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He doesn’t answer but walks over and pulls me to my feet. I let him. His pupils are still too wide, jaw clenched. His dark stubble looks so scratchy, and I can’t help wondering how it would feel against my skin. He smells like some kind of dark amber that invades my senses.

Marsh pulls me to the sink, turns on the water, and pushes my hands beneath it. Okay, clearly, he’s not as turned on as I am. He soaps them next, and my knees go weak. My thoughts settle as it clicks into place what’s happening. “You’re taking care of me right now. You want to. I want you to.” My gaze travels down his body. “You’re hard.”

And yep, I continue to plump up too. This could work. This is perfect. It would be no-strings-attached scenes. He wants a long-term sub and nothing serious, and I want more experience in the lifestyle. It makes sense. It’s wild how I could spend my whole life not seeing Marsh as a sexual being—and I know he never did with me either—yet a month of talking anonymously has flipped a switch I’m not sure I can turn off.

I whimper, a “Please” whispering past my lips.

His eyes close, heat radiating off his body. “He’s all I have, JT. He’s my family. Your father is like a brother to me…and he would never forgive me.”

This time it’s my eyes drifting closed. Marsh sounds raw and honest, the emotions he feels for my dad clear in the way his voice breaks.

I’ve never heard Marsh’s voice break before.

It would kill me if he lost someone who means so much to him. How can I ask Marsh to risk being alone in the world?

But then, why is it a risk at all? We’re both adults.

“Yes, Sir,” I reply softly, the honorific slipping out. I’ve gone twenty-two years knowing him as Marsh, but now Sir falls from my lips automatically.

“Jesus…” he grits out. “I have to go. Are you okay? Is there something you need from me?”

Those words nearly make me melt into the floor. That’s what I want. That’s what this is supposed to be about, isn’t it? Marsh is making sure I have what I need, regardless of what the situation is, regardless of the fact that we didn’t have a scene together today.

“What I want, you can’t give me. Go. I’ll be fine.”

He stares at me for a moment with an expression I can’t read. I just know I’ve never seen it before—not from him, and certainly not directed at me.

“Be careful. Don’t show your face online. Don’t trust all men who tell you they’re a Dom.”

I nod, and then without another word, Marsh slips from the bathroom, leaving me alone.

CHAPTER TEN

Marshall

Ihaven’t loggedin to the kink site for two weeks, but I haven’t stopped thinking about JT either. I can’t wrap my head around how this would even happen. What are the odds? How could the man who submitted to me so beautifully be the boy whose knees I bandaged up when he was a child?

The thought makes me sick, makes me hate myself for what I did—what I told him to do for me—but I hadn’t known. I’ve never seen JT as anything other than John’s son, a part of my family. If I hadn’t spent a month talking to him, discovering how much he wants to submit, how much he needs it, I would have never considered anything more. But now that I know, I can’t unsee it, and it’s eating me up inside. I’ve even canceled when I was supposed to meet John because I don’t know how to look him in the eyes after what I’ve done.

What I still very much want to do…

With his son.

I head into the workout room at my house and sit on the rowing machine. While I enjoy exercise, I haven’t worked out this often in a long time, but it keeps me distracted.

Today I need it. I’ve been able to make excuses to avoid John, but there’s no way I can miss Callie’s birthday party. And I know JT won’t be missing it either. JT, whom I want to fuck…whom I wanted to take care of in that restroom—wanted to tell him to drop to his knees and get him out of his head after we discovered what we’d done.

I pull on the handle of the machine, picking up speed, pushing with my legs and pulling with my arms over and over again. Sweat beads on my brow, the muscles in my legs begin to ache, but I keep going, as if this could change anything. As if it will make me feel less like the worst person in the universe.

As if it will make me no longer miss the online talks that had quickly become an integral part of my life.

My head floods with too many memories to count. The way John hugs, tight and meaningful. When I lived in California and we’d part after a visit, he’d hold on too long, like he was afraid to let me go. Spilling our secrets to each other, camping and laughing. John getting into the one and only fight he’s ever been in when a guy said something negative about my sexuality. The way John was always the one who made me promises that we would be friends forever, and though he never should have needed me as much as I need him, I’ve always known he does.

And still, none of it changes the fact that I want to see JT tonight.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop hating myself for it.

*

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