“If you’d pissed me off, you’d know about it.” Nero turned back to the stacked oven cloths he’d clearly been sorting when Lenny had barged into him. “I’m just tired, mate. Got a lot on.”
Lenny didn’t buy it, but he’d been around Nero enough to know there was little he could do to ease the set of his jaw. Sighing, he went to his locker and stripped off his chef jacket, and the thin white T-shirt he wore underneath. He usually went into the cubicle to change his trousers, but Nero’s glowering presence behind him made him feel reckless.
He dropped his chef trousers and bent to retrieve them from the floor. Nero slammed the washing machine shut. Lenny heard the door close, and disappointment bloomed in his belly. He wasn’t quite sure what reaction he’d hoped for, but Nero walking out on him was like a kick to the chest. Loser. What the fuck did you expect? That he’d fall for your great seduction and—
“Fuck this.”
Lenny’s chest hit the lockers, his nipple ring clanging against the cool metal. He snatched a breath, but Nero stole whatever words he might’ve had by yanking his head back, claiming his mouth in a searing kiss. Jesus. Lenny’s pulse jumped, and his dick hardened. He deepened the kiss, dragging his teeth over Nero’s lips, and tried to turn, but Nero held firm, kissing him over and over until Lenny’s head spun from lack of oxygen.
Nero broke away, holding Lenny’s fist against his chest. He glared down at Lenny, his eyes a perfect storm of lava and ice, then seized Lenny again, shoving him in the direction of the cubicle.
Inside, he kicked the door shut. Locked it. Lenny swallowed. Something was brewing in Nero’s chaotic gaze, but the danger was hard to gauge. Did Nero need Lenny to match his fire with an inferno of his own? Or was he on a precipice he desperately needed Lenny to pull him back from?
“Nero—”
“Don’t.” Nero shook his head. “I don’t want to fucking talk.”
Of course he didn’t, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need to. Or did it? As Lenny stared at Nero, losing himself in his molten eyes, he had no idea. I never know what he needs.
The realisation stung. Nero had fast become Lenny’s best friend—his only real friend—but what had Lenny done for him?
Fuck all, except inconvenience him and eat him out of house and home.
The guilt in Lenny’s veins burned, but, like he’d read Lenny’s mind, Nero shook his head, his message clear. I don’t want to talk.
Well, fine. There were other ways of communicating. Lenny wrenched himself from Nero’s grip and shoved him square in the chest, walking Nero backward until their positions were reversed. Nero tensed, like he was bracing himself for the same bruising kiss he’d claimed from Lenny, but Lenny’s hands on his face were gentle, his lips light, and the slide of his tongue easy, like the summer drizzle glittering the windows.
Nero’s tall frame melted slack against the wall behind him. Lenny moved closer, wrapped his fingers around the base of Nero’s skull, and kneaded the last of the tension away. “There you go,” he whispered. “You don’t have to fight me for it. It’s yours, whenever you want.”
“It is, or you are?”
“I am, Nero. What do you want? What do you need?”
The fire in Nero’s eyes reignited. He licked his lips, and lowered them to Lenny’s ear. “I want to suck your dick.”
Lenny had expected silence. He shivered and breathed deeply, inhaling Nero’s warm, spicy scent. “You wanna get on your knees for me? Now? In here?”
“That a problem?”
As if. Lenny had dreamed of this ever since Nero had confessed his desire to bottom, and in moments like this, fucking Nero wasn’t so hard to imagine. He wants this.
Lenny backed away and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear. He inched them slowly down his hips, giving Nero time to change his mind. But it didn’t happen. Nero’s hands replaced his and stripped him bare, and Lenny sucked in a breath that seared his lungs. They’d been naked together before, but in the cramped cubicle Lenny had never felt more exposed.
Nero dropped to his knees and took Lenny’s cock in his mouth like he’d done it a thousand times before.
“Fuck!” Lenny shoved his fist in his mouth and his knees buckled, his balance saved only by Nero’s unyielding grip on his thighs. He gazed down. The sight of Nero kneeling between his legs didn’t quite match up with the man who’d shoved him face-first against the lockers, but as Nero took Lenny’s dick deep down his throat, Lenny didn’t much care. Nero Fierro was a perfect contradiction, he had to be, or Lenny was fucking dreaming, and the premature release rushing mercilessly through his veins belonged to someone else.
He leaned forward, bracing himself on the wall, and fucked Nero’s mouth, gently at first, but then harder as Nero opened his throat and tilted his head, submitting in a way that Lenny couldn’t quite believe. “Why do you like this so much? What does it give you?”
In answer, Nero took his hands from Lenny’s thighs and placed them behind his own back, clasping his fingers together. He pulled his mouth from Lenny’s cock. “Like this, with you . . . I feel safe.”
Oh, Nero. Lenny cupped his chin, catching a bead of moisture from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. No sensible reply came to him, so he tapped Nero’s lips with his cock and slid back in. A heartbeat later, he came hard in Nero’s mouth, but he didn’t linger in the heated bliss. He withdrew and yanked on Nero’s shoulders, tugging him to his feet and throwing himself at him, almost tumbling Nero back to the floor. “You are safe with me, Nero. I promise. For as long as you want to be.”
Nero’s only answer was a crushing embrace. Lenny pressed his face against Nero’s chest and tried to count the beats of his racing heart. What the fuck had just happened? Nero was his rock, his port in the storm. How had he not seen that Nero needed sanctuary too?
Lenny rolled over for the millionth time, torn between having the warmth of Nero behind him, and the compulsion to stare at him while he slept, rubbing his palm over Nero’s short hair, and gently scraping his fingertips through the dark beard. Even the pad of his thumb found entertainment in Nero’s beautiful cheekbones.
But the frown marring Nero’s face as he slept was hard to take, so Lenny turned his back on it over and over until he gave himself whiplash and settled for lying on his stomach, searching for solace in Nero’s hypnotic breathing.
