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He fit perfectly against me, same as he’d always done. He’d grown a few inches and put on some manly weight since our first hug all those years ago, but we connected like puzzle pieces created to be one, same as always.
“Okay?” I asked, my tone slightly harsher from anger over my arousal than I’d hoped for.
“Perfect,” he stated with a quiet sigh.
Temptation set in rather than a possible few hours of platonic alone time I would prefer to have drag on and on. I needed to make the minutes pass faster. “So, what do you do to keep busy these days?”
“A little gaming but mostly I read.”
“Are you still into those Salvatore novels about that dark elf? What was his name? Drazzle? Drizzle?”
“Drizzt,” he said with a snicker. “I forgot all about him, actually.”
“Not into fantasy anymore?” He’d always had a book in hand back in the day. His “escape”, he’d called those worlds of wizards and warlocks.
“Uh, not really, no.”
“What kind of books are you into?”
I fought to keep from rubbing my thumb over the soft skin of his forearm resting on my stomach.
Preston hesitated.
“Someone has a secret,” I said with a low laugh, poking him in the side.
Preston squeaked and shied away but didn’t take his face from my neck. Still ticklish but too needy to leave me. Thank fuck.
“No tickling!” he gasped.
“Answer the question.”
“Fine,” he huffed. “Romance.”
I opened my mouth to rib him some more, but the thought of Preston reading about pussy and getting hard over tits turned my stomach. While I’d always thought Preston was ace or maybe demi, I didn’t want to know the truth about his sexuality. Better to assume he had no interest in men or dicks. Being aware he walked the same path as me would make it even more difficult to keep from crossing into unsafe territory. Thanks to his mom and society’s thoughts on stepbrothers getting together, that line between us had been drawn in Sharpie.
Doing so wouldn’t just put Dad’s marriage and continued happiness at risk but probably Preston’s inheritance as well, considering how Jacqueline had treated Nancy when she’d come out as trans.
“Reading romance is nothing to be ashamed of.” I decided to go with. “Spend any time at the gym? You’ve put on some muscle since I saw you last.”
Preston snorted as I squeezed his bicep while asking. “A little.”
At least that hadn’t tickled and given him the opportunity to pull away from me. Now that I had him in my arms again, I didn’t ever want him to leave.
Fucking fuckface Cupid. Asshole prick.
I smoothed my hand over Preston’s arm to rest on his hip, squeezing lightly in an attempt to calm myself down.
I loved physical touch. Craved it from Preston when I cursed Sean for getting all up in my face while teasing me about cramping my personal space.
My eyes drifted shut, and I allowed myself to thoroughly enjoy the feel of Preston’s warmth against my side. “Where do you work out?”
“My building has a gym in the lower level. It’s free to the condo owners, so sometimes I sneak down when it’s empty. If it’s not, I just use body weight workouts in the privacy of my home.”
I kept asking questions, loving his soft voice filling my ears as thoroughly as he’d done my heart. We shared food tips, mostly me telling him how to up his protein intake in healthier ways than powders and bars full of chemicals.
We talked about macros. Bulking and cutting, both of which I’d done a few times, but he had no interest in either.
“Why bulk? You’re already a beast,” Preston said from where he’d perched his cheek on my shoulder. He poked at my pec. “You’re hard as granite.”
