“Sexual,” she supplied, after he paused for a few beats.

His little nod mussed his hair against her pillow. “A few of them.”

“Most of them.” She wouldn’t lie, and she wasn’t embarrassed. Not about having written explicit content, anyway. “Or at least on-page sex occurs in most of them, even if sex isn’t the main”—she couldn’t resist—“thrust of the story. So to speak.”

He half groaned, half laughed at that. “Don’t distract me, Whittier. This conversation is hard—difficult enough as it is.”

Dammit, he was right. Back to listening, instead of dirty punnery.

Finally, he raked the hair back from his forehead and kept talking. “Okay, so here’s my point: In your fics, there’s sex involving the character I play. And when you describe Aeneas in your stories, he doesn’t look like the Aeneas of Wade’s books. He’s not dark-haired or barrel-chested. He doesn’t have brown eyes. Instead, he’s . . . leaner. Golden. Blue-eyed.”

He really had read her stories, evidently. Which was both flattering and alarming.

And she couldn’t deny it. “He’s you. Or at least, he looks like you.”

“Yeah.” Letting go of her hand, he pinched his forehead between thumb and forefinger, eyes squeezed shut. “Now that we’re dating, I think that could maybe be a bit, uh . . . confusing for you? At least sometimes?”

When he didn’t add anything for a few moments, she shifted onto her own back and forced herself to think about what he’d said and offer him the most truthful response she could, untainted by her instinctive desire not to alienate him in any way.

“It can be disorienting.” It was a low-voiced, hard-fought admission. “I’m part of a private Lavineas server, and sometimes they post GIFs of your—Aeneas’s—sex scenes, and—”

He’d gone very still beside her.

“—when we were naked, when your hands were down my pants and when you were inside me or licking me, I swear to God I didn’t picture those scenes. But sometimes, when we’re not actively in the moment, I get these . . . flashes.” She swallowed over a dry throat. “Like, I’ve seen that before. Your ass. Your chest. Your expression. Things like that.”

Before he could respond, she rushed on. “I’m not embarrassed that I’ve written fanfic, and I’m not embarrassed to have written about sex in those fics. But now that I know you, I don’t think I can include any more explicit scenes in my Lavineas stories, because it’ll seem too . . .”

He didn’t try to help, maybe because she wasn’t sure he was still breathing. She had to find the words on her own, and she bit her lip as she searched for the right ones.

Copper on her tongue, she chose carefully. “It’ll seem too intimate, now that I know you. Invasive. And the last thing I want to do is inadvertently picture you—Marcus, the man I’m dating—having sex with another woman. Even if I’m writing about Aeneas, a fictional hero. I may love Lavinia, but I have no desire to share you with her, even in my imagination.”

Shit. She was assuming a lot. Way too much for this point in their relationship.

She cleared that dry-as-sand throat. “Not that we’re exclusive—” “I want to be exclusive,” he interrupted. “Just so you know.”

She paused, blinking up at the ceiling in shock. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do.” For the first time during their conversation, he sounded entirely sure of himself. “Do you want to be exclusive?”

Her bitten lip hurt as she began to smile. “Definitely.”

“Good.” There was that smugness again. Irritating but flattering too.

In one short syllable, he’d declared her someone important in his life, someone he wanted to himself with a possessiveness equal to her own. And yes, that was definitely good.

“Okay, then. I guess we’re exclusive now.” She turned her head on the pillow to look at him, her grin now wide enough to make her cheeks ache. “That was fast.”

He was looking at her too, his mouth soft and curved. “I’m almost forty. That’s at least two hundred in Hollywood years. I don’t have time to waste.”

“That only applies to women, unfortunately. Not men.” Her wrinkled nose expressed her disgust for that particular double standard. “Your industry is sexist as fuck.”

“No kidding. You would not believe—” He stopped himself. “Hold on. We weren’t done talking about, uh . . .”

Her smile faded. “Whether I want Aeneas, not you?”

He was breathing again, and meeting her eyes, but he still hadn’t reached out. Which meant she needed to keep talking, because they were just beginning as a couple. An issue of trust could break them before they really began, so she had to be absolutely clear with him.

“You’re an amazing actor.” When he looked away from her, shoulders hunched in embarrassment, she touched his forearm. “No, don’t shrug that off, Marcus. Listen to me.”

Expression pained, he met her eyes again, and that was her cue to continue. “I love Wade’s version of Lavinia, above any other character in the series. I was so disappointed when Summer Diaz was chosen for the role.” When his lips tightened, she clarified. “Not because she’s a bad actor. Because her casting negated a lot of what I found important and appealing about Lavinia and her romantic and personal arcs in the books.”

At that, he nodded in understanding.

“The fact that I didn’t transfer to another fandom once the show began airing is mostly due to you, I think. Not your appearance, although you’re obviously gorgeous, but your performance. You’re that good, Marcus. I can’t believe you haven’t won a bunch of awards.”

She scowled at the injustice, then got back to her point.

This was the part she needed to get right, because she was telling him the absolute truth. She might find their situation confusing at times, but she had no doubts as to which man was lying in bed beside her. She had no doubts as to the identity of her brand-new boyfriend. She had no doubts as to who and what she actually wanted.

“Millions of people have read Wade’s books. Even more have seen you play Aeneas. They know him, and they know his story. I know him. I know his story. I’ve written stories about him for years, and so have hundreds of others. And don’t get me wrong. I still think he’s great. I still think you’re great, in your portrayal of him.” As she’d done earlier that day, she laid a palm over his heart, its beat unshielded by clothing this time. “But I want to know you. Marcus Caster-Rupp, not Aeneas. I want to know your story. I’m attracted to you. Because what’s hidden, what’s real, is always more interesting and important to me than appearances or performances.”

He was watching her so carefully, that line between his brows not completely gone.

When he spoke, his voice was barely louder than a whisper. “I’m no brave hero, April.”

Why he seemed to consider that such a damning confession, why he was staring at her with such pleading and anxiety, she had no idea. But she intended to remove that worried expression from his face, the sooner the better.

“I don’t . . .” His jaw worked, and each word seemed dragged from his throat unwillingly. “I don’t always do the right thing, or the courageous thing.”

At her snort, he actually jumped a little.

“So you’re human, rather than a fictional character or an actual demigod.” She waved off that particular concern. “How terrible and disappointing. Also, to be fair, Aeneas did some shitty stuff too. Like, for example, abandoning the woman he’d been sleeping with for a year without bothering to tell her goodbye.”

His brow unpinched a tad, even as he sprang to his character’s defense. “The gods instructed him—”

“Blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “His moral responsibilities didn’t begin and end with the residents of Mount Olympus. He could have left a damn note, at least.”

His nostrils flared as he exhaled. “Okay, okay. You’re right. That was shitty. But it was one of the bits included in both the Aeneid and Wade’s books, so there was no way to play it differently.”

BAWN had made the same argument to her before, and he’d been equally wrong then. “Of course. Because your showrunners were always so very faithful to the source material they were given.”

He didn’t bother arguing, probably because there really was no good counterargument. Instead, he only grinned at her and took her hand again, interlacing their fingers. “No comment.”

“Oh, I think that’s comment enough.” She scooted closer to him. Closer again, until she was pressed along the length of his side, softness against taut strength. Heat against heat. “If you’re still worried I don’t know who you are, show me who you are. I’ll prove I can differentiate the man from the performance.”

“I’ll—” His voice choked to silence as her open mouth roamed along his shoulder. Over the ridges of his ribs. Down to that blessed divot at his hip, then in and down again. “I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you. Now I intend to try my best too.”

After that, her mouth was too occupied for further discussion, and once she was through with him, that worried expression was gone, gone, gone, replaced by dazed pleasure and appreciation and a sort of panting beam in her direction.

“April . . .” He reached for her afterward, dragging her up into his sweaty, trembling arms. “Jesus. California should declare your mouth a national treasure of some sort. A landmark? Something.”

Smiling as smugly as he ever had, she basked in every well-earned bit of praise. Lord knew she wasn’t going to argue with him.

He might have mastered unicycling and chopping and emotive sniffing and swordplay, but she had her own particular set of skills when it came to swords. They deserved appreciation too.