Page 41 of Courageous Hearts

Maybe that was why I didn’t hesitate to invite myself over here that first time. Maybe I’ve always found something trustworthy and safe in Jameson.

Jameson’s gaze is heavy when he answers me. “I didn’t know how much I could want you.” The words are simple, yet their meaning is anything but.

My heart hammers at his admission, and all I want is to throw myself into Jameson’s sturdy embrace, to find out exactly how much he wants me. But I hold back. We still need to talk. Jameson has questions.

I don’t know why Jameson does want me. Why, at the age of thirty, he sees something in me that was enough for him to reevaluate his sexuality. But I owe him the courtesy of making sure he’s comfortable before we move forward, even though I feel greedy. Even though I want to jump his bones. It’s been a long time since I’ve had decent sex. And I have no doubt sex with Jameson will be more than decent.

“Does that bother you?” he asks, zapping me back to the present. “Me saying those things?”

“No,” I rush to assure him, settling beside him on the bed. I cross my legs in front of me, pretzel style. “I like it. I’m not used to it, but I do like it.”

Jameson brushes my hair back, his thumb lingering along the shell of my ear. “Good. Because I want you a lot, Bo. And I want you to know that.”

I nod, throat catching. It feels like he’s talking about more than my body.

“Can I ask you some questions now?” Jameson asks, voice gentle.

“You just did,” I point out, huffing a laugh when Jameson pinches my ear lightly. He lets go, but I inch closer to him, not wanting the contact to end.

Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex. But it’s been even longer since I’ve had someone to simply hold me. Someone to touch me just because, not as a prelude to something else. Someone to cuddle me tight the way Jameson did the first time I was here.

Jameson seems to take the hint, grinning wickedly as he hitches his hands under my calves. He pulls them free from their cross-legged position and tugs me flat onto my back. I gasp, a smile jumping to my lips as Jameson slides his leg securely over one of my own. He lies next to me, flush against my side, his elbow bent and his head in his hand. The other drags through my hair again, his arm resting gently against my chest.

I hum happily.

Jameson is quiet for a moment, stroking me almost. Petting. I don’t know why he was so against the idea himself. It feels wonderful.

Finally, he speaks. “How do you refer to your anatomy?”

“Like, what words?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was reading a little bit about gender dysphoria, and I realized I didn’t know how you felt about your body.”

My throat draws tight, breaths a little uneven as Jameson watches me with those deep, brown eyes of his. “You were readin’ about it?” I ask. “When?”

“After we met,” he answers, his fingers continuing to caress me.

After we met. So, potentially as far back as a couple weeks ago. He wanted to understand me even then.

“I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have,” he says cautiously as I blink a few times, refusing to cry yet again in front of this man. At least not so soon.

I shake my head, shifting onto my side and bringing my hand to Jameson’s chest. His skin is warm under my fingertips, and his leg ends up wedged between my own. “Thank you,” I say simply, knowing it’s not simple at all. It’s huge. “I, uh… I did have some gender dysphoria when I was young, before I came to terms with who I am. But I like my body. I like that part of my masculinity. Just as I like my femininity.”

“But you don’t go by ‘he’ or ‘she,’” Jameson says slowly, like he’s working through it himself.

“I don’t. I’m not either.” I let my fingers drift over his chest and the smattering of dark hair there as I try to figure out how to explain it to someone who’s likely never questioned their own gender. “When somebody calls you ‘he,’ or when you think of yourself as a man, that fits?”

He nods.

“It never did for me, even when I was young. But I knew I wasn’t a girl. I guess the best way I can explain it is that I’m not exclusively a man or a woman, and neither am I fluid. More like I’m both genders all at once. Or some gender we simply don’t have a name for yet. Our language was formed around a binary, after all.”

Jameson seems to take that in, and I lift my hand to his jaw, enjoying the rasp of his stubble. I love that roughness along his face, the way it feels like a thousand little pinpricks against the sensitive nerve endings of my fingertips. My cock jumps as I think about how nice it’d feel elsewhere.

Jameson’s gaze drops, his thigh flexing as if in automatic response to my dick. A little well hello, there.

“So this,” he says, dragging his hand down toward my crotch but not quite touching me.

“My dick,” I fill in for him. “Cock. Whatever you wanna call it. The same terms you’d use for yourself.”

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