“Go, baby, please move,” Benji said on a whine. “Want to feel you.” He needed to know for sure Joshua was his. Needed to be claimed by his boyfriend and partner.
“Christ.” Joshua’s hips slammed against Benji’s ass, and Benji swallowed a cry. Both hands on Benji’s hips now, Joshua set a brutal pace that would have sent the headboard slamming had it not already been bolted to the wall. The mattress bounced, and Benji held on.
He fell into the sensations battering his body, from the thick slide of Joshua’s cock to the burn in his own thighs as he stayed braced on his knees. His fingers ached from being twisted in the coverlet, but he couldn’t let go. His soft tackle slapped against his lower abdomen with each hard thrust of Joshua’s hips. The desperate, needy sounds ripping from Joshua’s throat was the most beautiful kind of music.
“Close,” Joshua gasped. “Fuck!”
He pushed in deep and held tight, his dick pulsing his release. Joshua dropped kisses to the back of Benji’s neck and top of his spine as he came down off the high of his orgasm. Too soon and not fast enough, Joshua pulled out, and Benji flopped onto his side, limbs trembling, heart pounding. Joshua turnedhim onto his back and smothered him with kisses all over his mouth and face, his neck and chest. Working his way lower.
A hand clasped Benji’s dick, stroking gently, waking him back up. Benji let Joshua play, a little worried the ache in his backside would keep him from getting hard—he did not need Joshua feeling guilty over that. But Joshua knew how to play Benji’s body, and soon his hot mouth engulfed Benji’s fresh erection.
Benji cried out at the stimulation, at once too much and not enough. Fingers squeezed and caressed his balls with their expert touch. His blood hummed, heated, and when he began thrusting his hips, Joshua held still and let Benji take his own pleasure by fucking deep into his throat. Submitting to his partner.
“Joshua!” It was all the warning he could manage before erupting deep in Joshua’s throat. Joshua milked him through it, licking up every stray drop that escaped, and then set about licking Benji’s balls for fun until Benji begged him to stop.
Joshua kissed the tip of his softening dick, and then began those long, slow kisses back up Benji’s belly, his chest, his shoulder, and throat. He pressed his body down on Benji’s, and Benji raised his legs to cradle Joshua between his thighs. They fit so perfectly together, and they’d almost lost this.
Grief squeezed his throat, and Benji tried to hide it behind a kiss. Joshua, damn him, knew him too fucking well to be fooled. He pulled back and cupped Benji’s cheek with a damp hand, his dark eyes curious. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Benji swallowed hard. “So grateful to still have you.”
“Me too.” Joshua closed his eyes and pressed their foreheads together, and for a while, they simply breathed each other in.
Until Benji’s hip started to cramp, and Joshua expressed the urgent need to pee. They both laughed as they untangledthemselves, and then went into the bathroom together to clean up. Benji hopped in the shower again, because no way was he meeting up with his band smelling like ass. Joshua joined him a moment later, and Benji surrendered to his boyfriend’s need to keep touching him. Allowing Joshua to soap up a washcloth and thoroughly clean, then rinse him off. The attentiveness Joshua always showed him after sex, the aftercare even when things never went farther than rubbing off, never stopped amazing him.
And every single time, it made Benji love Joshua a little bit more.
NINE
For the firstweek after walking out of that hotel room, Van spent half his time at Off Beat checking the crowd for Joshua. It kind of pissed him off—not that he never saw Joshua, but that he was looking at all. Van didn’tdo that.He didn’t look up and hope that the next bronze-skinned, dark-haired hottie would be the one he’d walked away from. He didn’t spend his nights wondering how awesome a three-way with Joshua and Benji might have been.
Nope. Not Van Fucking Holt.
He didn’t fuckingpinefor other people.
Not that he was pining. Hell to the no on that shit.
Except he kind of was.
The first time Melody asked him about his impromptu overnight trip to Virginia Beach, he’d snapped hard enough for her to drop it. Then he’d felt awful for being such an asshole and bought her the yellow floral sundress she’d been eyeing. As an apology, it worked. He still didn’t want to talk about it, and neither Emmett nor Lincoln brought it up at work.
And it wasn’t as if his newfound obsession messed with his job performance, exactly. Maybe he flirted a little less, and hewasn’t as attentive to his customers as he should have been, but he still made decent tips, and no one complained.
Didn’t stop Beatrice from cornering him in the staff break room before he went on shift the following Saturday night, though. A tall and busty woman with thick, curly hair, she easily kept him penned near the lockers.
“Okay, what’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Nothing’s wrong.” No one else was around, but he still felt obligated to whisper, despite her speaking at regular volume.
“Don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. For the last four years you’ve been a cocky, walking erection in this place, so who’s this sad, flaccid guy tending my bar?” She always did have a way with words.
“I’m fine, Bea.”
“How’s your blood pressure?”
“Steady, okay? It’s not my damned heart.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, probably trying to decide if he was lying or not. Beatrice knew all about his battles with hypertension and adult-onset diabetes in his early twenties, brought on by poor health and a pitiful diet thanks to his existence as a professional, penniless hobo. She also knew he was one bad decision away from a goddamn heart attack, which was why he ate well, did yoga, meditated, and only drank on rare occasions. He’d told her all about it when she’d hired him almost five years ago. She’d respected his honesty and the hard battles he’d won with his health. So, yeah, a little mothering wasn’t unexpected if she even remotely thought he was off his game.
