Page 60 of Uncharted

“Oh, oh shit,” he said with a wince. “I brought that with me when I came to wake you up from your nap. But when I saw you were…having a nightmare, I set it there without thinking and forgot about it.”

“Oh,” I said, disappointed for a minute before realizing. “Ya brought it for a reason.”

“You would go through a whole night terror, have a heart to heart with me, take a shower, and immediately launch into sex,” he said with a sigh but I wasn’t fooled, I saw the ghost of a smile he was holding back.

“I’m a simple man. I got the shit scared outta me, ya showed up and made me feel better, talked me through things, and now I’m wonderin’ what it was ya had in mind for us with that bottle,” I told him, arching a brow. God, was he initiating our shenanigans with no prompting on my part?

“Well,” he said, suddenly looking nervous as he stood there in his towel. “Ugh⁠—”

Disappointment curled inside me, but I pushed it aside. That was a step for him, and I would not let my bullshit get in the way. Instead, I patted the bed beside me, and he came as if he wasn’t sure he should, but unable to stop himself. I hoped that was because he really wanted to be here and wasn’t sure about everything, and not because he felt he should for my sake.

His hands were in his lap, twisting slowly, and I didn’t know if I should let him work through things or if there was something I was supposed to do. I found the worst thing to say, though, so it was probably better to keep my mouth shut. So instead of trying to find the right thing to say, I reached over and closed my hand over his and squeezed gently.

“I want to fuck you,” he blurted out with such speed and intensity that I flinched. His eyes widened in fear. “Wait, I’m sorry. It was just after you said⁠—”

“No,” I interrupted before that fear could spiral into the realms of panic and self-doubt. “Sorry. I just…wasn’t ready for ya to spit that out like there were two seconds on the buzzer to get your team’s winning point.”

He stared at me. “Huh, that’s…okay, kinda did, didn’t I?”

“A little,” I told him, giving his hand a squeeze. “I don’t have a problem with that at all.”

“No?” he wondered. “I mean, you’re⁠—”

“I’m what?” I asked.

His face scrunched up, and he nodded at me. “Just so⁠—”

“Injured?” I asked with a huff. “We can get away with it if we do it right; don’t go worryin’ about that, sheesh.”

“No, you’re just…so…man.”

“Man?”

“Manly.”

“I…okay? The fuck does that matter?”

“I don’t know!”

I squinted at him. “For someone with a gay brother, I’m kinda thrown off that ya seem to think that bottomin’ or toppin’ has somethin’ to do with…masculinity.”

“I don’t!” he protested desperately. “I just…I don’t know! This whole thing is beyond weird to me, and it’s great that you’re so chill about everything, like it’s really great because if both of us were freaking out, I can’t even imagine how fucked we’d be right now. But I don’t know what to do here, or how to approach it, or what it means, or what it⁠—”

I kissed him, pulling his face toward me and shutting him up in the only way I knew how without trying to match him word for word. I felt the tension in the kiss, but within seconds, he was leaning against my side, letting me wrap an arm around him to hold him tight. His breath stuttered a little when I broke the kiss, and I could see a flame building behind his eyes.

“I want you to fuck me,” I told him, wishing I had full use of my body, but you had to play the cards life dealt you. I was careful to shift so I could bring him with me as I lay on my back, keeping him on my right because I knew he was inwardly tracking every injury on my body to make sure he didn’t touch it. “Just…don’t want ya doin’ somethin’ ya might not be sure of.”

“I haven’t been sure, but that’s not because I don’t want it,” he said roughly. “I mean, it’s⁠—”

We were falling back into the last spiral, and I knew I needed to course-correct. The best thing was to follow my instincts and trust that if Reno well and truly wanted to bail, he would.

“Ya know what to do,” I said with a chuckle. There had been a couple more instances of us engaging in shenanigans since the shower moment. He’d warmed quickly to me fingering him and had got up to three fingers while still enjoying himself. “You just gotta do it to me.”

“Right, right,” he said, and then frowned. “And uh…you’re gonna have to get on your side, your right one.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the safest for your ribs and arm.”