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Warm fingers ringed his wrists. Rusty tugged Cross’s hands down from his face. “Hey, don’t hide. Talk to me.”

“Talking’s not my good thing.”

“Mine either. Turning a smart-ass winger into a smear on the boards? That I can do. But I think we gotta make an exception.”

“I don’t want to lose you.” Cross’s throat ached.

“But I’m beginning to think maybe I can’t be everything you need in bed.

” How much closer can I possibly be to someone than I feel with Rusty?

Why the hell isn’t that enough to make me want him?

This is the moment it’s supposed to come together in my demisexual brain, right?

How long is he willing to wait? He tried to remind himself that really, if you counted actual days in the same place, they hadn’t been together that long yet.

“You did a damned good version of all I could want five minutes ago.” Rusty frowned. “Or were you lying that you liked it? I don’t need you making sacrifices to keep me happy.”

“I did like it. I just don’t need it back for myself.” Now? Or ever? He wasn’t sure anymore.

“But you’re okay getting me off? Or, like, that shit we did online where you told me how to jerk off. Did you like that? Seemed like it was your idea.”

Cross couldn’t remember who’d started it, but that wasn’t the point. “Yeah, I liked it. I had fun bossing you around and you’re gorgeous when you’re all worked up. Ten out of ten, would do that again.”

“So I can get blow jobs and hugs and you’ll boss me into coming like a fountain on my own, and you’re worried that won’t be enough for me, until you finally want more?”

“I guess. Yeah. It’s not real sex.”

“Felt fuckin’ real ten minutes ago.”

Cross shook his head, unable to put words to his thoughts.

Rusty squeezed his hands. “No, I get it. Sex is usually both people getting off. But sometimes it’s not. I’ve sucked a guy off and had him walk away without touching me.”

“I bet you didn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t my favorite, but only because he didn’t fucking ask me. I also had a couple of guys who wanted to suck me and nothing else. Made me worry about what was in it for them, but I enjoyed the blow jobs.”

“Really? They didn’t ask for it back?”

“Nope. Course, for all I know, they were sucking four guys to work themselves up to fucking the fifth one and coming their brains out. But as long as everyone had fun and knew the plan, it was all good.”

“I did that a few times,” Cross admitted. After a lot of research and practice with bananas, which he wasn’t going to admit to. “Sucked some guy in a club. To see if I liked it.”

“And did you?”

“Didn’t hate it. But it wasn’t fun like blowing you.

I didn’t know them. Getting them off was more a sign I’d learned a skill than something I loved.

” He ran his thumb over the back of one of Rusty’s hands, rolling a prominent vein the way he’d just played with one on Rusty’s dick with his tongue.

“Getting you off was like, I don’t know.

Like baking a fancy treat for someone you like and watching them eat it and love it, and feeling happy about that. The win is how much they enjoy it.”

“And your mouth is the oven?” Rusty pulled free to wave his hand. “Sorry, that was terrible. Although your mouth is hot.”

Cross chuckled.

“I get what you’re saying,” Rusty continued. “You can like making someone else happy even if you’re not in the mood yourself.”

“Right.”

“So that’s me happy as a pig in mud, the guy getting blow jobs and whatever.

What do you get while we work on this relationship?

Because I might enjoy baking someone a cake, but even if I lo— like them a lot, I don’t want to be the guy who does all the cooking for months on end, and never gets to eat. When do you get to eat?”

Cross managed not to make the obvious joke. “You holding me last night. That was huge. I needed that.” He realized that somehow, the argument had turned into how things were unfair for him instead of for Rusty. He wasn’t sure how to backtrack.

“So hugs, maybe backrubs?” Rusty asked. “I could take a class on massage. You said you liked the team massage therapy.”

“I do, but you don’t need a class .”

Rusty shrugged. “Seems only fair. I bet you watched a bunch of porn and practiced, to give a bj like that.”

“Uh.”

“So I can learn massage. Probably a good skill for the partner of a hockey player to have, right?”

Cross was scrambling to keep up. “Maybe I should take that class too.”

“Aargh.” Rusty elbowed him. “Are you always this competitive? You can have the blow job skills, I can have the massage skills. I mean, I won’t ever turn down a back rub, but I want to do this for you. Fair, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Right. Okay, so I got the happy ending already. You want the rest of your massage sitting up or lying down?” Rusty bounced to his feet.

“You know what? I have to pee. You get yourself face down on the bed and when I come out I’ll give you the best untrained massage in this part of Kansas.

Well, this floor of the hotel, anyway. Be right back. ”

Cross was left blinking after Rusty as he shut the bathroom door behind him.

Wait, what? He’d been prepared to be noble, to give Rusty up for someone who’d give him real sex without a two-year wait.

Or never. Someone like Ayden, or whatever hot gay man Rusty wanted.

Cross still thought that was the right thing to do.

But somehow, he found himself ten minutes later, facedown on the bed, melting into a happy puddle of goo as Rusty dug strong fingers into his shoulders and neck and back.

Inexpert, sure, but it still felt damned good.

Rusty said, “You look fuckin’ hot like this.

Love these arms, shoulders, this spot right here.

There’s a dimple.” He delivered a kiss to Cross’s lower back.

“Gonna jerk off about you later, but right now, I’m going to work all the knots out of your shoulders.

Gonna make you feel almost as good as you made me. ”

Cross relaxed into a flood of happy, mellow endorphins, and decided any worries he had could just wait till Rusty was done with him.