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I shook my head. “I want to tell him. I’ve been holding off so I don’t burden him with it.”

“He needs to know. He’s working through stuff, but he deserves to know how you feel.”

“You’re right.”

“But you also deserve to take the time to figure out how you feel before you lay it all out there. Just don’t take too long,” Nash said. He pushed up from the table and glanced at the clock on the stove. “I need to take off, but please know we’re all here for you, okay? If you need anyone, you’ve got my number. And for what it’s worth, we’re all rooting for you.”

My throat got thick again, and I swallowed past a lump. “Thank you.”

He gave my cheek a soft pat, then he winked, and before I could respond, he was gone. He was right though—everything he said was right. Bean deserved to know the truth, and I deserved to treat myself like I was worth the risk.

I needed to find the right time and way to tell him, but it would be soon.

It would be very soon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BEAN

I was ready. In hindsight, I had been for a while, but the timing hadn’t worked out, but now I was really eager to have sex with Jarek. Actual sex. Penetrative sex. Anal sex. I wanted him to fuck me.

And yes, I’d practiced saying those words because it mattered. Maybe not to anyone else, but to me, it did. I needed to be able to say what I wanted without immediately feeling that rush of guilt, of shame. The only way that would ever happen was if I desensitized myself.

I had plenty of experience with that in the Army. Harsh as it sounded, desensitizing was a necessary evil for a soldier. You couldn’t function without it because if you truly allowed yourself to feel everything you did and saw and went through, you wouldn’t be able to do your job.

A while ago, I’d watched a documentary about World War II, and they’d interviewed a whole bunch of D-day veterans. One of them had kept repeating that he’d been terrified in the landing boats, but as soon as he set foot on the beach, he’d switched everything off.

His friends had gotten killed right next to him, but he’d kept going, knowing it was the only way to survive…and the only wayto win. He’d refused to let the horrors around him get to him because if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to keep going.

But D-day had only been the start. His company had fought all the way to the end when Germany had finally surrendered, and by then, he’d grown desensitized to the daily suffering around him, to the violence, and to death.

That was the whole purpose of endless drills during boot camp and training. Your reactions had to become automatic, regardless of the circumstances—pure muscle memory to the point where you didn’t need to think but responded instantly.

So I had made a list of all the things I wanted to be able to say, and I had started saying them aloud, whispering them to myself, overriding the voices inside my head that shouted it was shameful and wrong and sinful. To anyone else, I would look and sound like someone who had lost it, mumblingsexfifty times, followed by words like anal, condoms, rimming, and above all, cock.

Cock, cock, cock.

Not penis or something similar clinical, but cock.

I wanted anal sex. I wanted Jarek’s cock in my ass.

Dang it, I was proud of myself for being able to say that…to myself. Now, all I needed to do was gather the courage to tell Jarek.

We were hanging out at his place. I’d taught him how to make lasagna—one of the easiest recipes ever—and the end result had been yummy. Now we were lounging on the couch, watching an episode of House Hunters, where a retired couple wanted to find a cheap house directly on the beach somewhere in the Carolinas.

“Pff,” Jarek snorted when they were checking out some property in North Carolina. “Talk about throwing your money away. That beach line has been eroding and whole houses have disappeared into the ocean.”

How did I segue from this to sex? There had to be a way to give subtle signals, right?

Oh, what the heck. I’d just have to come right out and say it. Great way to practice my desensitizing techniques. I reached for the remote and muted the volume.

“Is something wrong? Do you have a headache?”

I snorted at the unintended irony of that question. “No, I don’t. The opposite, in fact.” I took a deep breath. “I want to have sex with you. I’m ready. For anal sex, I mean. With you t-topping me.”

Oh my goodness, I’d done it. I’d said the words, only stuttering slightly on ‘topping.’ What a funny thing to be proud of, but I was. I really was.

Jarek’s face broke open with a wide smile. “I’m so proud of you, sweet thing. That must’ve been hard for you to say.”