He laughed. “Right.”
8
Rami
Hand in mine, Fen led me all the way to his rustic house on the mountain. In the dark and half pissed, it was a tough hike, but Fen’s presence distracted me from the fact that my exercise regime was half what it had been before Charlie had come along. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to, his quiet good humour was enough.
We reached his house in the dead of night—at least, it felt that way. In truth, I had no idea what the time was, and I didn’t much care. It didn’t seem important. I fired off a text to let Safia know I wasn’t coming home, then dropped my phone into my pocket and instantly forgot about it.
We’d drunk all our beer on the way home. It wasstrong, but the cold night air had kept me sober enough to still have my faculties. I wasn’t sure about Fen. He was hard to read. Perhaps that was why I’d never matched his flirtatious behaviour with a man who didn’t dig one night stands.Is he demi-sexual?No. Maybe. I didn’t know. But that didn’t seem to matter much either. Whatever was brewing between us, we’d figure it out.
Or we wouldn’t, and I’d go home, and my life would carry on without him.
Ugh. That wasn’t a pleasant thought, but lucky for me, I was an expert at sticking my head in the sand, so I did just that and focused on the reality that was Fen unlocking his front door and ushering me inside.
I shut the door behind us and watched Fen kick off his boots and pad to the kitchen. His earlier words echoed in my head:“…just so you know, if you were sticking around longer than a couple of days? Yeah, I’d totally bang you.”With that knowledge rattling in my brain, watching him move around his tiny kitchen like a graceful bear was harder—no pun intended—than I’d anticipated. He was so fucking sexy, but more than that, he was…lovely. I’d never understood that word before, but as I observed him from my post at the front door, its definition solidified.
Fen opened a cupboard and retrieved a whisky bottle. He set it on the table, then glanced up and caught my gaze on him. “Nightcap?”
His smirk hit differently now I knew where his head was at, connecting to a deeper part of me I’d forgotten existed. I took my shoes off and shrugged out of my coat, hanging it beside Fen’s. Then I drifted to his side like I was walking on air and claimed my whisky glass. “You’re not making it easy for me to contain myself.”
“Whisky makes you horny?”
“You do,” I clarified. “The whisky just makes it harder for me to swallow it down.”
Fen sighed. “I don’t want you to feel oppressed.”
“I don’t. No one ever died from delaying instant gratification.”
“Good to know.”
I sipped my whisky, letting the burn seep into me as Fen flicked the lights on his glorious Christmas tree. “Is it?”
“Yeah. Maybe. Actually, I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it as much as I have since you showed up. Before that, it wasn’t so tangible that I had to talk about it. I just knew I didn’t enjoy sex with men I wasn’t emotionally attached to and I can’t have casual sex with my friends.”
There were two ways I could’ve taken that. One that he wasn’t emotionally attached enough to me to have sex with me, the other that we were so friendly now that he never would. Neither option sat well with me, but I could live with the second. Being friends with Fen forever far outweighed fucking him once and losing him.
It also occurred to me that we were overthinking something that hadn’t happened. I was leaving soon, and he’d offered me the privilege of his company on what would have otherwise been a long and lonely night.Enjoy him. This might not ever happen again.
I drank my whisky.
Fen drank his too, then he took my hand and led me upstairs. Despite knowing we weren’t going to fuck, it was still a goddamn thrill. And his bedroom had a zen vibe that settled the scratchy feeling I’d carried for months and months and months before I’d landed on Christmas Mountain. I leaned in the doorway, watching him unbutton his flannel shirt and unbuckle his belt. “How naked are we getting for this?”
“How naked do you want to be?” Fen shot me a look over his shoulder. “But you should know, the only pyjamas I own are the ones your sister tried to knit me last year.”
I winced. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“She’s a better cook, put it that way.”
I didn’t want to think about my sister right now. I waved away the notion of pyjamas and ventured farther into the room. Fen was by the window. I joined him and finished unbuttoning his shirt, revealing a plain T-shirt underneath.
Both had to go. If we weren’t going to fuck, I at least needed to feel his warm skin against mine.
I stripped Fen to his underwear and resisted, just, the urge to stare at the bulge within his black boxer-briefs. “How naked do you wantme?”
Fen undressed me, keeping his gaze locked with mine, drinking in my shiver as his fingertips grazed my skin. He took me down to my underwear, levelling the playing field without a glance south. I wondered for a minute if he simply didn’t feel what I felt, then he closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath. “Don’t ever think I don’t want you.”
“I don’t think that.” I stepped closer and put my hands on his shoulders. The movement brought us chest to chest, and the moment his skin touched mine something within me shifted and I knew I’d never be the same again. Goddamn. My heart had never beat so fast. So loud. And I’d never wanted something I couldn’t have so fucking much.