Page 61 of Cold as Ice

He looked fucking delectable, and Mal wanted to eat him up.

Even if he didn’t know how.

Mal began to pace again. Fear insidiously worming its way through the need pulsing inside him. “I don’t do this, I don’t know how to do this,” he said, not even to Elliott, more to himself.

And then he froze. Realized what he’d said.

Looked up, only to see Elliott frozen, just the same as him.

Shit, shit,shit.

“What do you mean byyou don’t know how to do this?” Elliott asked carefully. Mal could hear the complete lack of judgment in his tone, like he’d gone out of his way to filter it out.

“I . . .” Mal didn’t think he could say it out loud. If he said it, all that interest and arousal in Elliott would fade, instantly.

He’d sort of intended tonottell him, if he was going to do this at all. Muddle through, he supposed. Surely he knew enough to get by.

“Malcolm, you need to tell me.”

“I don’t do this . . .very often.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

Elliott frowned. “Not very often or not at all?”

Trust Elliott to cut right through to the right question.

He looked away at the last second. “Not at all,” he said quietly. Sure, now, that this whole thing would end before it even started.

There’d been a part of him that thought they could stop at a kiss and that would sate the beast inside him, the beast that Elliott had seemingly woken up, but Malcolm already knew that had been an easy lie he’d told himself to paper over a difficult conundrum.

You’re done lying to yourself.

He still couldn’t look at Elliott, even as he walked up to him. Put a hand on his chest. Right where his heart was beating too fast. “You’re a virgin,” Elliott said.

Mal laughed, bitterly. “I’m trying not to say it out loud. Make it worse.”

“Worse?” Elliott’s hand slid up, and he was holding Mal’s chin now, turning it so he couldn’t avoid looking him in the eyes anymore. “Why is that worse?”

“It’s . . .” God, it was so many things. Embarrassing. Difficult. Too much a part of who he was now to dream about changing it.

“Admittedly I’m trying to figure out how the hell you ended up a virgin at twenty-two, when you look likethis, when you kiss likethat, but it’s not worse, Mal. It’s not a problem.”

“It’s not?”

“It actually answers some questions I didn’t understand that I needed to ask.” Elliott chuckled wryly. “Though it does open up a few others, too.”

“If this is about your ego again,” Mal warned.

“It’s notnotabout my ego?” Elliott joked, shooting him one of those smirking smiles that shouldn’t have turned him on, but did, anyway.

Malcolm was beginning to figure out why he’d kept his distance from the guy from day one. Had he really been worriedabout this? Had he, deep down, been afraid that this might happen if he let Elliott get too close?

“What I mean,” Elliott continued, “is thatyes, it makes my ego feel better to think all your rejections were because of this. But it also makes my ego feel better to think you came tome.”

“I don’t know if I came to you,” Mal said, trying for bluster.

He didn’t know if he was too caught up to do it properly, or if finding out his secret had been the last piece Elliott needed to put together.

Elliott just laughed again and then called his bluff. “Sure then, that kiss meant nothing.”

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