“I’m coming.” Ben arched off the bed, their chests connecting and mouths coming even closer together. Thomas held his stare, eyes hooded as they scanned the depths of Ben’s eyes. It was the most serious look Thomas had ever given him, the most intimate thing they’d ever done, and Ben whimpered, a gentle cry against Thomas’s mouth as his balls emptied onto his stomach.
“You’re so gorgeous.” Thomas brushed his hair back from his face, hips finally faltering as his cock thickened and swelled at the onset of his orgasm. “Your body. Your…”
Thomas didn’t finish his thought, the words falling off into a long and low groan as he came. In that moment, Ben also wanted to know what it would feel like for Thomas to come inside of him with no barriers between them. But how absurd, to take Thomas’s seed into his body and not his spit.
“Thomas,” he whispered, tilting his head back. He slid his hands around Thomas’s ass and pulled him deeper, wrapping his legs around the small of his back and holding him in. In the quiet of the room, he could hear their breathing, nearly in sync, and the gentle hum of the massager still buzzing against Thomas’s prostate.
“Thomas,” he said again, ready to ask permission, but Thomas beat him to the punch.
“It was a stupid rule.”
“What?”
Ben barely had time to get the word out before Thomas closed the space between them, slanting their mouths together. He didn’t use any tongue; instead the kiss was a gentle press of parted lips and shared breath. It was enough to wring the last of Ben’s orgasm out of his body, and he trembled, tightening his arms and legs around Thomas. He wanted more. More of the kiss, more of his body, more than just friends, but…
But.
He took what he was given, their breaths falling completely in time with each other the longer their mouths were connected. Ben shifted, puckering and ending the kiss only to press his lips against the corner of Thomas’s mouth. It wasn’t even close to how much he wanted, but how did you ask a stranger for everything? It was enough for now and as far as first kisses went, it would always be his best.
“Are you okay?” Thomas asked, cock still pulsing inside of Ben’s body.
“I should ask you.” He couldn’t stop himself from peppering a flurry of kisses against Thomas’s mouth. He didn’t know if he would get another chance.
“That felt…that wasn’t anything like I expected.”
“The kiss?” he asked.
“The kiss. All of it.”
Ben reluctantly let his legs slide away and Thomas pulled out of him with a frown. On his knees, Thomas pulled off the condom and knotted it in the middle, throwing it into a small trash can beneath the nightstand. He reached behind him and pressed the power button on the plug before drawing it out with a comparable wince. Thomas dropped the toy onto the floor and shouldered Ben out of the center of the bed, then lay down beside him.
“Are you okay?” Thomas asked again.
Ben turned his head to the side, giving himself the space to study the sweaty dips and lines of Thomas’s body. He reached out and traced his finger in a delicate circle over one of Thomas’s nipples. Thomas shuddered and reached down, snatching Ben’s hand away from his chest and kissing his fingers before dropping both of their hands back down to the bed.
No, Ben thought to himself, he wasn’t okay at all.
CHAPTER14
THOMAS
It had been two weeks,and Thomas was having no luck getting Ben to nail down a time to get together again. They’d exchanged some text messages, but Ben had been just shy of dismissive and Thomas worried he’d done something wrong the last time they were together.
On a warm Friday night, Thomas surveyed his apartment, wondering if maybe the fault lay in his decorations. Had his decor inadvertently revealed something about him that he wasn’t ready to share or had Ben read into something that wasn’t there? Had their talk about getting tested and foregoing condoms been too much?
He worried that was the case.
Even in the few weeks they’d been…doing whatever they were doing together…the nature of their relationship had changed a lot. What started as a one night stand had turned into an ongoing—and exclusive—hookup and then into something more like friends with benefits? Thomas knew his feelings toward Ben went far beyond friendly, but he also knew that Ben was freshly out of a bad relationship and he wasn’t looking for anything more committed than what they already had. And, honestly, Thomas was still legally married, even if for all intents and purposes it was over, so he had no right trying to get into a relationship with anyone.
Ben had wanted a rebound and Thomas was fine for that to be him. In a sense, Ben was kind of like a rebound for him as well, if you counted him rebounding from an entire life that didn’t mean anything close to what it used to.
None of that changed the fact it was a Friday night and Ben was blowing him off, and he was utterly bored. Thomas hadn’t been great about keeping up with his friends as the divorce with Jennifer progressed, and he debated how horrible it would be to reach out to one of them now. The divorce had made things weird, considering most of his friends were part of his and Jennifer’s couple friends. He’d expected that people would want to pick sides, but he hadn’t expected it to be so jarring to lose as many as he had.
He decided Friday night wasn’t the best time to try and reconnect with old friends and instead decided to go treat himself to a cup of gelato at the shop Ben had taken him to down the street. He definitely wasn’t hoping to run into Ben, and genuinely didn’t even know what he would say if he did. Thomas just wanted out of the house and the gelato shop was the first place he thought to go. He checked his phone one last time for any messages from Ben, watered his plants, and locked his apartment.
Thomas was half a block away from the gelato shop when he heard a laugh he immediately recognized. He debated turning back before Ben saw him, but it was already too late. Ben turned, head thrown back in a laugh as he reached across the table and smacked the arm of the woman he was with. Was Ben on a date? Was that why he’d been avoiding Thomas?
When Ben saw him, his face fell and he turned to his friend and whispered something. The woman looked over his shoulder toward Thomas, a curious expression on her face. That was enough for him. He turned to go, but Ben called after him, and against his better judgement, he stopped. Ben’s footfalls grew louder against the sidewalk until he was so close Thomas could smell him.
