Chapter -16-
Denz should’ve stayed in the bathroom longer.
After discarding the condom, a quick pee, washing himself up, and running a face cloth under warm water for Braylon, he returns to the bedroom and stops short.
Lying on his side, on top of the covers, Braylon smiles lazily. The electric blues and purples from the city melt across his sweat-slick skin. His head’s propped up by one hand, curls disheveled. The other hand is cupped over his groin. He can’t hide his erection.
“Fuck,” Denz hisses.
Braylon chuckles. “Think we just did.”
“No, I mean.” He shakes his head. “You didn’t get off.”
In all the messy kisses, frantic movements, the orgasm stretching through his skin until he was certain it’d rip off, he didn’t pay attention to Braylon’s needs. Denz came, then ran off to the bathroom. He’s an asshole.
Braylon shrugs. “No worries.”
“Hell no.” Denz marches over to the bed, dropping the cloth on the sheets. He crouches over Braylon. “We’re fixing this. Now.”
Braylon laughs into a kiss. “What’d you have in mind?”
Denz draws back, thinking. There are so many options. So many things he hasn’t done to Braylon in years . He could jerk him off. Swallow him to the root like Braylon did at his apartment…
No. He wants something else.
For Braylon, but also selfishly for himself.
He flops back into the place on the sheets he was five minutes ago. Big mistake. He scoots out of the sweaty-damp spot. Lower lip between his teeth, Denz eases his knees apart. He tilts his hips up, hoping Braylon understands.
A wildfire spreads across the sepia in Braylon’s eyes.
“Are you sure?”
Denz nods. “Mostly? Only ’cause, like. I ate all that junk during the movie and—”
Suddenly, the last piece clicks like a LEGO into place. That’s why Braylon only ate the seasoned fries. A handful of berries. One cookie. The reason he requested water instead of tea or more alcohol from the minibar.
He’d secretly planned to bottom all along. The bastard gave Denz an option knowing damn well what he wanted.
A tentative smirk pulls at Braylon’s mouth.
“I hate you,” Denz says, half laughing. “Yes. I want you to fuck me.”
“Fine, fine. If you insist.”
“I do. That is, if you don’t mind…” Denz trails off, too embarrassed to admit he’s nervous. Not about the sex. But how his body might react.
Braylon cups his chin, thumb stroking high on his cheek. His other hand tears another condom from the strip. Finds the lube.
“I’m quite sticky and sweaty,” Braylon begins. “Could use another shower.” He curls forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of Denz’s mouth. “I’m not worried about what happens. It’s natural.”
Denz’s fingers twist into the sheets.
Braylon’s so close, his voice gentle. “I’ll go slow,” he promises.
The soft, downy hairs on his legs tickle the back of Denz’s thighs. His hand slips from Denz’s jaw to his chest, riding the current of his accelerated breaths. All of Denz’s nerves connect to the eagerness blackening Braylon’s eyes.
“You don’t have to. Go slow, I mean. I’ve done—”
He doesn’t want to finish that sentence.
An unreadable expression circles Braylon’s face, then it’s gone. He nods once.
“We’ll go at your pace,” he says, serious.
Those words massage the tension from Denz’s chest. Ease the fears tightening his stomach.
He allows Braylon’s slick hands to shift his thighs wider.
His eyes flutter shut at the cold press of lube against his hole.
He trembles around the first finger, then the next.
The shaking doesn’t let up until Braylon whispers, “I think you’re ready,” and Denz’s entire body screams, YES .
“Please.”
“Tell me if it’s too much,” Braylon says against his jaw.
Denz exhales tightly when the head nudges in. A long beat passes before his body adjusts.
“It’s not,” he gasps.
“Good.” Braylon’s smile is imprinted onto the side of Denz’s neck. “Because you feel fucking incredible .”
Denz isn’t sure if it’s the huskiness of Braylon’s voice. The way he cages Denz in. Sucks at Denz’s jumping Adam’s apple. Meets every one of Denz’s groans with a chest-deep grunt. Moves at a pace that’s so painfully gentle, it’s frustrating.
Whatever it is, Denz prays it never stops.
“Ah- ah .”
“All right?” Braylon asks between measured thrusts.
“Mm-hmm.”
Denz doesn’t trust himself with actual words, too afraid he’ll shout things he can never take back, no matter how hard he tries. So, he savors the chest kisses. Allows Braylon to yank him back on his thick cock.
Braylon never asks him to be quieter. To stop swearing at the ceiling. To be anything but himself. No, he offers Denz a crinkle-eyed smile that’s bare and frighteningly boyish like they are back in those first months together in Athens.
“Still okay?”
Denz exhales out, “Yeah,” instead of the more colorful responses his brain had in mind.
“I can—” Braylon’s hips draw back.
“No,” Denz says more urgently than he planned to. “Deeper.”
“Okay, but I’m gonna—”
“I know.”
He can tell by the way Braylon’s nose scrunches. The tight corners of his mouth. The cords of his biceps going taut. Denz knows the signs. He wants to stop them… just a few more minutes.
Thing is, Denz typically likes sex this way—fast. Over before it starts. Unattached orgasms are easier to walk away from. Strictly a physical thing. When it’s about getting off and not making a memory, he can handle that.
What he’s struggling with is how he wants Braylon to change the angle.
Test Denz’s limits. He doesn’t want quick.
He wants rough fingers pinning his hands above his head.
He wants their shared panting, his toes curling into the sheets, the pleasant ache in his lower spine from arching so hard to meet Braylon’s thrusts.
He wants Braylon to make him beg.
He’s achingly hard again. Just the feel of his erection flopping against his belly, the tip wet and sensitive, is too much and not enough.
“One more minute.”
Braylon’s shoulders tremble.
“Stay there. Another second.”
“Denz, you—”
“Please.”
Braylon whines but obeys. He gives and Denz takes. Then, Denz squeezes around him and Braylon’s quaking, biting his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. His eyes are wide and blissed out, but so focused on Denz’s next command.
“Come,” Denz says, shuddering. “I’ve got you.”
And Braylon does.
Denz wraps his legs around stuttering hips. He grins into the crook of Braylon’s neck as everything comes in a thirty-foot wave, crashing around them.
Not once does he bother to come up for air.
Morning arrives too soon.
Ribbons of orangey sunlight burst through the windows. Sunrise burns against Denz’s eyelids. He regrets not closing the curtains. Then he remembers what happened last night and…
That’s fantastic. All of Atlanta saw him having sex. Twice .
His phone vibrates on the nightstand. He checks his notifications.
Six texts from Jamie, two from Nic, and another hundred or so from social media.
He’s hungover, a pounding headache trying to crack his skull in half.
Denz doesn’t have the energy to explain to his best friend why the hell he didn’t sleep in his own bed last night.
Instead, he scrolls through social media.
It’s the usual. Followers tagging him in photos, DMs about promotional opportunities he’ll respond to later, and comments galore. People are still obsessively liking the Valentine’s Day post. It’s up to fifty thousand likes. No one knows who the mystery man is yet.
He stifles a laugh as he reads their theories.
Behind him, Braylon snores quietly.
Denz takes in the moment. Their bare feet poking from underneath the rumpled bedspread.
Braylon’s hand resting on Denz’s naked hip.
He snuffles and exhales into one of the hotel’s expensive pillows.
It should all be so weird—having a man in bed with him after years of ducking out the second the condom’s off—but it’s not.
It’s oddly comfy.
He knows in his core that, at any second, the bubble could burst. It’s going to burst. That’s how these things work.
But not yet.
A ridiculous idea crosses his mind. He edges down the cover. Wiggles backward in Braylon’s direction. Rolls painstakingly slowly onto his back before opening his front-facing camera. He holds the phone high.
From this horrible angle, Denz is bleary-eyed, face unshaven, hair wrecked from Braylon’s hands. He can’t tell if that’s lube or something else tacky against his chest. Braylon’s equally unkempt, a deep pillow crease in his cheek, but he still manages to look angelic.
Denz can’t stand him.
He adjusts the view until everything except for Braylon’s arm is cut from the frame. An acceptable post-sex, morning selfie.
“Whatever you’re doing,” Braylon grumbles, then yawns, “could you please do it a bit quieter? My head’s pounding and I might puke all over you.”
“Wow. Charming.”
“It’s what I excel at.” Braylon yawns again, louder. “Charm and getting absolutely wrecked over two drinks.”
“Lightweight.”
“Your mother.”
Denz gasps, fake affronted. Braylon laughs into his shoulder. The heat, the closeness, the soft hair on Braylon’s chest grazing his bicep, makes Denz acutely aware of his morning wood.
Why is his body like this?
With one eye open, Braylon squints at him. “Are you taking a selfie?”
“No. Yes. Maybe?”
“Of us?”
“No,” Denz sputters. “I wouldn’t do that without your consent. It’s just me… and your arm? No face.”
“And did you get my arm’s consent?”
Humiliation heats up Denz’s skin. Braylon snorts, pressing his nose to the tendons between Denz’s neck and shoulder. “Here. Let me.”
“You don’t have t—”
“Gimme.”
They fumble the exchange. Denz almost suffers another phone to his face, but Braylon catches it midair.
His wingspan is greater—fucking six-one giant—so he reaches above them.
He blindly snaps off a few photos with his face hiding in the crook of Denz’s neck.
Something ripples in his stomach when Braylon’s lips brush under his jaw.
He examines Braylon’s work. “These are terrible.”