been getting sex terribly wrong.”
Sebastian gave a quiet laugh. “No, I mean—you touch me how you think I will like, don’t you? And you pay attention to how I react? It’s all the same things.”
Wesley frowned. “No, sorry, I can’t accept that explanation. Nothing is ever that easy.”
“You’re right, you caught me,” Sebastian said wryly. “I’m pretending to be considerate about you, but the truth is that mostly I just touch you how I want.”
“Oh please, that answer is even worse,” Wesley said. “If I always touched you how I want, I would never take my hands off you.”
Sebastian laughed again, soft and low. “So then don’t take your hands off me. Well, in public, yes, you probably have to. But in private, no.”
“It’s not that simple.” Wesley turned his head toward Sebastian. “What if I did something you didn’t like?”
“Then I would tell you, and you would stop.” Sebastian shrugged, and Wesley felt the movement through the arm he’d claimed as a pillow. “Some people don’t like to be touched. I like it a lot. Every relationship is different and you figure it out together.”
Sebastianlikedbeing touched. And here Wesley had been enjoying Sebastian’s affection while offering none of his own. Had Wesley been so self-obsessed, so worried about looking foolish, that he hadn’t been giving Sebastian what he needed? That was an unpleasant,chilling thought. Or did Sebastian likesomeaffection, but would quickly get sick of Wesley’s incessant craving for touch?
Wesley eyed the outline of his profile, what he could see in the dark. “I’m probably making this harder than it needs to be,” he confessed. “But everything having to do with people is always so difficult.”
“Well.” Sebastian rolled onto his side, so he was facing Wesley. “You did say I wasn’tpeople. So maybe with us, it really can be easy, yes?”
Easy.
Wesley rolled to his side as well, so that they were nearly nose to nose on the same pillow, Sebastian’s head still on his arm. He reached out with the hand not pinned under Sebastian and trailed his fingers up Sebastian’s arm, the way he usually only let himself do in the afterglow, or when Sebastian was asleep.
“I really think you’re not prepared for how much I want to touch you,” Wesley said, and his voice was a little hoarse.
“Wes, I spent three years as a prisoner of blood magic,” Sebastian said, just as hoarse. “Every time you touch me, it quiets another bad memory and reminds me I’m free. I don’t think you could ever touch meenough.”
“Christ, come here.” Wesley closed the distance between them and kissed him, his free hand going to the back of Sebastian’s head to thread fingers through his hair.
There was a word for the feeling coursing through Wesley, warm as a distant tropical sun. He’d once believed his heart was too hard to ever let someone else in. But here he was, with part of his heart irrevocably belonging to Sebastian now, even if Wesley still wasn’tbrave enough to think the word that went with this feeling, let alone say it.
He pushed Sebastian over onto his back. “I know I just asked how to touch you outside of sex,” Wesley whispered, “but I might put you straight through this mattress now.”
Sebastian put both arms around Wesley’s neck and pulled him down into a kiss.
Chapter Seventeen
“I was thinking,” Wesley said, trying for a casual tone as they dressed the next morning, as if it was no big deal to invite Sebastian to his home, “that we likely don’t need all of our things in Dartmoor. Perhaps we should send whatever luggage remains to Kensington?”
Sebastian looked up from where he was tying his tie in the dresser mirror. “To your house?”
“That was my thought,” Wesley said. “That is, if you wished to—”
