“Walk me through it,” Noah instructed.
Benji blew out a shaky breath. “I’ve been feeling weird all day. I thought it was just stress, but then it started feeling like I need—Ineed…” He reached down to cover his groin, feeling the shape of the plastic through his marvelously soft clothes.
Noah covered his hand. “You need to come, baby?”
“No,” Benji barked, his eyes filling with infuriated and completely unfounded tears. “Yes? Fuck, I’m just freaking out. I don’t get why this is happening now. It’s half anhour! We have the world’s shortest ceremony, we do a little dance, and then we leave, and you fuck me however you want!”
“Or—” Noah suggested, rubbing Benji’s caged cock through his pants. “I can make you come. Now. Something quick to take the edge off.”
“Fucking fuck,” Benji spat. His hips jerked into Noah’s touch, and for a moment, the urge was so strong it blinded him. Then he remembered the month of build-up, the pride in Noah’s eyes when he confirmed he was still wearing the cage, the bone-deep satisfaction of knowing he was doing as he was told. He was in the home stretch; he wouldn’t ruin it now.
“No, I can do it. I can do it, okay?” Benji pulled Noah’s hand away and pressed it to his face, nuzzling his palm. “Just… give me something to focus on. Tell me what our life’s going to be like.”
Noah kissed his forehead. “You’re going to keep painting. You’re going to go to art galleries full of your pieces, get me to make small talk you hate, and then I’ll take you home and fuck you until all the stress leaves your body. You’re going to graduate. Treat Daphne to trips. Buy Max a car when he turns sixteen. And you’re going to wake up next to me every morning for the rest of our lives.”
Benji breathed out shakily. “Tell me I can take it.”
“You can take it,” Noah said. He gripped Benji’s chin, pulling his gaze up to him. “Hey. You can take it, baby. Because I told you to.”
“Thank you,” Benji whispered.
Noah ran a hand through Benji’s artfully styled curls and pulled him close, resting their foreheads together. For a moment, they just stood there, breathing until Benji’s panicked breaths slowed and became even.
Then Noah pulled back and kissed Benji’s chin. “I have a surprise for you.”
Benji blinked up at him, surprise immediately turning to suspicion. “What? Since when?”
“I was going to leave it until after the ceremony,” Noah admitted. “But I suppose there’s no time like the present.”
Benji followed Noah to a room across the hall.
Noah opened the door and motioned for Benji to walk inside. His expression betrayed nothing. Actually, it was so blank it was freaking Benji out.
Benji stepped into the room, keeping his suspicious gaze on Noah.
“You’re being super weird,” he told his fiancé. “This better be…”
He looked up. The words froze in his throat, trailing into nothing.
It was another dressing room. Chet and Dillion knelt in the middle of the carpet. Their heads were bowed, their hands resting in their laps.
Michael stood next to them, shifting from foot to foot. He looked better than he had the last time Benji saw him. No visible hangover, his hair and clothes clean. Not like Chet and Dillion, whose clothes were scuffed. Dillion’s face was bruised. The kneeling men’s wrists were marked, as if they had been restrained before Benji walked in.
Benji stared at them, shocked into silence. His mind whirled with questions. What the fuck had Noah done? Why was Michael looking at Benji like he wanted his approval? Why the hell did Noah think this was an appropriate wedding gift, and most importantly, why did it feel soright?
“What the fuck,” Benji said weakly.
Noah stepped into place beside him. His arms were folded, and he surveyed the scene as though there was nothing out of place. Like finding these men bruised and kneeling was the natural order of things.
“Boys,” he said, and his dismissive tone made Benji shiver. Noah had never once spoken to him like that.
Chet and Dillion spoke over each other. “We’re sorry,” they said haltingly, out of sync, as if they hadn’t rehearsed enough. “We won’t bother you again.”
They stared up at Benji as they said it. Then their gazes flickered over to Noah, as if wondering if this was convincing enough.
“Don’t look at me,” Noah said, fixing his cufflinks. “I’m not the one you’re apologizing to.”
The men’s gaze snapped back to Benji. There was still some resentment there, especially in Dillion’s expression, but mostly it was pure pleading.
