For several seconds, Cade just stared at him, convinced he’d heard wrong. In all the time they’d been sleeping together, their usual roles had barely changed. Vincent treated experiments like this with the same caution he brought to anything that disrupted his precious routines.

“Are you fucking serious?” Cade asked.

The man smiled almost imperceptibly. “Dead serious.”

That certainty hit Cade harder than the filthiest request ever could. He moved closer but didn’t touch him right away, forcing the man to endure a few seconds of anticipation. His own face was burning so badly it had to be visible even in the dark.

Could he ever have imagined this happening between them?

Embarrassment screamed at him to refuse. Their familiar arrangement felt safe. Turning it upside down was frightening.

But did he honestly want to pass up this chance?

“Then look at me,” Cade said quietly. “You asked for it. Don’t you dare hide now.”

The man looked up and didn’t turn away. Cade kissed him more slowly than before, deliberately changing the entire rhythm of the evening. This time, Cade decided when the kiss would deepen. He decided when to draw back a few inches and make the man chase his mouth.

Whenever the man tried to hurry him along, Cade caught his chin and brought his gaze back to his face.

God, this was so fucking embarrassing. While they kissed, Cade scrambled to remember every bit of experience he’d ever had, or even seen, so he could give it all to Vincent right now.

And still his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Don’t rush,” he whispered against his lips. “You wanted me to take the lead.”

The man’s fingers tightened on Cade’s shoulders, but he nodded. And that was what truly knocked Cade’s confidence out from under him. He’d never imagined Vincent so open, so nearly impatient, and yet so willing to hand him control.

Cade kept kissing his neck and coming back to his mouth whenever he wanted to hear his voice. More than once he made the man open his eyes with just two words: “Look at me.”

He responded without any of Vincent’s usual restraint, clinging to Cade’s shoulders. There was too much that felt new about this, especially how readily the man yielded. Cade kept telling himself that it was simply another stage in their relationship.

Their cocks rubbed against each other through their clothes, again and again, hard enough that Cade felt a faint burning friction spread to his inner thighs. He couldn’t hold back any longer.

He pulled himself together and stripped the rest of Vincent’s clothes off him. The body before him looked exactly like the one he’d known for almost a year, but one detail made him freeze all over again.

“Oh my God. Did you shave?” Cade whispered. “You got yourself ready? You were planning to come over to me tonight? Fuck, I love you. What is this, my birthday?”

Vincent was shaved completely smooth between his legs. Not a single hair. Cade couldn’t stand waiting another second. Embarrassed as he was, he bent and kissed him right there.

“Aah! What the...?! Ngh!”

Little moans of pleasure spilled from Vincent one after another. Cade showered his groin with kisses, occasionally moving to the shaft and then the head of his cock. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to touch him down there, underneath.

Cade’s mind was racing. Even now, part of him was convinced he had misunderstood Vincent entirely. What if Vincent didn’t want Cade putting a finger in his ass, let alone a cock? A hundred little alarms were going off in his head.

He’d never been a top. For eight years, ever since he and his then-best friend had fucked for the first time out of curiosity, he’d been the one taking cock up his own ass. And he’d loved it. He didn’t know any other kind of satisfaction and had never once imagined that driving his cock into someone else could feel better.

“Cade…”

His name came out as a breathy, almost sobbing moan. Cade focused again and looked at the huge man sprawled underneath him.

“Fuck…”

With trembling hands, Cade spread Vincent’s legs and stared straight at his tight, pink hole.

“This is so fucking embarrassing,” he admitted, meaning every word.

His fingers were shaking so badly that when he brought them to Vincent’s entrance, he could barely work them inside.

What happened next took a long time. It had to.

Cade honestly believed that if this was his first time doing it, it had to be Vincent’s first time taking it, too. He spent about thirty minutes stretching him, gradually adding more fingers and picking up the pace. Every time Vincent jerked or made a pained sound, Cade stopped and started again, using plenty of the lube they’d bought. Vincent’s hole slowly opened, loosening around his fingers, but not yet enough to take his cock.

When he was done stretching him, Cade rolled a condom over his own hard cock, the way Vincent normally did. He couldn’t help a crooked grin. Apparently, their cocks weren’t that different in size.

Pushing his own cock inside proved just as painful as taking one usually was.

“Should’ve stretched you more.”

“Don’t stop. I’m fine, ngh.”

“Fuck, you’re tight… ah.”

Cade pushed inside in slow, throbbing little movements, kissing Vincent’s nose, then his temples, then his lips. He kept whispering that he was doing so well, that he was taking it beautifully.

Once the thickest part of his cock slipped in, it got easier. The pressure trying to push him back disappeared, and Cade drove himself all the way in with one movement. Ragged breaths filled the room.

Their lips met again, tightly. Their tongues slid through each other’s mouths, unwilling to stop. Cade could feel the heat building inside every part of his body.

“Let’s stay like this a little while.”

Their bodies trembled, pressed so tightly together that the sweat was practically glue, keeping them stuck to each other.

Once Cade felt comfortable inside another person’s body, he could finally pay attention to the man beneath him. Vincent was unbelievably beautiful. His usually perfectly styled hair spilled across the pillow in waves, and tiny drops of sweat had mingled with his tears.

Cade licked them all away. He felt like a cat licking someone else’s wounds clean.

“Sorry, I don’t think I can stop now. Hold on a little longer. I’ll come fast.”

“Agh, ngh… please, just move already… mmh,” the man moaned beneath him, starting to rock his hips on his own. Back and forth. Back and forth.

After that, something in Cade seemed to switch off. He lost himself completely in the heat of the night.

When he finally came back to himself, he realized he was still holding Vincent tight, still kissing him, only without the earlier desperate hunger. As though slipping from that rough heat straight into tenderness was the most natural thing in the world.

They’d fucked for about fifteen minutes. Cade doubted he’d ever forget how it had felt, or the look Vincent had given him.

Later, Vincent lay facing the dark window, his breathing still uneven. Cade brought him water and stroked the damp hair at his temple. He asked whether everything was okay after such an unfamiliar night for them, and received a quiet yes. Cade bent down and kissed his shoulder, staying there longer than an ordinary caress required. He wanted to remember this strange softness after all that fierce intimacy. It felt as though Vincent had finally shown him a part of himself he’d hidden even during all their previous nights in bed.

Cade lay down beside him and fell asleep happy with that thought.