Page 23 of Missed Steps

“What are you doing?”

“Bringing you into bed. Ready? Lowering you down.” Mark carefully sets me onto my back, and I like how he’s leaning over me to do it.

“Would you be up for a bath?” Mark asks as he straightens up.

My eyes are still covered. “Okay.”

Mark sighs. “Yeah. No bath.”

“I said okay?”

“You didn’t want to earlier. Before the pills. Okay, I’m going to ice you down while you’re under the blankets, so you can pass out whenever you feel like. I’m taking off your trousers to do it. I swear I’m not doing anything sexual, okay?”

“Okay.”

I lie still, not pushed to do anything more than breathe. “Mark?” I prompt when nothing happens.

“You’re wearing underwear, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Yeah, of course you are. Of course, just making sure,” Mark mutters to himself.

“Now that you’ve asked, I’m not sure.”

Mark is silent.

I reach down, undo my top button, and slip my fingers into my trousers. “Yeah, there’s underwear.”

Mark remains silent, but I can feel his presence at the end of the bed. “Did you like that?” I ask. “Want me to do a strip tease?” I glide a hand up my stomach, dragging my t-shirt up. I stuff the hem into my mouth, freeing up both hands to unzip my trousers.

Mark’s suddenly above me, and both my hands are pinned on either side of my head. My surprised cry is muted by the t-shirt in my mouth.

“Spit that out,” Mark says gruffly.

I do so.

“I’m glad you warned me about the pills,” Mark says. His body is warm, hovering above me. “Otherwise, you’d have seduced me into this bed in two seconds flat.”

“Mhm,” I hum. “Warning or not, you’re in the bed. And you have me blindfolded. Is this a kink of yours?”

“The blindfold is so you don’t have to see your leg.”

“Do you want to come on my stomach?”

Mark squeezes my wrists. “What?” he asks, voice all strangled.

“My shirt is riding up, isn’t it?”

“It is, but—”

“I can give you a hand job,” I say. “Although the idea of you keeping my hands pinned and doing it yourself turns me on, too.”

“Jesus Christ, Kyle,” Mark curses. “Nothing’s going to happen with those pills in your system, so spare me the verbal porn, please.”

“What about when they’re out of my system?”

“When they’re out of your system, you’re going to get shy and tell me to fuck off,” Mark replies.