Page 108 of Give Me What You Will

“Sex.”

He smiled, slipping the coffee pot back in the cradle.

“Or…” Frankie said. “I can give you your birthday present.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Shut up,” he snapped, but there was little venom there. “Of course, I fuckin’ did. It’s your 40th.”

Without waiting for his reply, Frankie got to his feet and vanished down the hallway, returning a moment later with a slender black velvet box. Sam stared in mute astonishment as Frankie set the case before him and then sat beside him at the table, looking bashful yet eager.

“This is for me?” He asked incredulously.

Frankie made a show of glancing around the house. “Yeah? Who else?”

Feeling a slight tremor in his hands, Sam carefully opened the box, revealing a beautiful silver bracelet.

He gaped. “Frankie!”

“You like it?” he asked, shifting in his seat, his eyes flicking back and forth between him and the bracelet.

“Yeah, of course I do. But this is too much.”

“It’s not.”

“It is. I can’t take this—”

“You fuckin’ will,” Frankie pressed, a challenging glint in his gaze. “I always wanted to get you somethin’ nice when you graduated med school, and then especially when you became a doctor. I was—I am proud of you. I just finally had the means to do it, that’s all.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. No one had ever gotten him anything this lavish before.

“You gonna put it on, or what? I wanna see it on you.” Frankie unbuckled the bracelet from the velvet box and took his wrist, his warm fingers brushing the thrumming pulse as he clasped it on.

Frankie sat back admiringly. “Looks fuckin’ good. I knew it would.”

“Thank you,” he said gruffly, marveling at the way the silver caught the sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows. “I’ll think of you every time I wear it.”

Frankie nodded, shifting, “Yeah, I—uh, hoped you would.”

He wanted Sam to think about him. Which he did, all the damned time. But this was different. He suddenly realized that during their time apart, something had shifted within Frankie—something had opened, and it was for him.

“I wanna kiss you,” Sam murmured, their eyes locked and held.

“Yeah.” His chest visibly inhaled, “I’d like that.”

The kiss was soft and affectionate and full of…

Love.

His heart squeezed painfully in his chest, and without any resistance, he pulled Frankie to his feet and led him back into the bedroom.

Frankie made quick work of removing his boxers, and he pushed him back onto the bed, watching his massive body bounce. He grinned up at him, that handsome, charming smile that made Sam weak. So fucking weak.

He loved him.

He loved everything about him. His stubbornness, his resistance to change, his stupid jokes. The way he looked at the people he loved with such affection and lightness. His generous heart, which he gave effortlessly. He loved him down to his bones and hoped to God that someday Frankie would feel half as much as he did for him.

He peeled off his shirt and sweatpants, straddling Frankie’s hips on the bed, heart racing and blood pumping, wearing only the bracelet that seemed to burn and mold to his wrist the way Frankie had done to his soul.