Chapter 17 Clubbing
Clubbing
Josha
Ihate this whole fucking city.
The oily sheen of fog-slicked concrete and the whine of tired neon. The stink of piss and greed and desperation layered over the stagnant brine of the bay. It’s never dark, never quiet. I lasted barely three months at the tech school Shilo and Hals tried to send me to last year.
“How do you know about this place?” Gem asks as we climb the steps to the unmarked door. “Let me guess, Echo again?”
I shrug, letting him believe what he wants. The truth is way worse. Lonely and suffocating during my short stint in the city, I followed three guys from a nearby bar, not knowing what I was getting myself into.
I fled after fifteen minutes.
Fourth Base is part dive bar, part dance club, and part orgy.
The bartenders are all topless—the men and the women—and the drinks they pour are dangerously strong.
Heavy music pounds from the speakers, throbbing through the mess of writhing bodies that spills off the dance floor into the dim corners of the large main room.
Three hallways snake further into the shadows, leading to other rooms I wasn’t brave enough to explore.
Gem slings his arm across my shoulders when I hesitate inside the entrance.
“What are we doing here, Rocket? You can’t tell me this scene turns you on.”
“Don’t touch me,” I warn, shrugging him off and ignoring the questions. “I mean it. Two rules while we’re here: You don’t fucking touch me, and you don’t get in the way. And no drugs,” I add, because the place might as well be fucking Candyland.
“That’s three rules.”
“I’m fucking serious.”
“Okay, okay.” He raises his hands in a show of submission. “No touching, no cock-blocking, no drugs. Got it. I’ll be good.”
“I doubt that.” I lead him around the dance floor to the bar.
I need at least two shots if I’m gonna go through with whatever this half-baked plan of mine is.
What, exactly, am I trying to prove? That I can get laid in a place built for the quick, anonymous fuck?
That Gem will save me from my desperate ego by starting a fight the minute I let another guy touch me?
Who’s calling whose bluff here?
Not to mention the whole thing is gonna backfire spectacularly if Gem figures out he broke my dick two years ago.
If I was hoping he’d pull the plug at the first sight of two guys going at it, I should have known better.
Whatever else is going on with him right now, he’s never been homophobic.
He leans against the bar while I order our drinks, surveying the scene with open curiosity.
More than a few guys—and women—are checking him out, of course.
With his leather and his ink and his obscenely tight jeans, he’d be a wet dream in any club in the city.
This is a mistake.
I keep my back to the crowd and my nose in my pink plastic cup as I study him surreptitiously out of the corner of my eye. It takes all of twenty seconds for the first twink with a mesh crop-top and carefully spiked hair to approach.
“Hi. I’m Benji. What are you looking for tonight?”
“Ask him.” Gem gestures to me with his chin. The boy turns to give me a slow once-over and a sultry smile.
“Ooh,” he purrs. “Yummy.”
“Gotta warn you, though,” Gem says. “I’m not sure you’re his type.”
“Yeah?” Benji tilts his head at me. “What’s your type, handsome?”
I open my mouth to formulate a reply, but Gem beats me to it: “Dark hair, blue eyes. He’s got a thing for tongue rings.”
Benji glances over his shoulder as Gem flashes his piercing with a wicked grin.
“Is this a cuck thing?” he asks me. “Because I’m down, if that’s what you’re into.”
“No,” I say a little too vehemently, while Gem hides a laugh in his drink.
“Ignore him. I’m Josha.” I hold out my hand.
Benji eyes it with a glint of amusement that makes me flush.
I guess handshakes aren’t really a thing in these places, but before I can take it back or turn the gesture into something less awkward—god knows what—he wraps his fingers around mine and rubs his thumb along my wrist.
“You’re adorable,” he says.
Small, blond, and way too pretty, he looks nothing like the looming menace behind him. Dredging up a smile, I shoot Gem a pointed look.
“And you’re perfect.” See? I can flirt too.
Stifling my brief twinge of conscience over using him to settle some twisted score between me and Gem, I let Benji drag me toward one of the shadowy alcoves on the far side of the dance floor. Gem follows aggressively close behind.
“So, he likes to watch?” Benji asks.
“He doesn’t know what he likes.” I scowl over my shoulder at our blatantly hulking shadow, who’s looking a lot less casual now that something is actually happening.
“What do you like?”
We’ve reached the alcove. Even in the near-darkness and with the crowd noisily distracted by their own debauchery, I feel exposed.
“I—” I don’t know. Not this. Not the sticky floor and the overwhelming haze of bodies and lust. Not the music so loud it makes my head pound or the churn of alcohol in my stomach. Half-naked guys are getting off all around me, and my dick is cowering in my pants.
This isn’t going to work.
Gem leans against the opposite wall, jaw clenched and eyes boring into mine. He’s not going to stop this, I realize, panic fluttering behind my ribs. I set the rules, and for the first time in his life, he’s following them. Weaponizing them. Waiting for me to be the one to chicken out.
Fuck. Him.
Drawing every ounce of courage from the rage swirling inside me—and a large amount of inspiration from those books Cheyenne is always sending me—I channel my best Teddy Hamilton and drop my gaze to Benji’s waiting face.
“I want to watch you choke on my cock and swallow my cum.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I cringe, waiting for them both to burst out laughing.
Instead, Benji drops to his knees with a happy sigh and starts unbuttoning my jeans, leaving me staring at Gem’s shocked expression.
He’s not laughing. He’s frozen in place, looking at me like he’s never seen me before, and his eyes are lit with feral hunger.
Oh.
My dick stirs from its somnolent apathy, and Benji hums at my feet.
“Fuck,” he murmurs reverently. “Uncut?”
I forgot he was there.
His hand closes around the base of my shaft, and I try not to flinch. His fingers are soft and uncalloused, almost delicate. Wrong. He draws my foreskin back and flicks his tongue over my crown before sucking the head into his mouth.
It’s warm and wet, and I tip my head back against the wall, trying to lose myself in the sensation.
I’m finally getting my dick sucked, and it’s…underwhelming.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I rest them lightly on Benji’s head as he continues to bob enthusiastically, and I will my body to cooperate. Sneaking another glance at Gem, I find his head turned away, his posture a study in boredom.
Fucking Gemiah Farrel, who’s received a million blow jobs in his life and always knows where to put his hands.
I close my eyes, blocking him out, but that makes it worse. Without him filling my vision, my already uncertain dick immediately starts to deflate.
I start to shift my hips back, fumbling for an apology, but Gem abruptly closes the distance between us and grips Benji by the hair.
“Watch the teeth,” he orders, dragging the younger man to his feet. “We’re gonna try this another way.”
“You promised to stay out of it,” I hiss. Please help me.
Something fathomless flashes across his face before he shuts it down. He knocks back the rest of his drink and lets the cup fall to the floor, then leans in and puts his lips to the boy’s ear.
“He told you to choke on it. You ready to stop pussying around?”
Benji tries to nod, gasping when Gem jerks his head back.
“Good. Three taps to safe out. My wrists, not his. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gem flicks his gaze to mine, gauging my reaction, but my brain is stuck on his fingers tangled in the blond hair.
My neck strains in jealous sympathy, and my dick is wide awake for the first time all night.
I don’t even remember the question, let alone have the power to process a response.
Whatever Gem sees on my face must satisfy him, because he shoves the boy back to his knees.
“Good. Now open.”
Benji obeys, and the next thing I know, wet heat engulfs my cock. Gem braces his other arm on the wall above my shoulder and stares down in fascination as he slowly pushes Benji’s head forward until the boy’s nose brushes against my pelvis.
“Fuck,” I gasp, as muscles constrict and fire races up my spine.
“You like that?” A dark smile plays at the corners of Gem’s mouth, at odds with the cold depths of his eyes.
Benji’s fingers dig into my hips, and his throat convulses as the demon who was once my best friend holds him trapped for another eternal second. When Gem finally lets him suck in a breath, my own chest heaves as cool air rushes in to replace the scorching pressure on my cock.
“Want more? Don’t look at him,” Gem says when I glance down. “He has his signal. I’m asking you. Do you want me to use this mouth to get you off? You want to spill down his tight, slutty throat while I tell him exactly how to take you apart?”
Sparks lick over my skin at the salacious promise in his voice.
Everything about this is monumentally fucked up.
I should run. Gather my fractured wits and the shreds of my pride and retreat to the dubious safety of the motel to lick my wounds. But we’ve been hovering over this abyss for years, the time and distance between us nothing but a paltry illusion of safety. Of control.
He’s a Molotov cocktail splashed across my insides, and I don’t even feel the glass shatter beneath the heat of the flames.
“Yes.” I breathe the confession into the night with a shiver of surrender. Gem swallows, his Adam’s apple tracing a rough path down his neck.
“Fine. Then hold on.”
I press one hand against the wall and slip the other into Benji’s hair, brushing against Gem’s rough grip.
“You’re touching me,” he grits out. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
“Fuck you.” But there’s no real force to the words, and when I start to pull my hand back, he traps it with his thumb and uses the movement to slide Benji’s mouth back down my cock.
“Maybe later.” With a devilish wink, he tugs on the blond head again, freeing my dick with a pop. “Stick out your tongue,” he commands, and when Benji complies, Gem drops a thick trail of saliva into his waiting mouth. “Now get him all wet and sloppy for me.”
I always imagined sex would be about touch.
About hands and cocks and skin and ass. But the mouth on my dick is almost an afterthought—a conduit for all my other senses to fill with him.
I’m melting in the scent of leather and bourbon, the taste of orange Tic Tacs on his breath, the pure fucking filth that drips from his mouth into my ears.
“When it’s my turn, I’m gonna use this—” He flashes the barbell in his tongue. “—to drive you out of your fucking mind. It’s gonna be so good you won’t remember having any other mouth on your cock.”
It’s enough to shatter the last of my reserve. My hips stutter, and then I’m thrusting recklessly, chasing the rasp of his voice down through the furnace of fantasy.
Somewhere in the mess and the madness, my fingers have tangled with his, the rough texture more vital than the suction on my cock or the hot breath along my balls. His nails bite into my skin, possessive pricks of pleasure, and everything tightens, coils, threatens to burst.
“Give it to me, Rocket. Just like that. C’mon.
Yes, fuck. Yessss.” He hisses the last with clenched teeth as I groan and spasm through the brutal release, my head falling back against the wall and my vision going white.
“Shiiit,” he breathes raggedly, resting his forehead on mine.
“You’re fucking sexy when you come, Rocket. ”
My knees aren’t working properly, and I’m afraid of what my orgasm-addled brain might say if I don’t escape the heady nearness of him, so I tuck my spent cock back into my briefs and slide down the wall to check on Benji.
“You okay?” I ask, my hand hovering over his swollen lips. He breaks into a grin.
“Yep. That was—” He breaks off as Gem’s hand slips from his hair to shove at his shoulder.
“You can go now.”
“Rude,” Benji says, but he doesn’t look particularly put out. He looks…languid. Sated. Like he genuinely got off on Gem using him and me practically ignoring him while I came down his throat.
“I’m an asshole. You liked it. We’re done here.” Gem doesn’t even watch the guy walk away as he settles on his heels to study me. “Can I touch you now?”
My tart reply dies on my lips at the sudden change in his tone. All his dirty-talking bravado is gone, leaving hollow vulnerability in its place—a fear reflected in my own aching chest.
This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.
As the weight of the last hour crashes over me, I realize I don’t have the strength left to fight the truth.
“Always.”
The tension bleeds from the corners of his eyes, softening the line of his shoulders. With surprisingly gentle fingers, he tugs my jeans back over my hips and starts to close the buttons of my fly.
“Good. Because that’s the last time I hold myself back to follow your stupid rules.”
“That was you holding back?”
He groans, sinking to the floor beside me and resting his head on the wall. “You have no idea.”
I tilt my head to look at him. “You wanted to kick his ass, didn’t you?”
“I wanted to take his place.”
In this moment—sprawled together on the sticky floor in the wreckage of my intentions—I believe him.
His hand comes up to splay across my throat, thumb heavy on my throbbing pulse.
“Don’t make me watch someone else touch you like that again, Rocket. I won’t survive it a second time.”
I shake my head—whether it’s in agreement or denial is a question I can’t answer. His grip tightens for a moment, before he sighs and drops his hand to his lap, adjusting himself with a wince. Even in the dim light, I can see the wet spot staining the front of his jeans.
“Really?”
He shrugs, a rueful twist to his mouth. “You’re fucking sexy when you come.”
Despite everything, despite the whole disaster of a night and my fragile trust and bruised heart, a slow smile spreads across my face.
Gemiah Farrel gave me a blow job—even if he used someone else’s mouth to do it—and he fucking came in his pants.