The Muse's Undoing

He doesn’t say anything, though. He walks to the other side of the bed and gets in facing away from me.

“Am I allowed to touch you?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

I move closer and put my arm around him. “Is this okay?”

“You don’t have to ask, Fischer.” He sounds exasperated.

“But I am asking.”

“Why? You think now, all of a sudden I’m gonna say hey—this is weird, stop trying to snuggle up to me? If I didn’t want you, I wouldn’t be here.”

My breath stills.

“It. I meant it,” he corrects himself.

I exhale. “I feel like you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“You seem distant,” I press.

He touches me, running his fingertips up and down my forearm. Normally it feels like a mindless movement, but now it feels intentional. It also gives me goosebumps.

“I love you,” he says, like a reminder.

“I love you, too.”

After a few more seconds, a few more slides of his fingers on my arm, he says suddenly, “Let’s switch places.”

“Okay.” I turn over, and then he wraps his arm around me, nestling his body up to mine, covering my back with his heat.

He has an erection. It’s the first thing I notice, high on my ass.

“It’s complicated, right?” he asks a moment later.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I guess I am the needy one.”

“You always were.” His hand runs smoothly over my chest. I still have my shirt on, but damn…it just gives him something to slide his fingers under to graze my skin, which is what he does with the sleeves or straps or whatever. He touches my neck lightly, then traces my collarbones. Everything feels good. Light. Easy.

When he’s done exploring my upper chest, he puts his heavy, warm hand on my hip and slides it down my outer thigh, over my underwear, and onto my bare skin. “Are you trying to turn me on?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Am I?”

“Yes,” I say to whatever he’s asking me.

“Did you think it wasn’t like this?” he asks.

“I don’t know what I thought.”

His hips grind gently, and my cock fills. I swallow hard. My heart pounds, and I’m glad he doesn’t have his hand on my chest anymore. It’d be embarrassing. But where his hand is headed? That’s dangerous.

“My honest answer,” he says, fully palming my rapidly firming cock, “Is that you didn’t go far enough.”

“Fuck.”

Abruptly, he stops, flipping over in the bed again, leaving me cold and hard.