Page 59 of The Arrangement
Tightening my fingers on his hand, I pulled him to the kitchen. “Come on. Now, we both need a drink.”
Liam’s laughter chased me along the dimly lit hall and into the gleaming black-and-silver kitchen. Leaving him at the counter, I grabbed a couple of tumblers, some ice, and splashed some whiskey in our glasses. This was to help us reclaim some sanity.
“I do have one question.” Liam stood on the other side of the counter, sipping his whiskey.
“Shoot,” I said, taking a deep drink.
“How do you know if you’re a top or a bottom?”
Apparently, whiskey burned like the devil’s fire when it shot out of your nose. I gasped and coughed, trying to remember how to breathe. My sinuses were destroyed, and I was pretty sure I’d lost the lining in my throat as well.Don’t aspirate your whiskey.It’s not a pleasant experience.
Liam ran around the counter and stood beside me, pounding me on the back as I tried to suck in some air that didn’t hurt.
“You did that on purpose,” I wheezed, batting his helpful hand away.
“I did not!” My eyes narrowed on his in a scowl. “Okay, I thought it was a little funny, but I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not like I expected the question to take you by surprise. I figured it was something that came up.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. This was…
Fuck, why wasn’t there a book out there to help all the baby gays? Well, there was Reddit, but God only knew the quality of the info people were spouting.
I took another sip of my whiskey, wincing. “So…um…some people just know. Deep down. I’m a bottom. I’m a top. However, I’ll admit that I’ve known a few tops who were probably bottoms but were scared to try it because all they hear about is the pain or that it says something about their masculinity.” I leaned across the counter and looked at him. “And if they’re worried about the pain, that means they’re a shitty top, because if you’re doing it right, your bottom shouldn’t be in pain.”
“Oh…”
“Many people will try both and figure out which they prefer. But there are some people out there who don’t like penetrative sex at all, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of other things you can do to get off with your partner.”
“And you?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to demand he guess, but I didn’t want to make him more nervous than he clearly was.
“Most of the time, I’m a top. It’s what I enjoy most. However, I guess I’m technically vers. Every once in a while, the mood will hit me, and I’ll want to be bent over and fucked hard.”
And after that announcement, I was sure I’d never seen Liam’s face turn quite so red.
“But I don’t want you to get hung up on who’s putting what where. Sex is only a part of the relationship. I mean, you dated women, and I’m sure that the sex might have been hot, but things didn’t click outside of bed, and vice versa.”
Liam went as quiet as the grave, and I had a scary feeling sink into the pit of my stomach.
My friend slid his empty glass across the counter. “Fill ’er up.”
I had wanted to limit how much we drank. No one was allowed to make excuses later that we’d done things because we were drunk, and that was the only reason it happened. But if Liam had something to say about his experiences, I figured we might need a drink to deal with it.
Grabbing the bottle of whiskey by the neck, I poured a shot into our glasses. We threw them back, and Liam hissed.
“Okay, here’s the thing. I’m shit with people. Total shit. I can’t talk to them. Everything I say is the most awkward thing under the sun. Fiona talked to me for the first time because she needed some tutoring in math, and I was offering a tutoring service to have extra spending money. We talked, hit it off. Whatever. I’ve fucked no one other than her. She was like the second or third person I’ve kissed.”
All those words poured out of Liam as if someone had opened up a fire hydrant. Part of me was horrified for him because I’d been a fucking slut most of my life. I loved sex and enjoyed hooking up with people. But for Liam to have missed out on all that was terrible.
At the same time, the idea that he was pretty much untouched, a blank slate waiting for my dirty hands to give him the kind of pleasure he’d never known in his entire life, was mind-blowing. Fuck, I was so turned on I thought I was going to snap in half.
“Then you’re talking about casual sex. Me? Casual sex? I almost laughed my balls off,” Liam continued. “The concept is so foreign to me. My brain equates sex to being in a relationship. That’s straight sex, though. I’m thinking gay sex would break my brain.” He took a breath and flashed me a nervous smile. “This isn’t casual for me, Rome. I don’t know what this is, but I know I enjoy hanging out with you, and yeah, okay, you’re sexy as fuck.”
Done.
Stick a fork in me. I’m done.
No more defense or even common sense. He’d blasted through them both.
