Chapter 26 – RAFAEL
Chapter
Twenty-Six
RAFAEL
Bells's scent is getting stronger. Like someone's bottled liquid sex and is pumping it through the hotel's ventilation system directly into my lungs, my head, every cell in my fucking body.
I'm sprawled on my side of the bed, staring at the ceiling like it might have answers written in the water stains.
Phoenix is doing the same thing on the other side, both of us trying to pretend we're not hyperaware of every sound, every shift in the air, every goddamn breath coming from the room next door.
My cock has been half-hard for the past hour, and I'm starting to think it's never going back down. Not while Bells is in there, wrapped in that nest we helped build, smelling like every fantasy I didn't know I was capable of having about another guy.
Because that's the thing that keeps circling back, isn't it?
Bells is a guy.
A male omega, sure, but still fundamentally male. And I've spent my entire adult life being exclusively attracted to women. Exclusively. No experimentation in college, no drunken make-outs with bandmates, not even a fleeting curiosity about what it might be like.
Until now.
Until vanilla and cinnamon wrapped itself around my hindbrain and squeezed until every certainty I had about myself cracked down the middle.
"Raf." Phoenix's voice cuts through my spiral. He hasn't moved from his position, still flat on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes. "You doing okay?"
"Peachy," I mutter, which is such obvious bullshit that Phoenix actually snorts.
"Yeah. Me too."
Silence falls again, heavy and oppressive. I can hear Bells moving in the next room—the rustle of blankets, a soft sound that might be a whimper or might just be my imagination torturing me.
My hand slides down without conscious permission, palming my cock through my slacks. The friction helps exactly not at all, just makes everything worse, makes me more aware of how badly I want something I shouldn't fucking want.
"Fuck it," Phoenix mutters.
"Huh?" I mumble, dazed, turning my head to look at him. He's sat up, his massive frame taking up more than his fair share of his bed, blue eyes darker than I've ever seen them. His pupils are blown wide enough that the blue is just a ring around endless black.
"What?" I ask warily.
"I can't—" He drags both hands through his messy blond hair, making it stand up in all directions. "I need to do something or I'm going to lose my mind. And I can't go in there. Won't. But I need—"
He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.
I know what he needs. Know because I need it too. Something to take the edge off, to bleed off enough pressure that we don't snap.
"Come here," I hear myself say.
Phoenix's eyes snap to mine. "What?"
I sit up to face him. My heart is hammering hard enough that I can feel it in my throat, in my wrists, everywhere. "You heard me. Come here."
He doesn't move immediately. Just stares at me like he's trying to figure out if I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. Maybe this is the worst idea in a night full of terrible ideas.
Suddenly he's right there, close enough that I can smell him under the phantom traces of Bells's scent. Pine and something earthier, grounding.
"Raf," he says quietly. "We don't have to—"
"Shut up." I grab his belt, yanking him closer. The buckle is cold under my fingers, and for one insane second I think about what the fuck I'm actually doing. About how this rewrites everything I thought I knew about myself.
Then Bells makes another sound through the wall—something between a whimper and a gasp—and rational thought evaporates like water on hot asphalt.
"Raf—" Phoenix starts, but I'm already yanking the belt free, the leather sliding through loops with a hiss that sounds obscene in the quiet room.
"I said shut up," I growl, and my hands are on his shirt now, working the buttons with fingers that won't quite cooperate. Too desperate. Too fucking gone to care about finesse.
Phoenix's hands come up to help, and together we strip the fabric away. It hits the floor in a heap of dark cotton.
Phoenix is built like a fucking grizzly bear.
A broad, strong torso covered in a layer of comfortable padding. Thick shoulders that could probably benchpress a car. Arms corded with muscle beneath sun-speckled skin. Everything about him screams male.
Phoenix is the complete opposite of every woman I've ever been with. No delicate curves, no soft breasts, no hips that flare under my hands. Just solid alpha male taking up space like he was built to fill it.
And I want it.
Want him.
Fuck.
Phoenix's hands find my shirt, and he's gentler than I was but no less desperate.
Buttons come undone one by one, revealing my own torso—leaner than his, more defined, skin bronzed and decorated with enough ink to qualify as a gallery.
The kraken on my left arm seems to writhe in the dim light filtering through the curtains.
"We should probably—" Phoenix tries again, but I cut him off by grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking his head back.
His eyes go wide. Then darker.
"Stop talking," I mutter against his jaw. "Just... don't fucking talk right now."
Because if he talks, if either of us acknowledges what we're about to do, I might actually think about it.
Might question whether this is the scent match or desperation or some fucked-up combination of both making me want to climb this gentle giant like he's a tree and I'm suddenly a very motivated cat.
Phoenix nods mutely, and his hands go to his own belt, finishing what I started. The button pops open. Zipper slides down. Black boxer briefs peek out from the gap, and I force myself not to look too closely at what's straining against the fabric.
Not yet.
My own pants hit the floor next, kicked aside without ceremony. We're both in our underwear now, standing close enough that our breath mingles, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off Phoenix's massive frame.
Close enough that Bells's scent wraps around us both like a third presence in the room, driving us toward something inevitable.
I push Phoenix backward until he's sitting back on the bed, the mattress dipping under his bulk, and suddenly I'm looking down at him instead of up.
At those blue eyes gone almost black with want.
At the way his chest rises and falls with each controlled breath.
At how his hands are clenched into fists on his thighs like he's physically restraining himself from reaching for me.
Good.
Let him work for it.
I hook my thumbs in the waistband of his boxer briefs. Phoenix lifts his hips without being asked, and I slide them down, revealing what I've been trying not to think about for the past hour.
Holy shit.
Phoenix is... proportional. That's the only word my scrambled brain can come up with. Proportional to the rest of his frame, which means thick and long and already hard enough that it's flushed dark and leaking against his stomach.
My mouth goes dry.
"Your turn," Phoenix rasps, his voice rougher than I've ever heard it.
I strip out of my own underwear and climb onto the bed, straddling his thick thighs, and Phoenix's hands come up automatically to steady me. His palms are warm against my hips, calloused from years of drumming, and the contact sends electricity racing up my spine.
"Raf," he breathes my name like a prayer or a question or maybe both.
I wrap my hand around his cock.
Phoenix's whole body jerks, a strangled sound tearing from his throat. His fingers dig into my hips hard enough to bruise, and his head falls back against the headboard with a dull thump.
"Fuck," he gasps. "Fuck, that's—"
"I know." I tighten my grip, give him one slow stroke from base to tip. Watch his face contort with pleasure, watch those blue eyes roll back slightly. "You're gonna blow me after."
That gets his attention. His head snaps forward, eyes focusing on mine with visible effort. "What?"
"You heard me." Another stroke, twisting slightly at the head the way I like it done to me. Phoenix makes a sound that might be a whimper if it came from anyone else. "After I take care of you, you're gonna take care of me. Fair's fair."
"Raf, I could just—" He swallows hard as I pick up the pace. "I could just use my hand. I don't have to—"
"No." The word comes out sharper than I intended. I force myself to slow down, to breathe, to not let the desperation bleeding through my voice sound quite so obvious. "It feels... less gay for you to blow me. Somehow."
Phoenix's brow furrows even as his hips start moving, fucking up into my fist with increasing urgency. "Raf, that makes zero sense—"
"Don't push it," I snap, cutting him off before he can finish that thought. Before he can point out all the ways my logic is fucked and circular and completely irrational. "I'm just... I'm..."
Desperate.
The word sits on my tongue, ready to spill out. I'm desperate and confused and so turned on I can barely think straight, and having Phoenix's mouth on me feels like it might ground this whole insane situation in something manageable.
But then I look at his face. At those stupidly blue eyes watching me with concern despite the fact that I'm literally jerking him off. At the way he's clearly holding back from arguing more because he can see I'm barely holding it together.
Fuck him and his emotional intelligence.
Fucking golden retriever alpha.
"Just shut up and let me do this," I mutter instead, leaning forward to bite at his shoulder. Hard enough to leave marks. Hard enough that Phoenix groans and his cock pulses in my hand.
So I give him what we both need. Fast, firm strokes that have Phoenix panting within minutes. His hands slide from my hips to my back, nails digging in as he fights to keep still, to let me control the pace even though I can feel how badly he wants to thrust.
"Close," he warns, voice breaking on the word. "Raf, I'm—"
"Then come," I growl against his neck. "Come on, big guy. Show me what you've got."