Noah’s head started to tip back automatically. He forced himself to look down at Benji instead. His boy loved it when Noah watched him while he sucked him. Sometimes Noah thought that he could get Benji off just by looking at him.
Benji stilled. He blinked up at Noah, eyes huge and wet.
Noah’s chest flooded with huge, impossible fondness.
“You’re so goddamn perfect,” Noah told him as he started to thrust. “Like you were made for me. Made to take me, takeallof me. That’s what you want, huh? Every single inch. Wanna be covered in me, want me to hold you down.”
Benji moaned around his cock, tears spilling down his cheeks. His eyelids fluttered. His hands stayed clenched against his own thighs, not touching his tented jeans. Noah didn’t even have to tell him anymore.
“Being so fucking good,” Noah breathed, hips stuttering. He slowed down, wanting to draw it out. Really give Benji time to sink into that magical headspace, make him all lax and floppy, no barriers between Noah and his sweet, vulnerable boy. Just Benji, raw and lovely. Sucking when Noah told him to suck. Going lax when Noah instructed. Tipping his head up so Noah could run his fingers over the swell in his throat, shaking with the effort of holding his breath.
“Gonna come,” Noah said finally. “Lie down for me, baby. Wanna do it all over your pretty chest.”
Benji whined as he pulled off. He lay back against the floorboards, flushed all the way down to his nipples. His eyes were glazed, staring at Noah’s cock with unabashed longing as Noah came in long, thick stripes all over his torso.
Noah knelt down, legs shaking. He ran a finger through the come collecting in Benji’s belly button and dipped it into Benji’sopen mouth, his softening cock giving a weak jerk when Benji sucked the liquid off.
“Perfect,” Noah managed. “You want to come?”
Benji paused. Then he shook his head.Not yet.
“Alright. Ready for a bath, baby?”
Benji nodded, turning his cheek into Noah’s palm.
Noah lifted him into his arms. Benji pillowed his cheek on Noah’s shirt, turning his face to mouth something into the fabric. He did it sometimes when he thought Noah wasn’t looking—not a word anymore, barely a breath.
Thank you, Benji mouthed.
Noah held him closer, the fondness in his chest threatening to spill over.
He was going to keep this boy if it took everything he had.
CHAPTER 14
“Nobody’s going to say anything,” Daphne whispered as they stood outside Mr. Jervais’s classroom two minutes after class started. “You know how it is. Gossip is fun for a day, then it fades.”
She sounded far too confident. Benji had a sneaking suspicion she’d already told everybody to keep quiet about it. He just hoped that everybody liked her enough to go along with it.
“You’ll be fine,” she assured him. She took a sip of her coffee, and her expression soured. “Ew. They used normal milk again. Do you want this?”
“No,” Benji said, whose stomach had been churning since he climbed out of his car to pay the exorbitant campus parking fees. “Let’s get this over with.”
He slunk into class, trying to conjure up that feeling of transcendent calm from last night. He’d been floating for what felt like hours—first on his knees, then when Noah carried him to the bath. The water had cooled by the time Noah took him to bed.
There was still a hint of it. A thin layer of calm that made everything more manageable. But the panic was still right there underneath, waiting to burst through. Especially when all eyesturned to watch him take his usual seat in the circle. Including Mr. Jervais, who trailed off when everybody turned.
Benji kept his gaze trained on the blank paper poised on his easel. He could feel Dillion’s beady eyes drilling into him across the circle.
A girl turned to whisper to the girl next to her.
Daphne coughed neatly into her fist.
The girl went red and leaned back in her seat.
“As I was saying,” Mr. Jervais said, turning back to the PowerPoint shining on the whiteboard. “I’m not telling anybody what to do. I’m not a cop. But any art that I give even half a shit about has required something genuine from the maker. Some shred of sincerity. You’re welcome to make whatever you think will make money or make your family happy. Feel free to embrace whatever half-hearted, sensible art that takes no risks and doesn’t upset anybody. But that’s not what resonates. It won’t fill you up.”
Benji squirmed in his seat. He’d been stressing over that all day yesterday. Every time his paintbrush touched the canvas, he was plagued by visions of people looking at it andknowing. Knowing every embarrassing, tender thing Noah had pried out of his chest. How much he craved Noah’s hands and his gaze and his laugh. How thoroughly Noah had undone him. That shit was private. Nobody should know. And yet whenever he got inspired, it was all about Noah. It didn’t matter that Daphne told him he was overreacting, that it was just a painting of pasta, of someone chopping a tomato—Benjiknew. Letting anyone see them felt like offering up a piece of his heart. It was so much easier when he was drawing dark, abstract shit no one could interpret. This was so much easier to see through. Noah had made him so fuckingeasy.
