Page 50 of Colin
Colin shot him a mutinous look. “I don’t want tosit. I’m all sweaty and disgusting from walking home too fast. This stupid fucking heat. This stupid fuckingtown.”
He wasn’t disgusting. He smelled as amazing as ever, just…amplified. Like the desert itself had flowered in their living room. But Fox remembered well enough from his human dayshow gross it could feel, to be overheated and sticky. “Then let’s take a shower,” he suggested.
For how outdated their house was overall, one thing the previous owners had invested in before selling was a nice-ass bathroom renovation, including a huge tiled shower that could easily fit three people.
Colin halted his pacing, cocking his head warily. “Together?”
“Of course together,” Fox insisted, as if he had a right to. Did he? He was hoping he did. “We’re not leaving you alone when you’re upset.”
“I’m notupset,” Colin bit out, clearly fucking upset. “And I don’t want to be fucked right now.”
“Who said anything about fucking?” Dane asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
There was a tense moment of silence, and then all at once, Colin deflated. He looked so…tired. And sad. It was fucking horrible.
“Fine,” he muttered, turning to head up the stairs. They followed on his heels.
Once in the bathroom, Dane started the shower and they all undressed silently, steam filling the room around them. Who knew why a hot shower could still feel good after a hot night, but that was the case. And Colin kept their air-conditioning on full blast at all times, so it wasn’t like the house was even remotely warm.
Colin paused before stepping onto the tile, giving them both unimpressed looks as his eyes trailed over them. “Your dicks are hard,” he accused.
So was Colin’s, but Fox knew better than to point that out. He shrugged, pushing Colin toward the shower with a hand on his lower back. “Yeah, so what? You’re hot, and you’re naked.”And ours. “Just ignore it. Not every boner needs to be dealt with.”
That actually had the smallest of smiles gracing Colin’s lips, and he let himself be led into the shower, letting out a soft moan when the hot water hit him.
They followed in after him. Fox shared a look with Dane—you want the body or the mind?—and Dane grabbed a washcloth, soaping it up. Fox cleared his throat. “So. The shitty ex.”
Colin’s chest heaved with an exaggerated sigh, like Fox had said something incredibly taxing, but he let Dane soap up his chest willingly enough. “Yeah, the shitty ex.”
“What’s his deal? Besides being a cunt.”
For a long moment, he thought Colin wouldn’t answer. But then he let out another heavy sigh and started speaking. “He was my first. First love. First…time.” Colin bit down on his lower lip, toying with the plump flesh. “I thought, at first, that it was just because we were new at it. I thought I’d get used to it all. I thought I’d…want it more? I guess? But I never did. I never enjoyed myself the way he did. And when I tried to talk to him about it, tell him I thought maybe sex wasn’t for me, he’d get mean. Call me frigid. Tell me I had a problem.”
Fox gritted his teeth to keep a growl from coming out. Colin ignored the strangled sound, letting his head fall back against Dane’s shoulder as Dane began soaping his back. “The thing is that’s all…fine, I guess. We were sexually incompatible, I get it. He was ignorant, and I didn’t know my own mind well enough to stand up for myself. But in the end, when we couldn’t get the sex to work, he wasted no time in telling me all the other ways I was deficient. Too boring. Too cold.” His breath caught. “He said that if I was going to be a prude, I needed to at least have the personality to make up for it. It fucked me up for a while. So much wasted time feeling shitty about myself because I trusted the wrong guy.”
Dane spoke up. “We should go back,” he said evenly, running the washcloth over Colin’s arm. “We should drain him dry.”
“No.” Colin twisted around to glare at him. “I don’t want you feeding off that asshole. You feed offme.”
“Fine,” Fox said agreeably. “We’ll just snap his neck.”
Colin flipped him off.
It wasn’t a no.
“Can’t believe you were into such a douche in the first place.”
Fox blanched as Dane shot a scowl his way. It had been the wrong thing to say—Fox knew that.
But a moment later, Colin actually laughed, the sound only slightly bitter. “I know, right? He was just…different from the people I usually hung out with. Really confident and put together. I was quiet and weird and flattered he saw something in me, I guess. I let him isolate me, which was stupid. He was jealous of my friendship with Jamie, made me put distance between us. I stopped agreeing to hang out, gradually stopped answering his calls and his texts.”
Fox stepped closer, pushing a lock of wet blue hair out of Colin’s eyes. “I heard you were kissing buddies, you and Jamie.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Colin’s lips twitched up into a small, fond smile. “It was nice. No expectations.” He cocked a brow. “You jealous?”
“A little,” Fox admitted, as if his stomach weren’t roiling with it. “But I do sort of like the thought of little Colin having someone to play with, without any pressure.”
He reached for the shampoo and began lathering up Colin’s hair, pleased when Colin closed his eyes and sank into the touch. There was a sort of primal satisfaction in watching the tension leave his frame. It was like getting the words out had let out some of the poison in that encounter as well. And Fox and Dane’s touches were doing the rest.
