Page 22 of Forfeits

“Yeah.”

“Was the twink actually what you were looking for that night, or did he just…fall into your lap? So to speak,” Aiden said. He looked at the table then back up. “Were you really looking for something else?”

“I was looking for…for someone to…” I took a deep breath. God this was so hard. I hoped the people at the nearby table couldn’t hear us. “Take me…in hand. You know…” I didn’t want to spell it out.

Aiden smiled with such happiness, butterflies started battering the walls of my belly. A feeling I hadn’t had in a very fucking long time.

“Oh, I do know, as a matter of fact.”

We sat there, staring at each other in a daze of recognition and realization. It took the server coming with our plates to break the trance.

“I have the gnocchi?” he said, hovering by the table.

“Here,” I said, with some relief.

He placed it in front of me, the scent of tomato cream sauce with a hint of basil, flooding my nostrils.

“And the mussels must be for you, sir,” the server said, placing the bowl of swimming bivalves in front of Aiden.

“Thank you,” he said.

We ate in silence but stole glances at each other. Watching Aiden delicately pry apart each shell and bring the tiny piece of meat to his pretty mouth was a treat, and I had to consciously refrain from staring. My cock had been hard since we’d talked about the club. This wasn’t helping anything.

I tried to enjoy my gnocchi, which tasted fantastic. But I was so very distracted and antsy.

“Does Lucy really take care of any spiders around the house?” Aiden asked finally.

I swallowed the piece of pasta in my mouth and smiled. “Yes. She absolutely does.”

Remembering the spider incident brought something else to mind. “Wait! Did you wash your hands?”

“Pardon?”

“After you took the spider outside. Sorry… I— It just occurred to me you might have spider germs still.”

He laughed and his eyes sparked with amusement. “As a matter of fact, I did…with soap, even. They have very nice bathrooms in this place.”

I smiled with relief. “Oh, thank God.”

“You like to be clean.” It was a statement of fact.

“I suppose I do. Yes. Isn’t that…a good thing?”

“It can be. But it’s also good to be able to tolerate a little filth.”

The way he enunciated those last two words made my cock jerk in my pants.

Filth. I wanted him to make me tolerate some.

We looked at each other.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath. I had to change the subject, or I was going to embarrass myself. “Daniel used to get the spiders, then Lucy took over. I think she feels closer to the memory of him that way—or she just can’t stand my screaming.”

Aiden’s eyes went wide.

“It’s a joke. I don’t scream.”

“Hmm. Never?”

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