With Everything I Have by R. Cooper Page B

away in a restless gesture.
    Sebastian gauged him, wondering how much
Peter would take from him right now in this mood. “You mean why did
I touch you? You touched me first. I can only resist so much,
Peter. Any man would want you.”
    “Now you’re lying.” Naturally, Peter did not
believe others would want him. “You lie a lot, Sebastian.”
    Sebastian glanced over at him. “That’s it,
pistols at dawn.”
    “I can bear the truth, Bash.” Peter scrubbed
at his cheeks.
    Sebastian gave him an irritated frown. “Every
time you doubt how handsome you are, how kind, how wonderful, every
time you insist no one would want you, you insult me. I live in a
world where my taste and intelligence are questioned every single
day. It is something you have never done except for when you speak
that way. Think about that before you do it again.”
    Peter sucked in a noisy breath and closed his
mouth. Sebastian waited a few moments then glanced to him
again.
    Peter was breathing hard. “I did not mean to
hurt you.”
    “How do you feel when someone insults me?
When you catch them in a sneer?” Sebastian did not feel cruel
though he supposed he was. His mother would have said he was cruel
to be kind.
    “I don’t like it. It upsets me, angers me,”
Peter admitted, his tone subdued. “I hate it.”
    Sebastian nodded. “That is how I feel when
you speak of yourself that way.” If it had been worth it Sebastian
would have asked what had lit this fire under Peter. He did not
know why Peter was experimenting with him, only that he was.
Another man might have put his foot down. But this was Peter. First
he had an idea, a design. Then he conducted research and then an
experiment. Peter was after something important here and he was
going about it the only way he knew how.
    Sebastian looked squarely into Peter’s eyes.
“I only touch you when you indicate you would like me to touch you.
Today you indicated that you wanted me to touch you.” It seemed
fair to say it. Peter had to know what he was doing. “The other
night you also indicated that you wanted me to touch you.”
    Or perhaps Peter didn’t know. His lips
parted. “Did I?”
    Sebastian was fairly certain he nodded though
he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment.
Peter blinked once, twice, then shut his mouth. The line appeared
between his eyes.
    Sebastian raised a hand. “Before you ask me,
it’s different for some, but most indicate their willingness in
similar ways.” This conversation was really happening. Sebastian
was educating Peter on sexual relations after years of being
intimate with him. Only Peter would require this. Only Peter would
never have attempted to find the answers with anyone else.
    Sebastian felt his face start to sting with a
pleased heat that was almost shameful. Peter, untouched except for
him. If Peter had been experimenting with others he would have
figured this out this already. Sebastian shifted closer to him.
Peter’s attention was riveted to him. He no longer seemed
surprised. There was the very real possibility that Peter did know
some of this already, or had suspected it and had wanted to hear
Sebastian confirm it, in which case Sebastian could only say that
it was a talk long overdue.
    “Some of it is in how you watch me.” He did
not stop though Peter gave a startled twitch that made Sebastian
want to haul him close and bury his face in his neck. “It isn’t
that you sit close to me the way I am sitting close to you now,
although that is a part of it. Only because you do not sit so with
anyone else, Peter. It makes this special, and I need you to know
how much I treasure that. I would take that, if it was all you
offered me. But…” A confession of his feelings was oddly easier
than discussing the small ways that Peter seduced him. This was an
unexpected torment. “You… you sit close.” He paused. It was hard to
describe the infinitesimal changes in Peter in moments like these.
“You come next to