Page 59 of From Beijing, With Love

Daniel nodded, his body electric with anticipation as Yang pushed him down onto the bed. The image of Yang standing over him with those dark eyes and that wicked grin imprinted itself on Daniel’s brain, possibly forever.

Then, with a soft thud, Yang dropped to his knees.

His hands ran up the length of Daniel’s thighs, spreading them open. Up and up his hands inched, burning Daniel’s skin with his touch until Yang’s hand wrapped around Daniel’s straining erection. Yang’s touch was frustratingly light, noncommittal, like he could stop at any time.

“Stop teasing me,” Daniel hissed as his hips bucked involuntarily in compensation. His voice was heavy with want. “Please.”

Then he felt Yang’s mouth wrap around him like a reward.

Slowly, teasingly, Yang moved up and down his length. With his bound hands, Daniel wound his fingers through Yang’s short hair, exerting just enough of a downward pressure. That seemed to be all the encouragement Yang needed to take him to the hilt. Daniel was ready to meet Jesus as Yang formed a tight suction and fucked him with his mouth, keeping pace, never wavering despite Daniel’s writhing.

Daniel wished there were a mirror in the room, so he could see the debauched tableau of Yang on his knees and him in bed, hands bound, arching, wanting. That image sent Daniel right to the proverbial edge.

“I’m going to …”

“Going to what?” Yang feigned ignorance, using his mouth to ask the question instead of doing what he was doing. His voice was light, filled with mirth. He was enjoying this.

Daniel was going to kill him.

“I hate you,” Daniel groaned.

“Somehow I don’t believe you,” Yang said, his hand back to languid strokes.

“Please,” Daniel said, breathless. The self-consciousness Daniel felt about asking, begging, for what he wanted was fleeting, overcome by how incredibly turned on he was by the roles they were playing.

As if to reward him, Yang wrapped his lips over the head of Daniel’s cock while his hand moved with purpose.

God. Daniel wanted it to go on forever, yet he desperately needed it to end.

“Fuck … Yang … Don’t stop …” Daniel raised his bound hands to his mouth, biting down on his knuckles.

Yang kept his pace, carrying on like a good soldier while Daniel’s back arched and his toes curled, until Daniel came in a blinding orgasm that depleted him of everything he had.

Afterward, Yang untied Daniel’s bind and planted a kiss on each of his knuckles in a way that made Daniel feel precious.

“Come with me to Xi’an?” Yang asked in the darkness, his voice light, like he hadn’t just asked the world of Daniel.

Daniel didn’t know how to say no. Instead, he pulled Yang up into a kiss so that he didn’t have to say anything at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVEDaniel

“Daniel?” Yang’s voice was quiet, the whisper of someone who didn’t want to be heard.

Somehow, Daniel knew this was goodbye. Yang wasn’t going to come back later with breakfast in tow. They weren’t going to spend any part of this last day together. Daniel wished he wasn’t this gutted over something that was barely a week old, but he very much was. He kept his eyes closed and pretended to be asleep, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his stupid emotions in check through a real goodbye. By saving them from an awkward farewell, Daniel was preserving their memories together.

Yang probably didn’t even care. After all, Daniel had always been the one that felt more, cared more, in every relationship he ever had.

Daniel kept his eyes closed even when a feather-light kiss grazed his cheek. Only when he heard the deadbolt unlatch did he steal a glance. The mattress creaked under his shifting weight, the sound deafening in the silence of the room.

Yang froze with the door ajar. The yellow light of the hallway spilled into the room, stretching out his shadow.

If Yang turned around, then Daniel would have dropped his stupid pretense and asked him to stay. Or he’d simply face the vulnerability of having to say goodbye. But like how Daniel didn’t say anything when Yang asked him to go with him to Xi’an last night, Yang didn’t turn around.

Daniel sat in the hotel lobby, on the same moss-green lounge chair that Yang always sat on. He was working through his second gin and tonic so he didn’t have to work through his feelings. He really should have started drinking earlier instead of wasting most of the day moping in his room, watching reruns of Drag Race on his iPad while eating chocolate cake. But he didn’t want to be completely plastered when Poppy saw him.

He checked his phone again to see if Yang had messaged. He hadn’t. Not even a goodbye text. So that was that.

“Danny!”