“Yeah?”
“Yeah, don't stop, don't you dare slow down, Raf, I swear to god.”
I tightened my fist and moved my hand faster and told myself I was just trying to get this over with, just trying to end this, and knew that was a lie. My cock was pulsing with my heartbeat, slick and aching, and the pre-come had gone cold on my knuckles and I didn't care, couldn't care, was too far gone to care about anything except the scene through that door.
Troy's spine curved. His head came up off the pillow, neck arched back.
“Fuck, fuck, yeah, right there, don't stop, don't?—”
He came with a sound that bounced off the walls of that small room, loud and open and completely unguarded, his whole body going rigid against the rope while Rafael worked him through it. I watched the shudder roll through him from hips to shoulders, watched his mouth stay open and his eyes squeeze shut, watched his hands flex and pull uselessly against the rope while he spilled over Rafael's fist and onto the sheets.
“There it is,” Rafael said, low and rough. “Good. Stay with me.”
Troy made a wrecked sound against the pillow. “Still going?”
“Yeah.” Rafael's rhythm hadn't faltered, still driving into Troy's oversensitive body. “Almost there. You can take it.”
“I know I can take it,” Troy said, which would have sounded more defiant if his voice hadn't completely come apart. “Come on then. Do it.”
Rafael let go of Troy's cock and put both hands on his hips and the change in grip, in angle, in intent was visible even from the hallway. He drove forward three times in quick succession that rattled the entire bed frame and then ground in deep and stayed there, and the sound that came out of him was low and guttural and genuine, the sound of a man completely undone, and I could see him shuddering through it just from watching.
I came.
It hit me with no warning and no grace, just a wave that started at the base of my spine and crashed through everything, and I drove my teeth into the back of my wrist hard enough to bruise and came over my own hand in the hallway outside my stepson's door, shaking, vision gone white and useless at the edges, completely and irreversibly lost.
The orgasm lasted longer than it had any right to. I stood there biting my own wrist and leaking through my fingers and trying not to make a sound while the thing inside me that had been wound tight for days and weeks and maybe longer than that finally, brutally let go. Wave after wave of it, my cock pulsing in my hand, come running down my knuckles and dripping onto the floor, and I couldn't stop, couldn't control it, could only ride it out while my body took what it wanted.
When I could see again, Rafael had his forehead pressed between Troy's shoulder blades. Troy's arms had gone slack in the rope. Neither of them was moving, both of them breathing hard.
“Untie me,” Troy said finally. His voice had gone soft and raw, almost unrecognizable.
Rafael reached up and pulled the knot loose with practiced hands, unwound the rope with care, ran his thumbs along Troy's wrists where it had sat and left red marks. Troy turned over slowly and looked up at him and passed between them that I had no right to witness, quiet and unguarded, and I pushed off the wall before I could see what it was.
I walked to my room on shaking legs. Sat on the edge of my bed in the dark with my ruined hand in my lap and the sound of Troy's voice still lodged somewhere behind my sternum, still hearing those desperate broken sounds he'd made, still seeing the way he'd looked with his wrists bound and his face pressed into the pillow.
I sat there for a long time. Just breathing. Just existing in the aftermath. Just trying to figure out how the fuck I was supposed to look at him tomorrow morning and pretend this hadn't happened.
THIRTEEN
HEAT WAVE
DECLAN
Iwent to the gym because I couldn't stay in that house another minute without losing my mind.
The weights felt good in my hands. I pushed harder than I needed to, adding weight until my arms shook and my shoulders screamed, until the only thing that existed was the physical effort of moving metal from point A to point B.
I was halfway through my third set when I heard the door open behind me.
I didn't turn around. I didn't need to. I could feel his presence before I heard his footsteps, that particular awareness I'd developed over the past few weeks that told me exactly when Troy was in a room.
“Didn't know you came here,” Troy said.
I set the weights down and grabbed my towel, wiping sweat off my face before I turned to look at him. He was wearing gym shorts and a tank top that showed off arms I'd been trying not to notice, his hair still damp like he'd just showered.
“I come here when I need space.”
“Space from what?”
