Page 26 of Glitterati Omega

“Hm, guess.”

Rupert tsked. “I thought you were getting me drunk, not giving me a pop quiz. It’s a cab.” He looked at the alpha. “Am I right?”

Winston scoffed. “Hardly. It’s a pinot noir.”

“Oh,” Rupert said. “Argentinian?”

“Chilean.”

Rupert took a huge swallow, knowing that was crass and not caring. “In my defense,” he said, “I’m drunk.”

“I thought you weren’t.”

“Hardly drunkenough,” Rupert grumbled, then tossed back the rest of the glass. He paused, glancing nervously at Winston.

The alpha smiled warmly, then leaned over and refilled his glass. “If you want to be more drunk, then we could arrange that.”

Rupert took another long pull of the wine. “But maybe I shouldn’t get too drunk,” he mused. “I don’t want to embarrass myself.”

Winston made to set the bottle aside. Rupert downed the rest of his glass. “But then, maybe I need to be drunk, because I’m concerned about embarrassing myself.” His stomach twisted as he fiddled with the stem of the glass. He glanced up sheepishly, finding the alpha paused between the bed and the nightstand. “It’s … been a while.”

It had been a long time since he’d been with anyone new. He’d been married since he was twenty-two; he’d dated Thomas exclusively for the three years before that. They’d been married for five and a half years, although they’d stopped having sex well before the divorce papers had been drawn up.

And the only time since he’d gotten sick had been the time Thomas hadinsisted, even though Rupert hadn’t felt much like it. It had been rather awful, and Rupert tensed just thinking about it.

Not that sex had been terribly pleasant beforehand either; he’d tried to avoid it a lot, since it hurt most of the time, but Thomas had his way enough that Rupert had ended up …

Winston set the bottle down with a clack, drawing Rupert back into the room. The alpha kneeled on the bed, taking Rupert’s free hand in his own. “You don’t need to give me a reason,” he said gently, “but if anything is too much, just say so. You can stay as long as you like, or you can go home whenever you want. All right?”

“All right,” Rupert murmured, slowly drawing his hand back. Part of him wanted to dump out his whole sordid history. Part of him figured Winston didn’t want to hear it; who wanted to hear their fling had had cancer and didn’t really enjoy sex all that much?

Well. Maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe Rupert had just been doing sex all wrong. What Winston had done in the kitchen—that had been pleasant enough.

“I thought you were getting drunk with me,” he said finally, noting the other glass was still clean.

Winston smiled. “Hm, you caught me.”

“Wretched alpha,” Rupert muttered. “Don’t let me finish the bottle by myself.”

“Hm, but you seemed to want to,” Winston said, then poured himself a glass. “Cheers.”