Chapter 12
Bryce
Bryce had watched a lot of porn in his life, so when he walked into Rapture to meet the owner and main bartender, the furniture hadn’t been unsettling.
Seeing real life people spanking each other was different from seeing it on his phone, though, and he had to admit, he liked it better.
Not that there was anything wrong with porn.
Bryce loved porn, but the shock value of production made some of the scenes feel a little over the top.
What he observed while he waited for Landon and Callum felt exceedingly intimate to watch, almost like he wasn’t supposed to be there.
The interview went well, and he realized his being asked to come during operational hours was a deliberate choice by the owner.
It made sense because if you couldn’t get through a conversation without gawking at what was happening in the background, you’d never be able to make it through a shift.
Bryce wanted to make it through a shift.
Landon said they’d be in touch, and then Bryce asked if he could stay and have a couple of drinks.
Landon explained there was a no drinking on the clock rule, but other than that, since he wasn’t hired yet, he was welcome.
There was also a no fraternization rule, but Callum told Bryce that one was much less strict than the no drinking rule.
Bryce didn’t care so much about that because the only person he wanted to fraternize with was Holden.
“A kink club,” Holden repeated, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Pretty cool, right?” he repeated.
“And you want to work here?”
“I want to work,” he said.
Holden nodded and took a drink.
“Does it bother you?”
“Does it matter?”
Bryce shrugged. It shouldn’t matter, but it kind of did. He also didn’t want to admit that out loud and he sort of wished he’d never asked the question.
“I don’t care where you work,” Holden finally said. “I don’t mean like I don’t care. I just…don’t care.”
Bryce let out a quick laugh and knocked their shoulders together. “So you don’t care.”
Holden glared at him, then turned his attention back to the dance floor.
“Did you even know this place was here?” Bryce asked.
“No.”
“Did you think it was a church?”
“I don’t come to Pasadena often,” Holden explained. “It’s a bit of a drive.”
“Oh. Right.” Bryce took another swallow of his drink and groaned. “Well, thank you for coming. For me, I mean. To have a drink.”
“Normally I have to gag you to get you to stop talking,” Holden said quietly, barely loud enough to hear over the music. “Why are you all tangled up in yourself now?”
Bryce didn’t have an answer that was a good one.
Well, he had the truth, but the truth was embarrassing.
He was having a hard time talking to Holden because Holden had worked the whole day, then driven up to Pasadena to have a drink with him, and he didn’t complain about the traffic or anything.
And the two of them were standing in the middle of a kink club having a drink together and that felt a lot like a date, which was nothing they’d done before.
Nothing they’d even discussed. But he couldn’t say all of that to Holden without sounding like a crazy person, so instead he asked the second-best thing.
“Is this a date?”
Holden’s jaw went slack, and Bryce wanted to bury himself in a hole. Bryce tried to not look as mortified as he felt while Holden finished his drink, set the empty bottle down on the bar, and faced Bryce head on.
“Do you want it to be?” he asked.
“God. That’s not what you signed up for, is it? You took me for a sandwich, and it really just escalated from there, didn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious, and now here I am—”
“You got tested so I could fuck you raw.” Holden grabbed his face, fingers pressed into one side and thumb into the other, puckering Bryce’s mouth like a fish. “That feels serious.”
Bryce was glad he couldn’t speak. That again, Holden had made it impossible.
“Do you want it to be?” Holden asked again.
Bryce nodded.
“Is there some place we can go sit down?”
Holden released his mouth, and Bryce hated it. He worked his jaw to loosen it, then motioned toward a wrought iron staircase against the back wall. “There’s a loft. It’s a little quieter, but a lot raunchier.”
Holden’s stare flickered toward the loft and he gestured dismissively. “Lead the way.”
Bryce’s heart was in his throat, but he led Holden to the back of the club and up the stairs.
There was a leather couch against one wall, a small bar, and a St. Andrew’s cross in the corner.
There were private rooms in the hall; Landon had told him as much during the interview, but all those doors were closed.
Bryce didn’t know if they were occupied or not, but before he could look, Holden sat down on the couch and patted the empty cushion to his right.
Bryce sat beside him, fingers nervously picking at the label of his beer.
“I don’t want you to talk unless you’re talking about yourself,” Holden said. “In a meaningful way. I don’t want you to fill the silence.”
Bryce hated that, but he liked Holden more.
He took a drink of his beer and settled into the couch, tucked halfway against Holden’s side.
The other man made himself comfortable, and Bryce was jealous of the way silence came so easy for Holden.
Bryce had never imagined a life like that, one where he could just exist without needing to fight for it.
But he could imagine it, if he was being honest with himself.
He’d already had a taste of it, a sweet gift from a man who didn’t really know him from his brother but also didn’t care.
“I’ve felt more myself since I got to LA than I have in the past three years,” he said.
Holden raised a brow. “Why?”
“It feels like a fresh start a little.”
“Why did you leave home?”
“It was time for a change of scenery,” he said. “Also I wanted to get away from an ex.”
“Abuse?” Holden asked.
Bryce took a swig of his beer and set the bottle down on a low table in front of them. “No, just…we weren’t compatible.”
“How long were you together for?”
“Too long,” he answered. “Almost three years.”
Bryce watched as the gears clicked into place about his earlier comment. Holden licked his lips, brow knit together like he wanted to say something but thought better of it.
“I know you don’t like to talk,” Bryce said quickly, “but I wish you’d say whatever just crossed your mind.”
“It was something your brother said.”
Bryce groaned, scrubbing a hand down his face and dropping his head against the back of the couch. The leather was already warm against his skin.
“He thinks I’m promiscuous.”
“That wasn’t the word.” The corner of Holden’s mouth twitched. “But yes.”
“I went a little wild after the breakup. Maybe not the best way to nurse my wounds.”
“Also not for him to judge. And not me either.”
It was in his nature to defend himself, to try and justify the choices he’d made after breaking up with Bella, but Bryce knew that wasn’t what Holden wanted from him in that moment.
The instruction had been clear—no speaking unless it was meaningful and his defense was not that.
Not because it didn’t matter, but because it didn’t matter to Holden.
This was the fresh start Bryce had hoped for by coming to LA, and the fresh start he had found.
“Merrick has opinions,” he finally said.
Holden frowned. “I don’t want to talk about your brother.”
“We’ll have to eventually. If this is a date. Or rather, if we’re planning to have more dates than this one.” Bryce paused and licked his lips. “Did you want to have more than this one?”
“I didn’t even know we were having this one until I got here,” Holden said, a chunk of hair falling over his eye. “But I’m not against more.”
“Are we just going to keep it from him?”
“It’s not his business who you date and it’s certainly not his business who I date.”
Bryce chuckled under his breath. “He told me before I came that I’d think you were cute.”
Holden’s brows shot toward his hairline. “Is that so?”
“Well, he thinks I’ll think everyone is cute probably.” Bryce tried to shrug off the confession.
“Do you?”
“No.”
Holden made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat and turned his stare squarely onto Bryce.
“Do you want to stay here longer or do you want to go?”
“Complicated,” Holden answered.
“Try me.”
“I want you to suck my dick,” Holden admitted. “But I don’t want to jeopardize your chances of getting hired. I also want to stay here because I’m comfortable and I want you to keep talking. I’m afraid if I take you home, we’ll end up in bed.”
“Bed is not a bad place to be, but hold on. You want me to keep talking?” Bryce laughed, slid off the couch, and landed on his knees between Holden’s spread legs. “I don’t think you can have both of those things at the same time.”
Bryce smoothed his hands up the tops of Holden’s thighs, eyes going heavy with want. Holden swallowed hard and undid the button on his jeans and pulled down the fly. His cock was already almost hard, pressing against the material of his underwear and fighting against the undone zipper.
“How about I suck your dick first, then we have another drink. I can talk some more, and then we can go back to your house and end up in bed?”
Holden pulled his dick out from behind the waistband of his boxer briefs and smeared the tip across Bryce’s mouth.
“That sounds like a nice…”
Bryce kept his eyes open and closed his lips around the middle of Holden’s shaft, taking as much of his length as he could manage without throwing up all over himself.
Holden groaned, fisting Bryce’s hair, hips lifting off the couch to chase the heat of Bryce’s throat.
Bryce kept his stare locked on Holden’s face, committing every flicker and sigh of pleasure to memory.
Merrick had been wrong about Bryce, about the things he’d done after the breakup with Bella.
Yeah, there was a little bit of sluttiness Bryce wanted to get out of his system after being monogamous for so many years with someone who didn’t please him sexually, but that hadn’t been the real reason.
Or at least, the reason he kept it up as long as he had.
For Bryce, sex gave him a chance to be present in his body.
There was no need to drown out Merrick’s voice or fight for his voice to be heard.
Sex was a time where there didn’t need to be words, but he was still able to communicate.
And he had that again, now, with Holden, even though it was different than it had been before.
With everyone else, the sex had been quiet and as soon as it was over, Bryce found himself right back in the noise.
Holden kept him quiet, kept him soft.
Holden himself was the opposite of soft, his cock growing thicker and longer against the roof of Bryce’s mouth with every thrust.
“Look at me,” Holden rasped, tugging Bryce’s hair until he fought his eyes back open. Bryce wanted to watch, he wanted to look, but it was so easy to get lost in Holden, in the prize he offered with his body and his time.
Holden took Bryce’s head into his hands, one on either side, and he started to thrust. Slow at first, shallow pumps of his hips that pushed his cock into Bryce’s mouth.
But as the pleasure grew between them, Holden’s movements turned more frantic, less smooth.
His thumbs around the edge of Bryce’s eyes, angling his face the way he wanted, and then without any warning at all, Holden came.
Hot jets of cum shot against the back of Bryce’s tongue, one landing in his throat and making him choke.
Holden held him still, riding out the rest of his pleasure on Bryce’s tongue and against the roof of his mouth.
After his balls emptied, Holden went limp against the couch, fingers still tangled in Bryce’s hair.
They both caught their breath, and Bryce’s lashes fluttered closed.
Holden was perfect for him and he hated it.
Really.