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He wanted his stupid Wednesday back. “My birthday doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another day.”
Asa gave him an infuriatingly patient look. “It means something to me. It means something to Felix and Avi and the rest of our family.”
Zane shook his head, the motion doing nothing to settle his stomach. “If you tell me you’ve planned some kind of surprise party, I swear to God, I’m going to puke all over your three-thousand-dollar loafers.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Asa promised, pressing a kiss to Zane’s forehead.
Zane went still beneath it.
“It’s just you and me. That’s all. I just wanted to be with my husband on his birthday.”
Something in Zane’s chest squeezed painfully.
“Damn, Lois. Can’t a guy just be romantic?”
All the tension left his body so quickly he felt dizzy from it. “Oh, thank God.” Still, he frowned. “So, what are you planning?”
Asa chuckled at the suspicion in Zane’s voice. “You have trust issues, baby.”
“It happens when you marry the guy who kidnapped you and chained you to a radiator,” Zane said, his tone sulky.
Usually, that would be met with a “You love when I tie you up, Lois.”
But not this time.
“Oh, my poor Lois,” Asa crooned, swaying them like they were slow dancing as he whispered in Zane’s ear. “So abused. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.”
“Fuck you,” Zane muttered, even as his hands shot out to cling to Asa’s cashmere sweater, his palms smoothing over the ridiculous softness before his fingers curled into the fabric.
“Why do you think I’m home so early?” Asa asked, his hands sliding under Zane’s T-shirt.
Well, technically Asa’s T-shirt. His varsity shirt from high school, so soft and worn that it was nearly see-through in some places.
Zane loved this shirt. Loved that it had belonged to Asa long before Zane had. Loved wearing something softened by years against Asa’s skin.
Asa’s hands were warm and a little rough as they trailed over the knobs of his spine, then traced the planes of his shoulder blades. Zane shivered beneath the slow drag of his palms.
“Can I?”
Zane blinked, his head jerking upward so fast he almost clipped Asa’s chin. “Can you what?”
“Fuck you?”
Zane felt like he was in the fucking Twilight Zone. “You’re asking permission?”
Asa dipped his head, biting down on Zane’s lower lip, sucking a little before letting it go, then running his thumb over the wetness left behind.
“Yeah, Lois. I’m asking. Can I take you to bed and wreck you?”
Pure heat pooled between Zane’s hip bones at the filthy promise in Asa’s tone, his words making Zane lightheaded.
“Sometimes, I swear you’re more animal than human,” Zane whispered, then seemed to remember Asa had asked him a question. “Y-Yeah, let’s…let’s go.”
Zane half-expected Asa to toss him over his shoulder with the way he was staring at him, but instead, he walked him backward into their bedroom, maintaining a level of eye contact Zane found disconcerting, before kicking the door shut behind him.
Asa never looked away, and it was only then he finally kissed him. Not his usual, hungry, violent, claiming kisses. These were slow, deep, drugging, his tongue soft, probing, like he was mapping Zane’s mouth, their lips meeting again and again until Zane felt drunk.
There was no urgency. No fight. Asa kissed him like he had nowhere else to be, like Zane was the only thing he intended to do all afternoon. Zane didn’t know what to do with this feeling. Asa’s kisses were usually sharp, aggressive, all teeth and tongue and take, take, take.
