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Carter frowns at the boy beside him. “How do you know that?”
“Maison mentioned it.”
Maison mentioned it? To Nolan? “You talk to Maison?”
"Yeah. Sometimes. He's…" Nolan trails off.
It takes Carter an embarrassing amount of time before he recognizes the sound in Nolan's voice. Longing. "I thought you're in love with Travis?"
"I was in love with Nathan Roarke. I've learned it's not the same."
"No," Carter admits, having learned that himself. "It's not."
"Do you love him? Travis, I mean. Not Nathan."
Feeling restless, Carter grabs a log from the pile beside the fireplace and gently slides it into the burning coals. He sits back and watches as the log is slowly engulfed in the flames. Only then does he tell Nolan the truth. "I think I might, yeah.”
"Are you guys together?"
Carter turns to look at the man beside him, able to see a lot more with the added light. His expression is open and vulnerable. Like he actually cares.
"Are you just fishing for information so you can go tell Maison?"
"What?" Nolan rears back like he's been hit. "I'd never do that."
"Why? You seem to be friends with him. And you’ve never liked me. We both know that."
"That's not - there's them and then there's us. I'd never betray one of us, Carter."
It's a surprising loyalty considering the way Nolan behaved before in the compound. Then again, he was in survival mode there. Everyone handles that mode differently.
"We slept together," Carter finds himself admitting. He hasn't even told Casey that yet. Partly because he feels guilty that he could do it successfully when he's pretty sure Casey can't, and partly because it's felt too big to say out loud. Now, he can’t get himself to stop. “It was before he left this time. I wanted to know how it’d feel. I – I wanted to know if I could even…”
"Have normal sex?" Nolan finishes for him.
"Yeah."
"Normal as in consensual, or normal as in not kinky at all?" When Carter raises an eyebrow at Nolan, Nolan laughs softly. "None of my business. Sorry. I was just curious. I - well, I think one day - do you think it'd be fucked up if I wanted something…"
"Kinky?" Carter finishes for him.
How has he gone from hating Nolan's guts to them finishing each other's sentences? Is Carter dreaming? Is the wine drugged?
"Yeah. I mean, not the intense stuff, but some of it was… God, it was nice. How awful is that?" He hangs his head and shakes it. "It's disgusting."
"I loved being tied up," Carter blurts. When Nolan's chin snaps up, his eyes wide and hopeful as they fix on him, Carter gets the courage to continue. "And there were times when he'd hurt me while fucking me, and I'd fly so fucking high."
"High, yes," Nolan whispers. "Exactly."
"I miss warming him sometimes," Carter admits. He feels like he should stop, but this feels so fucking good, and he can't do this with anyone else. He can't admit these dark, awful things. These dangerous things that have the power to break his heart. Not to Maison or Casey. Certainly not to Travis.
Nolan nods. "It was like the world fell away, if the person was nice."
"Like all that mattered was him."
Nolan sniffs and wipes a hand across his eyes. When he turns to look at the fire again, tears glint on his cheeks. "Yeah…"
"You deserve to feel that in a safe way. Like, before I found out the truth, he'd sometimes give me my consent back when we were alone in the bedroom, and sometimes I used it to tell him he could fuck me. It was still iffy consent wise, but it was close enough to feel safe and be able to sink into that headspace without all the negative thoughts or feelings that sometimes came along with it when he put me there mentally other times. I don't know if that even makes sense." Carter sighs. "I'm just trying to say that you deserve to go looking for that, if you want. Be a kinky motherfucker. You've earned the right."
