Page 73 of Melting the Ice

“Yeah, and neither of you are choosing that, I get it. And you shouldn’t. But this isstilla real good thing, Dean. I can still be happy you have it.”

It was not very hard to agree. “Yeah, me too,” he said.

“About the butt stuff—”

“Oh my God,” Dean interrupted.

“Imeanit. It can be one of you or both of you ornoneof you. You like what you’ve done so far?”

Dean could only nod, helplessly. They’d barely touched each other yet. Never even made it to a bed. And yet even the thought of Brody had him in a chokehold.

“Then, keep doing whatever feels good. There’s no obligation to ever go there. Not if you don’t want to. I’m going to make a suggestion that you’re going to veto—”

“Then don’t make it,” Dean inserted before he could continue.

“No, ’cause if you’re not gonna talk nuts and bolts . . .” Wes paused, chuckling under his breath. “Then thisreallyisn’t a bad idea. Watch some porn. Decide what you like. What you don’t like. And thentalkabout it with him.”

“I’m really not sure I can,” Dean said. Not like he didn’t occasionally watch porn now, but he’d never watched it with the primary aim of discovering what he wanted to do.

“Oh come on, you can watch regular porn, you can watch gay porn,” Wes teased.

“That isn’t the problem.” Dean wasn’t going to admit he’d already done it once, in the week after his first hookup with Brody. When he’d thought Brody wouldn’t be willing to do it again, and he’d been going out of his mind with how much he needed some kind of relief.

He’d gotten thirty seconds into the video—they’d still only been kissing and petting, nobody had even touched anybody’s dick yet—and he’d blown his load.

It had been embarrassing, and also illuminating.

“Then what’s the problem?”

He couldn’t say,I want so many things, so badly, I can’t even get to the good stuff.

“I . . .” Dean found himself flustered now. Just talking about it. Bythinkingabout it. “I’ll try it.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “I guess this was always inevitable,” he conceded.

“What was inevitable?”

“When you finally found someone you wanted enough to have sex with, I could’ve guessed you’d become obsessed with it. The way the rest of us are.”

“I’m not—”

But this time Wes didn’t lethimfinish. “You are, and it’s alright. It’s a perfectly human thing. As long as it doesn’t distract you on the field.”

“Do you really think I’d let that happen?” Dean asked dryly.

“No way,” Wes agreed with a smile.

Chapter Eleven

Brody didn’t know whatto expect from the party.

He knew he’d surprised the hell out of Ramsey, who’d been all ready to drag him to it, forcibly if necessary, but then he’d just said simply that Dean had already invited him.

“Dean invited you and you just said yes, just like that?” Ramsey ripped the tape off his hands, shedding it like skin into the trash can in front of him.

“Yeah, I said yes, just like that,” Brody retorted.

They’d won by a goal today, squeaking by a very good Eastern Washington team one to zip, and while Brody thought he’d played decently enough, he knew his focus hadn’t been everything it could be.

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