Chapter 2
Noah wanted to run him a bath.
Benji wasn’t having it.
“Just a short one,” Noah coaxed. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Benji’s shoulders, which had gotten stiffer the closer they got to their apartment. The ease that had washed over Benji from the car sex was gone, replaced by a rigid stress that he wouldn’t even admit to.
“I don’t need one,” Benji argued, undoing his cufflinks with the awkwardness of someone who had never had to undo cufflinks before. “Get off my back.”
Noah was being overbearing. He knew it, but he couldn’t help it. Benji was stressed, and he wanted to fix it. Even if he was, technically, one of the reasons why Benji was stressed in the first place.
He pushed away a stubborn sting of hurt as he remembered Benji’s shocked face in the gallery.
He’d always imagined that when he asked someone to marry him, the shock would be followed by joy.
But Benji’s shock had just been followed by more shock, to the point where Noah had been genuinely worried that he was going to pass out.
Then Chet fucking Caulfield, deadbeat father extraordinaire, had shown up to make everything even worse.
At least he didn’t say no, Noah consoled himself as he watched Benji pull off his jacket and shirt. He just… didn’t answer. That was better than an outright rejection.
Logically, Noah knew that he shouldn’t be this hurt by Benji not answering.
They had only known each other for half a year, and they had never talked about marriage before.
You were supposed to talk about it before you sprung it on a person, especially a twenty-year-old with trust issues and no prior serious relationships.
And yet Noah couldn’t help it. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg Benji to marry him, lavish him with gifts and sex and adoration until Benji agreed.
He wanted to convince Benji with every bone in his body.
He didn’t realize how badly he wanted Benji to marry him until he said it, but now it was all he could think about.
He stepped up behind Benji, sliding an arm around Benji’s waist and dropping a kiss on his bare shoulder. “Not even if I use that bath bomb you liked?”
“Nope,” Benji said. He paused, his body stiff against Noah. “Uh. Can you ease up a little?”’
Noah had been squeezing him. He hadn’t even noticed.
“Sorry,” he said, before letting him go.
Benji kept moving around the bedroom, putting his phone on the nightstand and kicking off his shoes.
Noah’s hands twitched at his sides. Benji was right there, and he was still too far away.
Noah wanted to press him down, to be inside him, deeper than fucking.
He wanted to own him, wanted to know Benji was his, like he knew his heartbeat.
This is what your partners warned you about when they said you were too much, he told himself. Benji liked that side of him, but there was obviously a limit.
Which was… fine. Healthy, even. Never mind that it made Noah want to pin Benji onto the bed and fuck him until he begged to be his.
A distant creak made them both look up.
Max’s voice echoed down the hallway. “Helloooo! Anybody hoooome?”
Benji frowned. “What the hell? He’s supposed to be at JJ’s all night.”
He grabbed a sleep shirt off the bed. It was one of Noah’s old gym shirts, so baggy that it fell off Benji’s shoulder, exposing a tantalizing glimpse of collarbone.
Noah wanted to bite it. Instead, he followed Benji out into the hall, where Max was kicking off his sneakers with just as much enthusiasm as Benji had, the shoes bouncing off the wall and coming to a messy stop around the shoe rack.
Max brightened as he spotted them. “Oh, hey, you are home.”
“So are you,” Benji said. “Prematurely. What gives?”
Max’s face scrunched up. “Can’t a guy come home without getting the third degree? Get off my back, man.”
This was distinctly un-Max-like. Usually, Max wanted to talk about everything, all the time. If he was hiding something, it meant he was deeply uncomfortable. Dead Aunt or Absent Parents levels of discomfort, one of the only subjects he actually got squirrely about.
“Excuse me for being surprised,” Benji replied. “What, did JJ’s smart fridge talk back? Did you make the fridge sentient and now it’s on a rampage, and you have to hide out here while it ravages the city?”
Max’s phone rang. He groaned, tugging it out of his pocket and glaring at it in disgust.
“Who is it?” Noah asked, making sure to keep the sudden suspicion out of his tone.
“No one,” Max said, still scowling.
Benji’s eyes narrowed. Benji was having the same thoughts as him; he could see it on Benji’s face.
Benji marched down the hall and stole the phone out of Max’s hand.
“Hey!” Max yelped, grabbing at it.
Benji held him back easily and put the phone to his ear. “Hello? Who is this?”
Noah was standing several feet away, but he could still hear Chet’s voice come over the speaker. He sounded… surprisingly put together. Like he didn’t get carted out by security after harassing his eldest son an hour ago.
Benji’s face twisted up in a scowl that looked so similar to Max’s that Noah would have smiled if they weren’t both so obviously upset.
“Yeah, you don't get to talk to him,” Benji barked into the phone. “You remember the judge gave me custody for a reason, right? Now you suddenly want to show up and start yelling at me about morals? Fuck off, Chet.”
He hung up and rounded on Max. “The hell, Max? When did he start calling you?”
“He only called a few times! It started about an hour ago. It was weird.” Max swiped his phone back and stuffed it in his pocket with a troubled expression. “He can’t really take me away from you, right?”
“No,” said Noah and Benji as one.
“Good,” Max said. “Whatever his angle is, I don’t want anything to do with it.”
His phone rang again. Max groaned even louder than before and wrestled it back out. “How do I block someone? I’ve never done it before.”
Noah looked over at Benji expectantly. Surprisingly enough, Benji looked just as clueless.
“I’ll show you,” Noah offered.
Max handed his phone over. Noah turned the screen to show him, then walked him through it.
The phone stopped ringing. Max sighed in relief.
“Good riddance,” he said, grabbing his phone back. “Okay, I’m gonna go call my friends.”
Noah watched Benji as Max disappeared around the corner. Benji was chewing on his thumbnail, frowning after him.
Noah touched his arm. “What’s the game plan? Want to go in and talk to him?”
“What?” Benji made a face. “No. Not everything needs to be talked about. Situation’s handled. No problems.”
“No problems,” Noah echoed uncertainly. Both boys were obviously unsettled, but maybe they needed time to process. Noah heard that was healthy. In his own family, they stuffed everything down, ignored it, and called it “moving on.” He’d only started changing that in his twenties.
Benji caught him looking and narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“Nothing,” Noah said quickly. Max wasn’t the problem; Chet was the problem. Noah would find a way to handle it. But Benji knew how to deal with Max. Noah wasn’t about to interfere.
He stepped closer, slipping an arm around Benji’s waist and rubbing his skin through the threadbare sleep shirt he'd stolen off Noah. “Are you sure you don’t want a bath? I did dirty you up.”
Benji let out a breathy laugh. For a moment, he even smiled, and Noah thought he might really turn this night around.
Then Benji’s smile shrank. He scratched his mouth, frowning when his bitten thumbnail caught on his lip.
“I might go to bed,” he said.
He pulled out of Noah’s grip. The apartment was warm as ever, but to Noah it was like a sudden winter breeze had blown in.
Benji headed toward their bedroom, slouchy and beautiful in Noah’s old sleep shirt and the slacks Noah had brought him. It filled Noah with a hot possessiveness, but more than that: protectiveness.
Benji trusted him to make him feel good. He’d overstepped his boundaries with Benji before, and he was almost certain this was the time to step in, not step back.
He closed the distance and turned him around, hand closing around Benji’s chin.
“Hey,” he said, holding him still when he tried to twist away. “You’re too far in your head, baby. If you want to stay there, you go ahead. But I can get you out of it, if you want.”
Benji had already stopped trying to pull away. He stared up at Noah with those big brown eyes, the guardedness finally draining out of them.
Mostly.
“Okay,” Benji said. “But not with a bath.”
Ten minutes later, he had Benji naked and face-down on the bed. His hands were bound above him in soft red silk.
Noah lingered on the color and made a mental note to buy something gold later. Like Benji’s painting, liquid and dripping.
Benji twisted on the mattress, his cheek pillowed against the sheets. “What are you waiting for?”
“Admiring the view,” Noah replied, swatting his ass cheek. He kept it light, but Benji gasped like it was a proper hit, his cock twitching between his legs.
Noah rubbed Benji’s ass, considering. He needed to overwhelm him. He obviously hadn’t done a good enough job back at the car, but they hadn’t had enough time. They had all the time in the world here.
And Noah knew just where to start.
“Careful,” Benji said. “Take too long, and I’ll think you’re bored or—ah.”
Noah smirked. He knew what Benji was feeling: Noah’s fingers spreading his cheeks and pushing just enough pressure on his hole to make his last load slip out.
Benji moaned as Noah’s come dripped down his balls. “Oh, shit. Fuck me.”
“Not yet,” Noah told him. “Remember what you have to do?”
“Stay still,” Benji repeated. But he rolled his eyes when he said it, which told Noah he was nowhere near out of it yet.
“Good boy.” Noah waited to hear Benji grunt in appreciation, then scooched down the bed and bent down to lick a stripe up Benji’s wet balls to his dripping hole.
Benji jerked. “Ohhh fuck.”
Noah grinned against his tailbone. They hadn’t done this much. Noah had to be in a particular mood for it. He had to be hungry for it. Luckily, he was starving tonight.
He ran a teasing ring around Benji’s puffy hole, feeling Benji quiver under him. Then he closed his lips around his hole and sucked.
Benji’s back bowed. “Noah!”
Noah hummed, the vibration making Benji’s hole spasm. He swallowed a mouthful of his own come and then dove back in, pressing the point of his tongue inside. Come squelched out of him each time he fucked his tongue inside, dripping down his chin and Benji’s balls.
Benji’s hands clenched uselessly, twisting against his bonds. His hips rocked back, then forcefully stilled as he remembered Noah telling him to stay still.
“Noah,” he begged. “Please, please.”
Noah didn’t have to ask: Benji was pleading to get fucked with something bigger than his tongue. Noah said nothing, reaching around to grab Benji’s cock, rolling his thumb over the tip.
Benji whimpered. His cockhead was always so sensitive and so slippery. Noah’s thumb was already sliding in the slick.
Noah kept teasing the tip, dropping his head lower to suck Benji’s balls. All the while, Benji shook and quaked and forced himself to stay still.
“Good boy,” Noah told him. “Being so still for me. You’re always so good, Benjamin.”
Benji scoffed, barely audible under a moan.
Noah licked deeper inside him. If Benji was scoffing, it meant he wasn’t under yet. He was still clinging to what happened tonight, lost in his stress. It was Noah’s job to get him so out of it that he didn’t remember what stress was.
He sucked on Benji’s taint, scraped his teeth over Benji’s balls, and bit Benji’s thigh until he bruised. All the while, he kept rubbing his cockhead, sliding that gorgeous slick around until he was dripping with it.
Sweat beaded on Benji’s skin. It was getting noticeably harder for him to stay still until finally Noah had to grab his hips to still him.
Benji mewled. “S-sorry.”
“Don’t be. I said I’d get you out of your head, remember?”
“But I’m trying to be good,” Benji said, half-slurred against the sheets. “Wanna be good for you, D—Noah.”
It took noticeable effort for Noah not to pause his administrations.
Part of him wanted to coax Benji into finally saying daddy and getting it over with.
But after the mess of tonight, he got the feeling that was the last thing Benji wanted.
If he had complicated feelings about a daddy kink, his actual father showing up would definitely make it worse.
Noah would have to sit him down sometime when he wasn’t out of it and explain that biological fathers and daddy kink weren’t knotted together as tightly as Benji thought.
“Don’t move,” Noah instructed.
Benji went as still as he could, shudders rocking his narrow frame as Noah leaned over to the nightstand and pulled out the lube.
“There,” Noah said as he settled back behind him. “You didn’t move. Being so good for me, yeah?”
Benji groaned, his muscles clenching with effort. Noah rubbed his thighs, watching them strain under his touch.
“I’m gonna fuck you now,” Noah said. “You can move however you want.”
It was almost useless to tell him. If Benji got fucked thoroughly enough, he would go limp and boneless on the bed. Noah was pretty sure he was already at that stage, especially if Noah gave it to him good. No teasing, just hard fucking.
Benji’s thankful noise turned into a high-pitched whine as Noah sank in with one long thrust.
Noah fucked him fast and deep, leaning down to fold Benji’s neck into the crook of his arm. He didn’t squeeze, he never did. No pressure on his windpipe, just like Benji asked.
“Say you’re mine,” Noah panted.
Benji’s reply was desperate and immediate. “I’m yours!”
Noah’s eyes slammed shut. He fucked Benji faster, unable to stop himself as his mind filled with knots and collars and golden rings, Benji tied to him for as long as they both shall live.
His orgasm slammed into him so hard his vision greyed out. He barely had enough presence of mind to reach down and fumble at Benji’s cock, which only took two short strokes before Benji wailed and came, muffling his sobs into the bedsheets.
Noah cleaned him up. Then he sat on the bed and watched Benji’s chest rise and fall, his neck and torso covered in healing bruises from Noah’s mouth.
Benji wanted to marry him. Noah was… almost sure of it. He was just scared. Suspicious of having anything good in his life, always waiting for it to end. He was scared of how much he relied on Noah, scared by his love for him.
Noah had to show him he was safe. That he wasn’t going anywhere, that Benji could make a life with him.
He just had to make sure he didn’t scare Benji off first.