This was still something new to them, new to Thomas, and in that moment it was maybe more important than it had been the first time they did it. In Thomas’s eyes, the promise and the love were clear as day. How had Ben ever walked away from him? He traced his finger over the place where their bodies joined, drawing another shiver out of Thomas’s already unsteady form.
Ben’s lashes fluttered when he bottomed out, cock pulsing with the need to thrust. He started to move, slow at first and then faster, fucking into Thomas until the cum inside of his own ass leaked out, slicking down his balls and his thighs. He grunted, hips snapping forward, hands roaming freely over Thomas’s body.
“I’m sorry I left,” he murmured, climbing onto the bed and forcing himself deeper into Thomas’s body. Thomas shook his head, and Ben arranged himself against the headboard, hauling Thomas into a seated position on his lap. Thomas lowered himself around Ben’s dick, head lolling back as he took the whole length of him at the new angle.
“Don’t do it again,” Thomas whispered.
“I won’t.” He gripped Thomas’s waist and encouraged him up, then down, until he figured out the rhythm. He moved his hands again, tweaking Thomas’s nipples and feeling his pulse strum like wildfire against his throat.
“Benjamin.”
“I won’t.”
Thomas finally found a pace, and Ben grunted, not ready to come, not ready for it to be over. But Thomas’s body wouldn’t allow him more, the tight heat of his hole clamped down, forcing him over the edge. Ben came with a strangled groan, fingers fisting into Thomas’s hair and scrabbling at his sweaty shoulders, trying to bring himself deeper, feeling Thomas in every way he could manage.
His head fell forward and he held Thomas tight, his cock spurting and emptying with furious pulses that left him feeling empty and boneless. Ben’s vision went white, and then he felt Thomas’s hands on him, his mouth, his sweat. The hot slide of Thomas’s tongue against the seam of his lips, begging for him to open up and let him in.
Ben took them both down to the sheets, now wrecked with sweat and cum, and he kissed Thomas until his cock went soft and slipped free of the other man’s body. He kissed him until they were both hard again, deep and languid swipes of the tongue that turned to spit-soaked mouths and clashing teeth, and then back to peppered pecks across his face again.
“What happens now?” Thomas asked, lying beside him long after Ben’s mouth had turned sore from the kissing. Outside the window, the sky was pitch black, and Ben kicked the blankets off the bed so they were on the clean fitted sheet.
“You mean we can’t pretend your son isn’t my ex?” As much as he wished that future could be possible, he’d known even when he chased after Thomas earlier in the night that it wasn’t. And that had been a huge part of what kept him away over the past two weeks too. Sometimes, it felt like it was too much for them both to reconcile. That Thomas raised the man who had done so much damage to Ben’s mental health, and, at the end of the day, that Ben had slept with both fatherandson. Never mind it wasn’t intentional, and if he’d known Thomas was Cody’s dad, he would have sent him away the first night he’d shown up on his doormat.
Life had dealt them a messy hand, and it was up to them now how to rebound from the harm it had caused them both.
“I don’t think so.” Thomas gave him a soft laugh that sent gooseflesh up his arms. He rolled onto his side and wrapped his arm over Thomas’s waist. His skin had turned cold from the sweat and he moaned, pressing back into Ben’s hand.
“I think the guilt is going to be here awhile,” he said. “I hate that. For both of us. But I love you and the guilt isn’t enough to keep me away from you any longer.”
Things with Thomas felt more solid and less certain simultaneously. But maybe that was what his other relationships had been lacking. It wasn’t to say Ben wasn’t bright-eyed about what the future could look like, but his eyes were open for what felt like the first time. He wasn’t looking at the road ahead of him with rose-colored glasses. He saw the world for what it was, saw Thomas forwhohe was. And he’d never wanted anyone more. The self-assured way Thomas handled himself in all things, in and out of the bedroom, was one of the things that had first drawn Ben to him, and now in the aftermath of the hottest sex he’d ever had, it was what brought him back around.
He trailed his hands up Thomas’s sides, counting his ribs before swooping down around his pecs and up his sternum. Thomas craned his head back, letting Ben’s hand collar his throat, the length of his fingers pressing up on the underside of Thomas’s chin. He dragged his thumb across Thomas’s kiss-swollen mouth, wincing with a surprised groan of pleasure when Thomas took his thumb between his teeth and bit down. He dug his fingers in, pulling his thumb free and continuing along, twisting his hand up and over, feeling the sharp cut of Thomas’s cheekbones and the swell of his brow. He traced his fingertips over the dark hair before leaning in and leaving the gentlest kiss as the corner of his mouth.
“Never let me leave you again,” he said. “Unless it’s the last time.”
Thomas shook his head, eyes falling closed so his lashes fanned out across the cheeks Ben had just caressed. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Promise me,” he pleaded, voice quiet as the night.
“I’m too old to make you promises of a long future.” Thomas’s mouth tightened into a sad kind of half-smile, but he opened his eyes and held Ben’s stare with a gaze full of hope and honestly. “But I can promise you today. I can promise you right now. And I promise I won’t let you leave me today, if that’s enough for you.”
Ben’s heart twisted in his chest, tight and soft and too big all at the same time.
“Is it enough for you?” he asked.
“For today.”
Ben nodded, and Thomas kissed him one more time.
CHAPTER30
THOMAS
The freshly cutkey to his apartment had been burning a hole in his pocket for six days. He had every intention to give it to Ben, to try and be casual about it, but wheneverhefelt ready, thetimefelt wrong. So he kept it with him, every day things between the two of them growing stronger, their connection going deeper. But both of them needed to go back to work, forcing a new routine to develop. With phone calls and sleepovers and intimacy that lasted late into the night, Thomas was afforded the opportunity to truly get to know Ben, and to show himself in return.
The weekend rolled around, and Thomas woke early on Saturday morning, burying his face against the back of Ben’s neck and dropping kisses against his hairline until Ben woke up.
“You can’t be serious,” Ben murmured, reaching behind him and pushing Thomas’s face harder against him.
