Page 35 of Omega’s Fold

“Yes.”

“I haven’t — “ I swallow. Come on, Wyatt. You can do this. Get the words out. My throat is thick. “I’ve never done this. Before. Any of it. I thought you should know.”

He looks at me for a long second, then he says, “I figured.”

I look at the floor.

“We can go slow,” he continues. That wasn’t what I meant but I’ll take it.

I look at him, then I push the door open.

10. Julian

We’re both dripping.

The tile’s soaked under our feet, the mat bunched where we kicked it. He’s shaking and not from cold. I wrap a towel around him, around me, around both of us, and half-carry him out of the bathroom, and his hand fists in the hem of the towel at my hip like he’s worried I’ll put him down.

I’m not putting him down.

“Your room,” I say against his wet hair.

He nods. The hall is cold after the steam. It’s an old house with old floorboards, there are drafts under the doors. He leans into me the three steps it takes. I nudge his door open with my shoulder because my hands are full of him, and he pushes off me just enough to get us through it, and then he’s leaning again, forehead against my collarbone, breath hot on my skin.

I’ve never been in this room.

The window over the bed is west-facing with a view over the hills and there’s a folded quilt at the foot, old and much-mended. A photograph on the dresser I don’t look at. Boots against the wall. A plaid shirt on the back of a chair. It’s a bedroom. It’s his bedroom. I take it in in pieces because I’m not looking at the room. I’m looking at him.

I kick the door shut behind us.

He makes a sound when it closes. It might be relief. Or it could be the fact that I’ve just dropped the towels, both of them, and I’m backing him toward the bed with my hands on his hips.

“Julian.”

“I’ve got you.”

The backs of his knees hit the mattress and he sits, and I go with him, and we end up with him on his back and me over him, one hand braced beside his head, the other still gripping his hip like I’m worried he’s going to disappear if I let go.

He looks up at me.

His eyes are wrecked, his pupils huge. The gray of them has gone to a rim. His hair is plastered to his forehead in dark points and there’s still water running down his throat in a line I want to follow with my mouth.

I follow the instinct, dipping my head to his skin.

He makes a sound I haven’t heard from him before. I kiss under his jaw, along the long muscle of his neck, down to the notch at the base of his throat where the water’s pooled, and when I put my tongue there and press he bucks up against me, hard, a whole-body thing, and his hand flies to the back of my head and holds.

“Keep going.”

“I am.”

“Keep—”

I keep going.

I work down. His collarbone. The hollow under it. The flat of his chest, muscle corded from ranch work, skin still shower-damp and hot under my mouth. He’s breathing through his teeth. When I get my mouth on one of his nipples he swears, loud, and his other hand fists in the sheet.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh—”

“Yeah?”