Page 77 of Melting the Ice

Dean’s mouth quirked up. “Pretty lies for a pretty boy?”

“Why not? I’m already a sure thing.”

Dean leaned in. “Are you?”

Brody’s palms were sweating, slipping on the condensation dripping down the side of his beer bottle. “You know I am.”

“Maybe,” Dean conceded, not looking disappointed by this fact, “but you’re not just a sure thing in bed. You’re my friend too.”

Gah. Brody didn’t want to keep discovering what a goddamn good guy Dean was.

A goddamngreatguy.

“But,” Dean added, fingers beginning to pick at the label of his beer, “weshouldtalk about this.”

“I thought we already did.” Was Dean going to tell him nevermind? That he didn’t want to do this after all? Brody’s stomach sank right into the fucking ground.

“Not about uh . . .the particulars. All the particulars. Wes said—”

“You told Wes?” Brody didn’t think he was mad, necessarily. After all, he’d told Ramsey—or Ramsey had guessed—but he hadn’t really expected that Dean would tell anybody. That he’d want to keep his public straightness intact, even when it came to his friends. Hisqueerfriends, even.

“I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

Brody interrupted him again. Put a hand on his arm and squeezed. Tried not to get distracted by all that muscle under his fingertips. “It’s alright, I’m not mad. I told Ramsey. Well, Ramseyguessed.”

He didn’t move his hand, and Dean didn’t seem to mind as he curled his fingers around it, stroking the underside of his forearm, appreciating it like the work of art it was.

Even long after this was over, and they’d gone their separate ways, Brody would remember this.

“Yeah, so did Wes. Are we not very good at this?” Dean seemed like he genuinely wanted to know.

“Neither of us do this very often, so yeah, probably.”

Dean nodded. “That’s more what Wes meant, I think. We just need to . . .uh . . .keep communicating.”

“Can we ‘communicate’ later, when we get back to the apartment?” Brody asked, barely able to keep a straight face.

He hadn’t needed to. Dean started to laugh, and then Brody couldn’t help it either, chuckling as they leaned into each other, their shoulders bumping.

“I think he meant more if you want something, or I want something, we need to be honest about it,” Dean said, his gaze growing serious.

Seriousandwarm, skimming over the lines of Brody’s body.

He knew he was good-looking. He’d known it even before Dean had ever called him pretty boy, but he’d never felt it as viscerally as he did right now.

Like the strong bones of his face and his thick, wavy hair actually had a freaking purpose.

If it was to entice Dean, he was totally okay with that situation.

“What do you want, then?” Brody asked, because hewascurious, and the more they talked about this, the hotter the anticipation rose in him.

He’d thought quenching that thirst was the sexiest thing in the world, but he’d been wrong. The sexiest thing in the world was drawing it out, teasing each other with it, until one of them couldn’t take a single moment more and caved.

“I don’t know if I want anythingspecifically,” Dean said, and he was flushing now, and it turned out that was sexy too.

No wonder Brody felt obsessed by this feeling. No wondereveryonefelt obsessed by this feeling. He’d always wondered why people lost their minds over sex, but no longer.

“No?” Brody could hear how low and rough his voice had gotten as he leaned in closer. They were practically intertwined now, his fingers still stroking Dean’s arm and his other arm tucked behind Brody’s back. He could feel the heat of it, the possession of it, even though it wasn’t technically touching him.

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