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“So did you leave on your own?”
He scoffs, a derisive sound that makes me wonder a million things at once.
“I don’t think I ever would’ve left willingly.”
“You regret being forced to leave?”
“I knew I couldn’t stay, but I was never brave enough to leave the property and just keep on walking. I would’ve saved myself a lot of pain had I just not gone back that day after work.”
“Pain?” I ask, my voice barely less than a snarl.
People who hurt others for things they can’t control make me irrationally angry.
“One of my brothers caught me the day before.”
“Caught? Like with another man?”
He scoffs again.
“Another man? He wouldn’t have waited nearly a full day to jump me had he caught me with another man.” He shakes his head, his eyes going distant as if he’s remembering that event. “I was masturbating in a way they didn’t condone. That’s what he caught me doing.”
“You get beat up and tossed out on your ass for masturbating?”
“You do for the way I was doing it.” His tone is flat, not meant to entice, but fuck, imagining him playing with his own ass makes parts of me stand up and take notice.
“Sorry,” I grumble when I have to press my palm to my growing erection.
“You like the idea of me being in pain?”
I huff a humorless laugh. “I like the idea of you playing with your own ass.”
He blinks in my direction, his throat clearing once again before looking away.
“You didn’t deserve what they did to you,” I assure him.
“I know I didn’t. I can comprehend that their beliefs could possibly be wrong. There are so many religions. So many contradictions that the majority of them have to be wrong, but—”
“But what if the one you grew up with just happens to be the winning ticket?”
“Something like that.” He sighs a defeated sound. “I don’t judge others. Like I don’t look at you flirting with others and leaving the bar with them as being sinful.”
“If you’ve been paying attention to who I leave the bar with, you’ve been watching me a lot longer than I thought. I haven’t left the bar with anyone in a very long time unless you count Ugly.”
“What?” he snaps, his head whipping back around in my direction.
I hold my hands up at my ears. “He had too much to drink. It was the night Aro and Slick caught us in the hallway. If we’re doing the full-disclosure thing, I was hoping to get invited inside so I could run into you.”
“Ugly isn’t gay or bisexual,” he says.
“I’m well aware.” His eyes narrow. “And not aware in a way that you’re probably thinking. I haven’t done more than flirt with him, and you’ve witnessed a lot of it. Can we visit this little dose of jealousy I’m witnessing? It turns me on nearly as much as thinking of you with your fingers deep in your—”
“Enough,” he says, but it’s breathed out on a chuckle, not irritation. “That was a very traumatic time for me. I didn’t have hardly any money. I ended up at the Marine recruiter’s office the very next day. It took me months before I could join the Marine Corps because I didn’t have a birth certificate or social security card. I had to jump through a lot of hoops before I could fully enlist.”
“And the rest, they say, is history until I came along and turned your world upside down?”
He takes a deep breath but doesn’t answer.
“Before me there had been no acting on your impulses?”
I say the last word with a level of mockery because just the idea of thinking the way he was raised to think makes my blood boil.
“Not exactly.”
My face falls, that part inside of me that was doing back flips over being the first man to share anything with him falling flat.
“You said you’d never kissed a man before,” I clarify. “You were lying?”
“I hadn’t ever kissed a man before you,” he says. “Doesn’t mean I haven’t done other stuff.”
“Like you’ve sucked a guy off, you just haven’t kissed them?”
“I guess I should say, I’ve had things done to me.”
I swallow the lump of arousal threatening to climb up my throat. God, I’d give this man every damn first he hasn’t experienced yet if he’d let me, but friends is what we agreed on. It’s all that he’s comfortable with, no matter how potent the chemistry is between us. It’s so damn strong, I can feel it even now as we stare at each other in silence.
“So you’ve been sucked off but have never done the sucking yourself?” I ask, unable to just drop it like I’m sure he wants me to.
“I don’t think this is a conversation friends would have.”
“Then you haven’t had many real friends,” I tell him with honesty. “This is exactly a conversation friends would have.”
