Page 155 of Key of Kink

Not that I’d expected to be doing that shift: generally, I worked mornings, and occasionally a double shift when the home needed extra bodies. Diane’s call had come just as I was getting ready to leave. Quinn was already fed and on his way to work.

This morning had been a first. I’d never woken up with my dick in a warm hole before.

There’s a reason for that. No one ever stayed over for you to try it out.

Yeah, I was experiencing all kinds of firsts. I was under no illusions. My cock hadn’t magically found its way into Quinn in the middle of the night, seeking warmth and shelter. I’d eased into him and held him, kissed his shoulder, his neck, and told him he was safe in my arms. By some miracle, my dick had stayed where I left it.

Apparently, I liked it.

The temptation to text Quinn tugged at me, but I was tired. It had felt like a long shift. Not difficult exactly, just… heavy.

It can wait until I’m home, showered, and I have a mug of decaf tea for company.

Part of me wanted Quinn’s company. I wanted what he would bring to my night as soon as he walked through the door with that quick smile and that restless curiosity he carried everywhere. I knew what would happen. The quiet of the flat would change. The day would loosen its grip.

And that’s the problem right there.

I’d spent years building a carefully balanced life. Music in one place, work in another, Obsidian contained neatly within its own boundaries. Every part of my life structured so that nothing spilled where it wasn’t supposed to.

Quinn had a habit of stepping over those lines without even noticing they were there, and make it feel totally natural while he did it.

The prospect of dinner with his friends the following night opened up the chance to see his world. He’d painted it as open, warm, and slightly chaotic, held together by people who genuinely cared for each other. It was easy to imagine myself inside that world.

Too easy.

Asking him over tonight would be a mistake.

Because if he came to my place, it wouldn’t be a scene. It wouldn’t be structured or negotiated or contained inside the careful framework I’d relied on for years. It would be two men sharing the quiet of a flat at the end of a long day.

The troubling thing about that thought was how much I wanted it.

I ignored my phone in my pocket. Distance had always been the safer option.

At least it had been, until Quinn Wright decided to complicate everything.

Dinner trays had been cleared away, the medication rounds finished, and the televisions in the common rooms had settled into a soft murmur of quiz shows and old sitcom reruns. The corridors smelled faintly of disinfectant and lavender air freshener.

I signed off the last of the paperwork at the nurses’ station and stretched my shoulders. I caught Mrs. Delaney’s loud muttering from across the hall, and I peered around her door. She seemed to be arguing with a crossword puzzle.

“Five letters,” she muttered to the page. “Trouble with charm.”

I smiled to myself. Quinn. It fits too. In more ways than one.

“Rogue,” I told her.

She looked up at me suspiciously. “You’re guessing.”

“I’m not.”

“Well,” she said with a sniff, filling in the answer anyway, “don’t get smug about it.” She frowned at the page again. “Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants. What about this one? ‘Order bringing calm.’ Nine letters.”

I smiled. “Structure.”

She gave me another suspicious glance. “You didn’t even think about that.”

“I did.”

She snorted. “For about half a second.”