Page 117 of The Lost Art of Finding Where You Belong

Brannal huffed an amused breath. “Yes, fortunately, the structural integrity of the castle is not one of my responsibilities. Now, how about you open this.”

Brannal produced another gift.

“But you already gave me one!” Perian exclaimed.

“That was yesterday’s. This is today’s.”

Perian took it, the shape and weight of it suggesting it was a book, though it was both longer and wider than a standard-sized tome.

“You know you don’t have to get me anything, right?”

“I want to,” Brannal said, expression so earnest that Perian couldn’t even imagine denying him. So he flashed the man a grin.

“You’re spoiling me.”

“I want to do that, too,” Brannal said happily. “And I think you’ll like this.”

It wasn’t until he’d unwrapped it and opened the book that he realized what that extra gleam in Brannal’s eyes had been for.

“They put this inbooks?” he asked incredulously.

Brannal grinned at him. “They certainly do, if you know where to find them.”

It was a book all about sex between men, and it waslavishlyillustrated. Perian had seen the occasional painting or drawing in a house of pleasure, but nothing like the entirety of this book, which was graphic but somehow still sort of tasteful? It seemed like it was meant to educate, not just titillate.

Perian was already hard, and he squirmed a little.

Brannal said, “I thought we might like to look at it together, pick out something we’d like to do.”

Perian grinned at him. “That sounds like the best idea.”

So while the bath was prepared for them, he and Brannal looked through the book together, stopping on most of the drawings, giggling a little more than was probably sensible, and occasionally debating whether something was actually possible or not. They decided they were going to have to try most of the positions out themselves, just to see.

“We could always work through them one by one,” Brannal said.

Perian eyed the big book and grinned at the man. “I like the way you think.”

Brannal said, “But since it’s your gift, how about you pick the one for us to start with?”

Perian stared at the book, flipping idly between a few of the pages. “There are so many to choose from.”

Brannal kissed the side of his head. “And we’ll have more opportunities to enjoy all the rest of them later. You don’t have to pick the very best. I expect it would take us rather a lot of experimentation before we can declare if there is an actual winner in there.”

Perian eyed the book and then Brannal, his face creasing into a grin. “Oh, are we going to rank them?”

Brannal eyed him back. “Well, we have to now! What are our criteria?”

They settled on a ten-point scale and rankings on level of pleasure, desire to repeat, and level of ease or ability to achieve.

Brannal wanted them to each rank and then compare answers, but Perian insisted they needed to come to their answers together.

“I don’t care if it was a 25 out of 10 in pleasure for me if you didn’t like it,” he asserted. “Together, or it’s not worth doing.”

Brannal’s eyes softened, and he kissed Perian gently on the lips. “Together.”

The bath was ready by then, so they put their position decision on hold to enjoy the hot water.

Brannal scrubbed Perian’s back clean first, and then they cleaned off their bodies and faces before settling back against one another. Perian squirmed happily back against the other man’s cock.

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