David closed his eyes at her TMI comment and tried not to think about his own feelings on anal. Not here. “I’ll pass too. I’m not playing sexual twenty-questions with my sister. We may talk about Game of Thrones online, but we aren’t dressing up to role-play the incestuous siblings for her audience.”
“Our audience. And if we dressed up that would be cosplay, David. Get your terminology straight.” Essie fiddled with her black-framed glasses and blew her bangs off her forehead. “Anyway, this is for you to play with Tweedlehot and Tweedlehotter this week. If Rig and Rory agree to do it—or anything else in their racy wheelhouse—on camera? All the better for me.”
He snorted. Which one was Tweedlehotter? “Essie.”
“David,” she echoed mockingly. “You told me we needed to keep our content fresh and exciting. You also told me you wanted to finally have some quality time with a certain Finn sexpot to—what was it again—see where things went? Now you have five whole days to solve that manly Jenga puzzle and I won’t bother you for anything. Much. Okay I want visitation with his cousin’s puppies and Rig has to cook something for me, but that’s it.”
Essie was a force of nature. She’d been concerned when he’d first admitted to kissing Rory and his reaction to it. Also, truth be told, moderately relieved that she hadn’t been crazy for wondering about it for years. “You always showed him more affection than any of the girls you brought home.”
She’d helped him talk things out and even agreed with his decision to take a step back. He needed to be sure. When she’d realized that what he was feeling wasn’t going away, that his obsession was only growing with time, she gave him her full support and approval, and starting looking for ways she could “help out.”
Essie’s full support was sometimes hard to take, but he’d embraced it, as well as the conversations he’d been having with Rig about his realizations. He needed all the help he could get at this point. Especially if he was hoping to pin down the infamously elusive Rory Finn.
David knew his old friend had always had a thing for straight guys and an allergy to committed relationships. David was the opposite. A serial monogamist. He loved the ease and security being part of a couple had given him, but Rory hadn’t dated anyone in over eight years. More men than he could count had tried and failed to be his exception over the years. Even Rig had one or two regular partners over the years, but Rory was never tempted. Not once.
It was something David teased him about in the past. Something he secretly envied about a best friend, but worried about in a potential love interest.
Rory was too seductive for his own good. He had an easy charm, hypnotic blue eyes and a way of moving that reminded David of a graceful feline.
“Years of gymnastics,” he’d shrug lazily when a stranger hit on him and asked how flexible he could be. “But I’ll let you decide for yourself.”
David had seen it all at a distance, but as his friend, that side of Rory’s personality never really touched him. With David, Rory was wholly himself, loyal to a fault and just as protective as Essie had always been.
Despite being a member of the large Finn family, when they’d met Rory had reminded David of a foster kid he’d known in Oregon. Everyone knew him but no one touched him. His external perfection hid a yearning soul that David felt compelled to know. He wanted to be near him, maybe take some of those shadows no one else saw away from his eyes.
The friendship had changed the course of his life in so many ways he couldn’t imagine where he’d be without it. When Rig had formed their trio, David remembered sensing that everything was exactly as it should be. They would always be friends. Rory would always be in his life.
But then that kiss.
As much as he’d initially wanted to, he couldn’t pretend that Rory’s kiss hadn’t shaken him to his marrow. He loved women, grew up surrounded by some of the best examples of the gender and he’d always thought he enjoyed sex as much as the next man. But the instant their lips touched, he knew that Rory’s kiss would be better than any sexual encounter he’d ever had.
Something had growled and leapt to life inside him, something feral that scared the hell out of him. There were no romantic cellos or angel choirs in that compulsive tangle of tongues and need. It was dark and gritty, gnashing and greedy and so fucking perfect he’d almost come in his pants in front of Rory’s entire family. Just from a kiss.
He’d never felt that intensely about…anything.