“Yes. There. That’s almost — that’s close to normal.”
“Really?” He almost chokes on the word. “Close to normal?”
“Benji.”
He looks up at me from where he’s kneeling between my legs. His hands are on my thighs. His face is wet and he’s not trying to hide it anymore. He’s given up on trying to be smooth. He’s just here, open with me, exactly who he is.
“I can feel your hands on my legs,” I say. “I can feel you touch me.”
He makes a sound that starts as a laugh and breaks into a sob. He drops his head and presses his face against my thigh and his shoulders shake, and I feel the warmth of his tears falling on my skin.
I feel his tears.
“I can feel that too. Just so you know.”
He laughs against my leg, wet and broken. “You can feel me crying on you? That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
He lifts his head. His face is a disaster. Flushed, his eyes swollen, his nose running, and he is so breathtakingly beautiful to me. Benji showed up at my worst time and he stayed. Now he’s kneeling between my legs crying because my nervous system decided to come back from the dead.
“Come back up here,” I say.
He crawls up the bed and I pull him in. He presses his face into my neck and I hold him, his breathing ragged and uneven against my throat. We stay like that long enough for his breathing to calm down.
He pulls back and looks at me. He wipes his face with the back of his hand and the gesture is so unselfconscious, so completely Benji, that it makes my heart ache.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m done crying now, I swear. That was my one breakdown for the night and it’s over. Now I’m going to put my mouth on you and I’m going to be very sexy about it.”
“Take your time. It’s not a race. We’ve got all night.”
“I have taken my time. I’m done with that nonsense.” He kisses me once, hard, his hand on the back of my neck. Then he pulls back. “Tell me what feels good. Tell me everything. I want to hear it all. I want to rock your world.”
His mouth moves across my hip bone. His hand slides from my thigh upward, over my stomach, and my abs contract under his fingers. His hand on my stomach is fire. His hand on my thigh is a candle behind frosted glass. But the candle is lit. And it’s brighter than it was an hour ago.
He looks down at my soft cock where his hand hovers.
“Can I touch you?”
“Yes.”
His hand wraps around me. I close my eyes and wait. The sensation arrives like a tide coming in. Pressure first, then warmth, then something closer to the old electricity, dimmed but unmistakable.
“Mickey.” Benji’s voice breaks on my name. “Oh my God. Your dick is getting hard. You told me your dick was dead.”
I let out a laugh. “It was dead. If anyone can bring a dead dick back to life it’s you, Benji.”
“How long have you known? When did this start?”
“The night you showed me your rainfall shower. Watching you in the shower lit me on fire. Everywhere.”
He glances up at me, stunned. “I can’t believe this. I’m shocked. You didn’t tell me! Can I use my mouth?” The words come out rushed. “Mickey. Please. My God! I want — can I —”
“Yes, you can do whatever you want.”
He slides down my body. His mouth traces a path from my chest to my stomach, each kiss open-mouthed and hot. He settles between my legs. His hands on the inside of my thighs. He looks up at me one more time. His eyes asking. His mouth already close enough that I can feel his breath.
“Tell me if you feel it,” he says. “What you feel or if you don’t. Keep talking to me.”
He lowers his head. His lips brush the inside of my thigh first. A kiss, open-mouthed, warm, and the sensation registers — blurred, but there. He kisses higher. Another inch. Another. His mouth tracing a line up my inner thigh that I can track by the heat it leaves behind, each kiss a point of warmth that blooms and fades and is replaced by the next.
