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“I don’t— Both, I guess.”

“Both,” she repeats, and something in her voice makes my skin prickle. “Do you want to do it now?”

“Now?” My voice cracks. “I⁠—”

Her voice is so sweet, so nice, and it’s not matching up with what she’s asking.

She makes a little sound, almost a sigh. “Cameron, have you ever sent a dick pic?”

“No.” The answer comes out too fast. Defensive.

“Would you send me one?”

My phone drops to the floor, but I quickly recover it. “I— What? No, I can’t⁠—”

“We’re so close now,” she says, and her voice is gentle, understanding. “We see the real person in each other, right? This is just another step in building intimacy. I want to see all of you.”

I’m horrified. She keeps talking, keeps reassuring me, and somehow, it starts to make sense. We are close. We do see each other. And if I want emotional intimacy, maybe this is part of it. Maybe this is what people do when they’re building something real.

“Okay,” I hear myself say. “Okay, I’ll— Give me a minute.”

I put the phone on speaker, set it down, and then stand and look down at myself. I’m not hard, not even close. The request was too sudden, too jarring. I need to get hard fast.

I close my eyes and try to think about Gwen. Her voice. Her profile picture. The things she’s said to me.

Nothing.

My mind drifts instead to Lucien. Lucien between my legs, his hand holding my wrist. Lucien on top of me during shinty games, his weight pressing me into the ground, his face inches from mine. Lucien’s lips on mine in the dark room at Culloden. Lucien jogging past me last week, all sweat-slicked skin and controlled breathing.

My body responds immediately.

I hate that I’m hard now, that my hand is already moving, that the image in my head is Lucien’s body and not Gwen’s. I hate that it feels so good to conjure his powerful presence, to imagine his body pressing me into the mattress. His beautiful face looking into mine with the same want in his eyes.

But I need to take this picture and send it to her. I need to prove I want her, that I’m straight, that I’m not⁠—

I hold the image of Lucien’s dark face and take the picture. I don’t even look at it. I just send it before I can change my mind.

“Did you send it?” Her voice comes through the speaker.

I jump at the sound of her voice. I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Yeah.”

There’s a pause. Then: “Oh my God, Cam…”

“What?” Shit. I should’ve checked the picture before I sent it.

“You’re beautiful.”

Beautiful? She called my dick beautiful?

“It’s perfect,” she continues, and then she starts describing it, in detail.

She describes the length, the thickness, the curve, the head. She talks about every part of it with a reverence that is somehow more arousing than anything else. Her willingness to talk about things that make me blush is surprising.

“I want to please you,” she says. “I want to make you feel so good. Touch yourself for me. I’ll touch myself too.”

My hand moves before I can think about it. I’m hard again, harder than before, and her voice is in my ear, telling me exactly what she’d do to me. But when I close my eyes and let myself fall into the sensation, it’s not her mouth I imagine. It’s Lucien’s.

Her voice starts to feel distracting. I want to focus on the images in my head, but she keeps talking, keeps describing. I’m trying to match what she’s saying to what I’m feeling, but it doesn’t line up.