Page 73 of A Cold Hard Truth

“I…I don’t know what any of this means, Rem.” He swallowed, glancing to the side to avoid the heat of Remington’s stare. “I don’t understand the things we do…the things I like.”

“I don’t either,” Remington admitted with a sympathetic smile. “At least, not entirely. But I know that it feels good. Don’t you think it feels good?”

His mind raced with ideas and thoughts, weighed down with worries that he didn’t dare give space to. But regardless, one broke through, shattering the safety of an otherwise enjoyable morning.

This won’t last.

You’ll fuck this up, just like you do with everything else.

So he did the thing that had gotten him through his life up to that point. He put on his costume and played the part of the man who didn’t doubt himself, hoping one day it would be real.

“Yes.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Remington Gets Whiplash

“We don’t have to go to brunch,” Remington told Sebastian, watching the other man style up his hair in the long bathroom mirror. Beneath him, the ridiculous copper sink glinted in the reflection, taunting Remington and reminding him of how utterly extravagant Sebastian could be if he so chose.

“I want to,” Sebastian said. “I always go.”

“Are you going to drink?”

Sebastian searched out his stare in the mirror and arched a brow, fingers stilling around his hairline. “You tell me.”

“Is it up to me?”

“Isn’t it?” Sebastian flicked at a few strands of hair and turned, giving the mirror his back and Remington his front. “You blocked off my weekends; you tell me what I get to do. That was the whole point of this game, right?”

Sebastian very nearly sounded bitter, but Remington chalked it up to lack of caffeine…or a lack of champagne. With Sebastian, it could be either one.

“You can drink if you want to,” he finally said.

He knew there were relationships and places where Doms had to take hard lines with what a partner could or couldn’t do, and while he’d made Sebastian a list and he mostly did what he was told, if he thought it was a game, Remington didn’t want to take away all of his fun. Even if the idea that whatever this thing between them was only a game made his stomach churn with acid and misery. He hadn’t just given his virginity to someone as part of a game.

“I don’t know if I want to,” Sebastian answered with a shrug and a flippant wave of his hand. He brushed past Remington and back into the bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the unmade bed and busied himself with putting on his shoes.

Remington felt a little out of his element, and he hated it. He felt like a teenager all over again, trying to navigate the hidden land mines of a social situation he didn’t understand. Sebastian in bed was one way; Sebastian out of bed, another; Sebastian in mixed company, a third. Remington found himself sorely sympathetic for the worry Jace had dealt with over Callahan and the fluctuating sides of his persona before they’d had their big talk and come together.

He didn’t have relationship experience. He didn’t have sex experience. He didn’t have Dom experience. Remington didn’t know what things were meant to be like or how they needed to go. He was flying blind and he hated it. There was no way for him to control things if he didn’t have a map or a guide or a course. Sebastian had it easy, with a schedule and rules, and all Remington had was a hope and a prayer.

The day before, after they’d finally eaten the omelet Sebastian prepared, they’d spent the day together half-dressed on Sebastian’s couch. They kissed and touched, watched movies, didn’t watch movies, ordered takeout, and kissed some more. They tumbled into bed before midnight with hands curled around each other’s dicks, orgasms just out of reach.

It felt perfectly domestic to Remington, but he didn’t know if it was right. Sebastian had seemed to enjoy himself, if the curious sounds he made as he licked Remington’s cum from his fingers were any indication, and then they’d fallen asleep. There had been no protocol between them, none of the things Remington had read about in books for the kind of relationship they’d fallen into.

“Hey.” Sebastian’s voice pulled him out of his head, and he found Sebastian now fully dressed and standing in front of him.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Are you okay? You look like you’re a million miles away.” Sebastian reached out like he wanted to touch him, but stopped, curling his hand into a fist and dropping it back down to his side.

“Just distracted.”

“Thinking about the sex?” Sebastian laughed.

“Yeah,” he lied.