THE CRAZY PROPOSITION

Brett didn't know who said it first.

He was still spooned against Richard's chest in the black silk sheets, still wearing only Richard's oversized black t-shirt and the white satin choker that read slutty tramp, still feeling Richard hard and hot against the small of his back, still feeling his own body answering in a way that terrified him.

Richard's hand was on his chest, cupping his breast through the thin cotton — the breast Brett had hated for weeks, the "girl part" that felt foreign without estrogen. Richard's other arm was banded tight around his waist, holding him close, his lips brushing slow, open-mouthed kisses to the back of Brett's neck, just above the choker.

Brett was shaking. Not from cold. From want. From confusion. From a need that had been building for six weeks without hormones, without touch, without anyone seeing him as anything but Brielle in a costume.

"I need..." Brett whispered into the dark, his voice cracking, low and male and broken. He didn't mean to say it out loud. The words just fell out of his mouth, raw and honest.

Richard stilled behind him. "What do you need, pet?"

Brett squeezed his eyes shut, his hands fisting in the sheets. "Omg... I need you..."

The admission hung in the air between them, shocking in its truth. Brett's heart hammered against his ribs. He'd never said that to Lance, not like this, not in weeks. He'd been pushing Lance away, feeling nothing, feeling flat.

And here he was, in his father-in-law's bed, begging.

Richard's hand slid down from his chest, over his stomach, his hips rolling forward, pressing that hard length more firmly against Brett.

"Say it again," Richard commanded softly, his voice thick.

Brett whimpered, his hips pushing back involuntarily, his body arching into the touch. "Stop..."

Richard froze.

"I mean—" Brett gasped, panicking, his mind and body at war with each other. "I mean don't... don't stop..."

Richard exhaled a low, dark laugh against his neck. "That's what I thought."

His hand continued its slow path down, over the hem of the t-shirt, over Brett's hip, cupping the curve of his ass through the thin cotton, squeezing possessively.

Brett cried out, a sharp, broken sound that was half sob, half moan. His head fell back against Richard's shoulder, his body going pliant and trembling all at once.

"I need you inside me," Brett heard himself say out loud, the words tearing out of him before he could stop them, before he could think about Lance, about the money, about the twenty-one hours left. "Please, Sir, I need— omg, I need you—"

It was the most honest thing he'd said in months. Not as Brielle. Not as the pretty wife in lingerie. As Brett. As the man he'd been trying to bury under hormones and makeup and lies.

Richard turned him then, gently but firmly, rolling Brett onto his back in the black sheets, looming over him in the dim light from the bathroom. His blue eyes — Lance's eyes, but darker, hungrier — searched Brett's face, taking in the tears, the swollen lips, the choker, the absolute wreckage and want written all over him.

"Look at me," Richard ordered, his voice low and absolute.

Brett did, his chest heaving, his whole body shaking under the thin t-shirt.

Richard cradled his hips in both big hands, his thumbs stroking over the sharp bones, his touch reverent and claiming at once. He slid Brett down the bed, positioning him, preparing him, his gaze never leaving Brett's face.

"You're sure, pet?" Richard asked, and for the first time all night, there was something almost like care in his voice. "This is what you want?"

Brett nodded frantically, tears spilling down his temples into his wet blonde hair. "Yes— yes, Sir, please, I need— I don't know what's happening to me, I don't feel like her anymore, I don't—"

"Shhh," Richard soothed, leaning down to kiss him, slow and deep and devastating. "I know exactly what's happening to you."

He kissed Brett's throat, above the choker. He kissed his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

"You," Richard whispered against Brett's lips, his hands still cradling Brett's hips, holding him steady, "are finally telling the truth."

Brett sobbed once, hard, and arched up into him, his hands flying to Richard's shoulders, holding on like a lifeline.

"Please," Brett begged, his voice wrecked and raw and completely male. "Don't stop."

Richard smiled, slow and victorious and true alpha to his core, and lowered his mouth to Brett's again as the blackout curtains kept the Montana night at bay and the clock ticked down on the twenty-one hours Brett had left to become someone new.

Outside the penthouse, the lake was still. Inside, Brett Sullivan was finally, terrifyingly, awake.…