Take My Body (Curse Bound 2)

“And did they? Get serious?” Gunner looked like a wall of muscle, yet Caspian was all too aware of the fragility hiding in that big body.

And the question hiding behind the one Gunner had verbalized squeezed around his heart. They both remembered their brief relationship and longed for the sense of fulfillment it used to give them, but things were different now, and it wasn’t healthy to focus on what was lost. “We had dinner.”

“Soo…” Gunner stepped back to reveal two small plates on the counter. “Room for dessert?”

Tightness grabbed Caspian’s throat. He shouldn’t have been upset. It was a good thing that Gunner wasn’t jealous of him and instead offered him a sample of yet another of his culinary experiments.

But he was upset. And the fact that he couldn’t have Gunner had never before been made so clear.

“Yeah.”

Gunner’s smile twisted the knife in Caspian’s heart. “I made us tiramisu,” he said, presenting the slab of cake dusted with cocoa. “I made too much, but I’m sure your parents will enjoy some once they’re back.”

“Yeah, Dad keeps asking me what your secret ingredient is,” Caspian mused and placed his blazer on a side table in the hall before joining Gunner in the kitchen. His gaze trailed down the muscular back and settled on Gunner’s ass. He had such hard buttocks, muscular from all the physical exercise.

Caspian really should focus on something else.

"Better not tell him it's my special cream." Gunner wiggled his eyebrows when they both sat in barstools in front of generous portions of dessert.

Idiot. Caspian loved his crude jokes.

They always made him think of dirty things he’d told Gunner during sex. And the tiramisu was great. Satisfying, sweet, with some bitterness from the coffee, and having a mouthful allowed Caspian to keep his lips shut for a bit longer.

“Leave that kind of spice for a boyfriend,” he said.

The silence that settled between them next was surprisingly uncomfortable. Had he overstepped? Gunner had no snappy comebacks, didn’t turn the comment into a joke, nor attempt to make the conversation even dirtier.

Caspian’s back itched, as if he were about to start sweating, and he swallowed a piece of cream and sponge. “You’ll find someone very soon, I’m sure.”

Gunner put his spoon down and took a deep breath. “Could we really not work? I know I don’t look like the guys you’re after, but I’m the same person, okay?”

Caspian stilled, and the spoon fell out of his hand, clattering on the plate. Hot fingers clawed at his shoulders and kept him still as he watched emotion wash over Gunner’s stern, masculine features.

Was this… really possible? Had they both been thinking about this and not said a thing for weeks?

“Are you serious? I’m half your size,” he said, hot at the humiliation of having to spell it out. But it was true, and there was no escaping it.

Gunner chewed on that, but then… got off the chair and went down to his knees in front of Caspian. And once he sat back on his heels, he tilted his head back and looked up with shiny brown eyes. “How about now? I wanna be your bitch, whatever your size is.” His voice trembled, and just knowing he provoked such strong feelings in Gunner shot pure adrenaline into Caspian’s system.

Fire exploded in the pit of Caspian’s stomach and scorched his insides, traveling all the way to his head. His treacherous mind told him that this wasn’t possible. That Gunner couldn’t want this. That maybe he was lonely and didn’t know how to approach another man now that he was back in his own body.

But his heart beat faster, and he slid off the chair, lured by the pleading eyes that watched him as if he were the only man left in the world.

“I like that,” he found himself saying. “You look beautiful on your knees.”

The tremble in Gunner’s lips and the red tint flooding his face switched something in Caspian. He was now a predator, and he’d tasted blood in the water.

Gunner didn’t even blink, his eyes following Caspian’s every move, as if he too recognized the shift in mood.

“I’m not… ‘beautiful’ anymore, but I could be yours.”

Caspian stalled, struck by the resignation in that statement. It was true that Gunner no longer looked like the pretty boys Caspian used to have eyes for, but he was handsome, and sturdy, and not in any way unattractive. He might not have been what Caspian considered his type, but it did not matter when Caspian saw him as so much more than the muscular body he wished to have.

“Don’t say that. You’re still the same person,” Caspian whispered, cupping Gunner’s face with both hands. It blew his mind that he was in a position to reassure someone like Gunner.

“You can see that?” The brown eyes staring up at him were as needy and starved for affection as the blue ones had been when Gunner had worn Caspian’s face.