Talker by Amy Lane Page A

his eyes and grasped Tate’s wrist as he turned off the
    shower. “Thanks,” he whispered, and Tate looked at that hand on
    his tattooed wrist and then back up at Brian.
    “My pleasure,” he said with a small smile.
    Brian grinned quickly. “Will be.”
    “Want me to help you with the studs?”
    Brian grimaced, and then blushed. “O nly some of them. I,
    uhm, sort of like the idea of having two, you know?” Besides, the
    bottom two were real, and Lyndie had wanted him to keep them. It
    had felt like a blessing.
    “I like the one in the nose,” Tate confessed, and Brian gave
    another quick grin.
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I’ll keep that one, ’kay?”
    And Tate smiled shyly. “F or me?”
    “I’d do anything for you.” Their eyes connected, and like that,
    the moment became intimate. Brian’s hand had never left Tate’s
    wrist and he rubbed his thumb over the thick blue veins of Tate’s
    pulse point. Because it was his thumb, he couldn’t tel whose heart
    was beating faster.
    He swallowed hard, almost completely lost in Tate’s oak-gall-
    dark eyes. Tate blinked, and Brian noticed the vestiges of his
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    makeup, stil smeared over his cheekbones, and he managed to be
    practical. “But you shower first,” he said, his breath coming quickly
    in his chest. “I’l make you some dinner. Lyndie sent food.”
    “Lyndie?” With obvious reluctance, Tate straightened and they
    broke their physical connection.
    “Who do you think did the hair and the piercings?”
    Tate blinked at that, and Brian stepped out of the shower. His
    towel was pretty sodden, so, with a blushing glance at Tate, he
    hung it over the curtain rod and took one of the dry ones from the
    towel rack.
    “Why?” Tate asked, and Brian was glad his back was turned
    as he wrapped the dry towel around his waist.
    “Because I told her I loved you, and I was worried, and I’d told
    you repeatedly, but you weren’t seeing me. I had to find a way to
    make you see me.”
    He turned back around and Tate had moved closer. “I see you
    now.”
    “Loving you is about al I got in the way of interest,” Brian told
    him, to make sure he’d know. Because being roommates for almost
    a year might not have clued Tate in to how basical y boring his
    roommate was, right?
    Tate nodded, never breaking his gaze, and put out a tentative
    hand to the middle of Brian’s chest. Brian’s skin felt like it rippled, shivering, and his groin and nipples tingled, and he was forced to
    close his eyes.
    “I do that to you?” Tate asked, and he held himself very stil ,
    like he doubted the answer.
    “O h G od, yes,” Brian mumbled, and then managed to pull
    away. “Shower,” he begged. “Shower. G et the crap out of your hair.
    Let me feed you. Let me take care of you. Please, Tate—I….” His
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    cock gave a vicious throb and he remembered that whimpering
    sound he’d made in the bathroom at the club and contemplated
    making it again. “I want you so bad—but I want to talk, too, and I
    want… oh G od.” Tate was moving that hand in little circles, and his
    palm grazed Brian’s nipple and Brian reached out a steadying hand
    to Tate’s shoulder.
    Tate laughed a little, breathlessly. It was a happy laugh, and
    Brian could tel he was impressed with his own power. G ood. That
    hand made another pass, and Tate’s thumb got brave around
    Brian’s nipple, and then Brian was impressed with Tate’s power
    too.
    Which was why he grasped Tate’s wrist gently, and brought
    his scarred palm (Tate had taken off his glove to help Brian get the
    glue out of his hair) up to his mouth and gently kissed the palm.
    Tate whimpered, just like Brian had.
    “Tate?”
    “Yeah?”
    “All that shit I said in the club? About taking care of you?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I meant every word of that. Take a shower, and I’m going to
    make you some food, and then I’m going to touch you with my
    whole body. But I’m not going to do