Chapter Nine
Lex won his gold on a Wednesday.
The final had gone four rounds, because the Cuban was good.
Properly good. He was built like a shipping container with hands that moved faster than they had any right to for a man that size, and a jab that caught Lex twice in the second round hard enough to rearrange his thinking on the subject of pain tolerance.
But Lex was better. Yeah, there were a couple of moments during the second round when he doubted it.
But he knew he had the upper edge by the end of the third, when the Cuban’s footwork started to drag and his guard dropped a centimetre on the left side.
That was when Lex put him down with a combination that started in his hip and ended somewhere in the region of the poor bastard’s temporal lobe.
The referee counted to eight. The Cuban got up.
Lex put him down again, and this time he stayed, and the noise that came out of Ryōgoku Kokugikan was the loudest thing Lex had ever heard in his life.
He stood on the podium with the anthem playing and the medal heavy around his neck and he thought: two.
Fucking magic number, that. He had two Olympic golds.
Alexander Edward Murphy from Barking, who used to nick Freddos from the corner shop and whose nan had sewn his first pair of boxing shorts on a machine she’d got from a car boot sale, now had two golds.
He thought about his nan. He thought about his coach, who was crying in the front row; something that they would definitely never acknowledge between themselves. He thought about his mum, who was watching from a flat in Dagenham with thirty members of their extended family.
Then he thought about Barnaby, and what he was going to do to him tonight, and had to arrange his hands over his crotch in a way that he hoped looked serious and sportsmanlike rather than an attempt to hide a public stiffie.
? ? ?
The common room was empty when Lex got there at half one.
He’d showered and put on clean shorts and a vest, then brushed his teeth with extra attention.
The bruise along his jawline had deepened to a colour that existed somewhere between aubergine and deep regret.
He looked like he’d been hit by a car, but he smelt fantastic because he’d used his good cologne: Dior Homme.
It made him smell expensive. Barnaby claimed to hate it, but that never stopped him from nuzzling up against Lex anyway.
Barnaby was already on the sofa.
He was sitting at his end with his legs crossed beneath him and a book open on his knee.
He was wearing the oversized jumper that Lex once mentioned he liked on him.
It made Barnaby look small and delicate, which he wasn’t, not really, but the excess fabric drowned his shoulders and swallowed his frame.
It made Lex want to pick him up and throw him over his shoulder like a caveman hauling a conquest he was about to ravage back to his cave.
He looked up when Lex walked in, and his eyes softened. He gave Lex a small smile. “Congratulations,” he said.
“Cheers, Barns.”
“That’s two, then.”
“That’s two.”
Barnaby closed his book. He set it carefully on the arm of the sofa. Lex sprawled one cushion closer to him than usual, close enough that his knee pressed against Barnaby’s thigh. Barnaby didn’t move away, but his eyes narrowed, tracking the grin that Lex was making no effort to suppress.
“I’m not going to give you a wet willy, Lex.”
Lex grinned. “Yes. You are.” He let his voice drop to a low and intimate register.
“No. That’s a fucking disgusting tradition! We do a stirrup cup, in the equestrian team. I suppose you…boxing ‘blokes’ could drink champagne from your glove after a win, like a semi-civilised person.”
“Barns.” Lex leaned in, slid his hand around the back of Barnaby’s neck, and kissed him.
He pulled Barnaby’s lower lip between his teeth, bit down gently, and when Barnaby’s mouth fell open on a gasp, Lex licked into the heat of him, tasting him slow and deep.
Lex took Barnaby’s hand and pressed it flat against the hard length of him through his shorts.
Barnaby’s fingers spread, mapping the shape of him, and Lex’s hips jerked forward before he could stop them.
Thank fuck for the fabric between them, because without it, with Barnaby’s bare hand on his bare skin, he’d have been done embarrassing himself in about thirty seconds.
“I want you to give me a wet willy, Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester.”
“Oh,” Barnaby breathed. His eyes went wide and dark. “Oh,” he said again, even more quietly.
He swallowed. The television was on behind them, another game show, a woman in a green bodysuit navigating some kind of rotating obstacle.
Lex laced his fingers through Barnaby’s, got on his feet, and tugged. “Let’s go to my room, Barnaby.”
“All right,” Barnaby said.
? ? ?
Lex’s room was identical to every other room in the Olympic Village.
It held a narrow bed, a single window, and had walls so thin he could hear the bloke next door brushing his teeth.
But Lex had won two golds, and he was standing in the doorway with Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester, so that made it the absolute best room in Tokyo.
He locked the door behind them and turned around. Barnaby was standing in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides, holding himself like he’d been called into the headmaster’s office and wasn’t sure what for.
“Right,” Lex said. “Strip.”
Barnaby reached for the hem of his jumper and pulled it over his head in one smooth motion. The oversized thing turned inside out as it came off, and Barnaby folded it carefully. He set it on the desk. Then he reached for his belt.
Lex felt a spike of pure lust, watching him work the leather through the loops of his jeans. Thank god for athletes being pre-conditioned to follow instructions, and for the discipline that had built this masterwork of a lean body that was now slowly being exposed to Lex’s hungry eyes.
Barnaby’s fingers moved to the button of his jeans, popped it, and pulled down the zip. He pushed the denim down his thighs and stepped out of them, and now he was standing in the middle of Lex’s room in black boxer briefs that sat low on his hips and left absolutely nothing to speculation.
He was lean and pale, his hipbones cutting sharp shadows across his lower abdomen. His chest was smooth, though a line of pale blond hair ran from his navel down to the waistband of his pants.
Lex committed it all to memory. This beauty.
Knowing that only the strangest twist of fate had brought them together, and that normally someone like Barnaby existed behind velvet ropes in a world where Lex would be given strict instructions to wash his hands before being allowed within touching distance of this golden boy.
“Those too,” Lex said, jerking his chin at the boxer briefs.
Barnaby hooked his thumbs under the waistband and pushed them down. He stepped out of them, and now he was standing there naked, shoulders back, his spine straight. His cock was hard, flushed pink against his pale skin, and Lex’s own cock thickened within his shorts.
“Fuck me,” Lex said quietly. “You’re gorgeous, Barns.”
Barnaby’s ears went pink. He looked away, jaw tight, and Lex grinned.
He pushed off the door and crossed the room.
Pulled his vest over his head, dropped it on the floor, and shoved his shorts down his thighs.
His cock was already half-hard, thickening as he stepped out of the fabric, and when he straightened up Barnaby’s gaze dropped to his crotch.
Lex was used to getting a reaction to the sight of him.
He’d had it from women, and from men, who’d started confident and ended up recalibrating their schedule the next day to account for the recovery needed after a night with him.
He was working with nine inches, and was thick enough that his own hand didn’t close around his cock properly.
Barnaby stared. His lips parted. His eyes went wide, and Lex’s cock twitched.
“Yeah,” Lex said, wrapping one hand around the base and giving himself a slow stroke. “That’s all for you, mate.”
Barnaby’s gaze snapped up to his face. His cheeks were flushed a proper pink, and his breathing had gone shallow.
Lex stepped forward, slid his hand around the back of Barnaby’s neck, and kissed him.
Slow and deep, tongue sliding against tongue, and Barnaby made a small sound against his mouth that went straight to Lex’s cock.
He walked Barnaby backward to the bed, one hand still on his nape, and when the backs of Barnaby’s knees hit the mattress, Lex gave him a gentle push. Barnaby sat, then lay back, and Lex followed him down, bracing himself on one forearm so he could look at him properly.
“Right,” Lex said. He shifted his hips, dragging his cock up the length of Barnaby’s belly, and watched Barnaby’s eyes track the movement.
His own cock looked obscene against all that pale skin, dark and thick, the head reaching past Barnaby’s navel.
Barnaby’s cock lay beside it, flushed pink and half the width, and the comparison made Lex’s mouth go dry.
“See that? That’s how deep I’ll be in you. ”
Barnaby’s breath hitched. His cock twitched against his stomach, and he shook his head.
But even as he did, his hand reached out, fingers wrapping around the head of Lex’s cock, testing the hardness of it.
His face had gone rapt, completely absorbed in the feel of him.
Lex groaned and his hips jerked forward, chasing the pressure of Barnaby’s grip.
“We’ll go slow, Barns. I’ll take care of you. ”
Barnaby shivered. It was a full-body thing, shoulders to hips, and Lex kissed him again because he couldn’t help himself. Then he sat back on his heels, reached for the lube and the condom he’d stashed in the drawer of the bedside table earlier, and made a show of it.