Chapter 12
Twelve
ALERIC
At Camillo’s command, it was almost as though I’d left my body. It moved without conscious thought, and I wasn’t even really aware of it until my knees hit the floor with a painful thud. I was too old and my body too battered to be so harsh with it, but the pain was an afterthought the moment I looked into his eyes.
He was hungry. And not for food or drink or a random person.
His hands trembled just a little as he used them to push his legs to the floor and spread his thighs, and then he drew me between them. His jaw ticked as he stared at me.
“It won’t be like anyone you’ve ever fucked,” he murmured as he traced a touch around the shell of my ear. “You’ll need to know this when Raul touches you.”
He didn’t fumble over the character name the way he might have if they’d used the monster’s real one. I was grateful that Camillo had allowed the story to be changed, but there was an ache in my chest because even altered, I knew this whole thing had to hurt him.
I wanted to find Hugo and make him pay.
I pinned that thought though. That bastard wasn’t welcome here. I had no idea how long I could keep this, and I wasn’t going to waste a second of it thinking of a man who had no right to breathe the same air as Camillo did.
“You know the basic mechanics. You know where I can and can’t feel.”
Feeling emboldened, I reached out and pressed my hand to his sternum, dragging it down with heavy pressure. I didn’t know the exact spot where his feeling ended, so I watched him—watched for the subtle shift because, in his own words, he’d explained that the line where his spine had broken was the most sensitive.
Half an inch above his belly button, he sucked in a breath.
There. It was there.
I met his gaze, and he gave a stiff nod before closing his hand around mine. “Yes. Don’t stop.” He dug his nails into the back of my hand—not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me that he was in charge.
And my whole body went burning hot with desire. My cock was thick in my jeans, aching for release, throbbing and wet against the inside of my briefs. I rocked my hips, and Camillo’s mouth twitched at the corners, though he didn’t call me out on it.
Yet.
“Unbutton my shirt.”
My fingers fumbled the first couple, but after a deep breath, I was steady. One by one, I popped them through the little holes. His shirt was soft, silky, definitely some sort of designer. Probably worth more than a month’s rent. It was hard to be bitter about a man who wore it so fucking well.
Mostly because this man would give this shirt to someone on the street if they needed it. This man was someone who might have seen me back then and known something wasn’t right. He was someone who would have reached for me.
Who would have saved me.
“Aleric.”
I’d drifted. My face flushed with shame as I looked up, but Camillo’s expression was the furthest thing from bothered. He looked…kind. Soft. Tender in ways I didn’t expect him to ever look at me. He pressed his hands to the cushion and shifted closer to the edge, and then he hooked a knuckle under my chin the way he did before.
My head tilted easily. There was no fight in me. Not with him. Despite the times I’d been defensive and shitty with him, it was a ruse. I wanted to bend for him.
To break for him.
And only because I knew he would never try to break me.
“Touch me.”
His skin was on display now. His pecs were taut, stomach soft and round, and he had thick dark hair from the waistband of his trousers all the way up his sternum. It split in two, circling around his pert, small nipples, and my mouth watered with the desire to taste them.
Rising higher on my knees, I spread my hand out over his stomach where I knew he couldn’t feel it. He sucked in a breath anyway, his gaze fierce on where my palm was touching him, and he watched without breathing again as I dragged my hand upward.
His upper body flinched when I reached that spot again.
“There.”
I dug my fingers in. I’d done this before—in my trailer. It had been by accident the first time I’d squeezed him there, but the second time had been very, very deliberate. Knowing I could make him react—could make him lose his composure even for a second—was a power I wasn’t sure I was responsible enough to wield.
But I didn’t care. I would do everything I could not to be reckless with this man who deserved to be treated better than he had been.
“Tell me what to do.”
“Your mouth,” he instructed.
Somehow, I knew what he meant. Two short words erupted like a novel in my head. Lean in, part my lips, let that spot on his body feel tongue and teeth. He smelled freshly showered and musky with cologne as I buried my nose against his skin.
His hand dropped down to the back of my head to guide me, and I took another deep breath in before I parted my lips and dug my top teeth against his flesh. He grunted, then let out a soft moan—a sort of quiet “ Ahh ” that sounded entirely involuntary.
I had a feeling he was the kind of person who very rarely let someone know they could make him feel good. I understood exactly what it was like to give someone that power, and it was terrifying. But I wanted him to trust me. I needed him to trust me.
I bit down, and he groaned, falling back against the cushions as his fingers tightened in my hair. “Just like that. Higher. Harder.”
I obeyed, rising onto my knees, trailing licking, biting kisses toward his right nipple. It was pebbled against my lips as I closed them on the tip, and he sucked in a sharp breath, pressing my face so tightly against his pec I was immediately air hungry.
He didn’t make me suffer though. He didn’t make me beg to be let go. He held on for just long enough, and then he released me. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was pulling all the way back. I dug my fingers into his sides, stroking along his ribs as my tongue toyed with his nipple.
“The other side. Please,” he whispered.
I lifted off him, and before I could shift my position, he caught me by the chin. “You are perfect.”
My cock thickened and throbbed and flooded my briefs with precome. I fought the urge to reach between my legs and touch myself, but I didn’t know if that would bother him. And right now, I needed this to be about him.
“Just like you did before. You’re making me feel so good, Aleric.”
Why did my name sound like that on his lips? And how? It was like a psalm being sung in an echoing cathedral. He made me feel…different. There were no words to describe it, but I wanted to protect it with everything I had.
I sank into the feeling as I paid attention to his other nipple, and when he began to tense, I knew then it was too much and pulled away before he could ask. There was something in his expression when I met his gaze. Something like wonder.
“Kiss me.”
I did.
He tasted like rich coffee and spices—cinnamon and nutmeg and chili. His tongue was warm and wet and demanding as it explored my mouth, leaving no space untouched. He flicked it against mine, sending waves of pleasure through my body, and it took me a moment to realize that he’d lifted me high to straddle him.
I felt him beneath me—both hard and soft, strong and pliant. His fingers kneaded my ass cheeks, and he began to urge me to rock against him.
“Are you paying attention?” he asked.
My whole body trembled as I looked between us. My erection was straining against my jeans, testing the weight of the fabric. I felt like I was going to burst.
“Yes, I am. Tell me this won’t hurt you.”
He looked into my eyes, studying me, and I was pretty sure he understood I was asking about more than just physical pain. “I like making you feel good. That’s the one thing I want you to take away from this, Aleric. I like when I can make someone feel good. I like when I understand them enough to know what they need.”
It almost sounded like a threat—but it was also a promise. If I gave in to him, if I let him have me, it would be worth my while.
“Make me feel good. Please.”
He touched my lips with the tips of his fingers. “I like hearing you beg a little.”
“I can beg a lot if you’d like,” I told him.
He laughed softly and shook his head, then curled his fingers back into my hair with one hand. The other drifted between us, and he began to work at my button and my zipper. I wanted to tell him no, to say aloud that this was for him, but I couldn’t get the words out.
I was too desperate to feel his hand on me, selfish as that made me. “Will it feel good for you? I need to know this is good for you.”
“It will be. I swear. I won’t be able to come, not the way you do. But I want to see you do it. I want you to spill on my chest. Let me feel it.”
I groaned loudly and hoped desperately that the café below couldn’t hear me. My hips began to move—restless and needy as he finally worked my cock out of the slit in my briefs and he curled his rough, warm hand around it.
“How can I make this better?”
His lips softened into another smile—patient and sweet. “It’s already perfect.”
Heat rushed through me, but I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. This couldn’t be what he thought of as perfect. “No. I want—how can I make you feel like I’m feeling right now.”
He met my gaze and held it. “You know where to touch me to make me feel good. Give yourself to me, Aleric. Pay attention.”
I had been paying attention. Really. I didn’t know him, but I knew exactly where to bite down to make him squirm, and I knew exactly how quick to obey to send a flush rising from his chest to his ears. I realized right then that’s what he wanted. He wanted someone who understood him. Who was focused when he was letting them know exactly what he wanted.
He needed to feel like I did: like he mattered.
I lowered my head as he began to jack me—hard, dry, the fapping sound of skin against skin filling the room. He tilted his head to the side to give me room, and I dug my fingers back into his sides as I sank my teeth into his neck.
I could feel his pulse beating against my tongue—steady and a little quick. His breath was coming in sharp pants, and his chest began to heat against mine. “ Uh uh ,” he gasped as I began to stroke his sides with the same rhythm he was stroking my cock. “Put your weight on me, rock your hips,” he ordered. “Make me feel it, Aleric.”
I slammed into him, hips moving hard, rocking the couch, sending his body back against the cushions over and over as he matched that movement with his hand. He dislodged my teeth from his neck, turning his head almost violently to capture my mouth, and his other hand in my hair tightened to the point I cried out…
…and then I came.
Hot ropes spilled from the tip of my dick, decorating the thick hair on his stomach. He gasped loudly into the kiss, holding me tight, keeping me still as he shuddered with his own release.
I felt it. There was no come, but there was tension, and then there was stillness. Breath heaved from both of our lungs as we panted into each other’s mouths. Then the kiss turned soft. His grasp on me eased only a little.
He kissed me like a man who didn’t want to let go. Not ever.
Eventually, he pulled away with a soft pop, and though I knew I was pushing my luck, I pressed soft kisses along his jaw. He didn’t stop me. He petted over my hair, around my ears, down the back of my neck. His hand was loose over my cock, and after a long beat of basking, he tucked me back into my briefs.
“Tell me you’re okay,” I murmured.
He was silent for a moment, and then he nodded against the side of my face. “I’m okay. It’s…it’s been a long time since I’ve felt like that.”
Somehow, I didn’t think that’s what he wanted to say, but I didn’t call him on it. Instead, I leaned back and stared at the mess I made. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Were you a virgin?”
My gaze snapped to his. “You know I’m not. I just told you when I was?—”
“No. That’s not what I meant. I’m so sorry if you counted that, Aleric. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
Oh . He meant that apology. My entire body went soft, and if it wasn’t for the gobs of come stuck to his skin, I would have collapsed against him. “I’ve had relationships before. They just never lasted long. And they were…” I closed my eyes with a long inhale. “It never felt like this.”
He hummed and stroked the side of my face with the tips of his fingers. “I thought so. No one has ever looked beneath the surface, have they?”
They hadn’t, but I wasn’t ready to admit that aloud. He might have noticed and pointed it out, but somehow, admitting it made me feel pathetic. Easing back, I crawled off his lap and made my way over to the kitchen.
I could feel his gaze on me, but I didn’t hurry. I found paper towels and ran the water until it was warm.
“I won’t feel the temperature difference, so I don’t care if it’s cold,” he called out, and I could hear a small grin in his voice.
“I do.” Soaking the towel, I gave myself a cursory wipe down, then wet a fresh one for him. When he tried to take it from me, I smacked his hand away, then went back down to my knees and began to clean him with thorough sweeps of the wet paper.
“You look good down there.”
My cheeks flushed. I wanted to give him a snarky comeback, to regain some of the power I’d given him, but I couldn’t. It would come back to me the moment he was done with me—so I supposed letting him keep it for now did me no harm.
I’d given it to him freely, unlike so many others who’d swept in and taken it.
He touched my jaw again, and I looked up at him. “It shouldn’t be like this with Raul.”
I blinked, startled by his words, and it took a moment for my brain to make sense of them. Raul. Right. The guy I was learning how to fuck when I was playing Camillo.
I cleared my throat. “What should it be like?”
“Awkward. Nervous,” he said. I knew he wasn’t talking about his time with Hugo. Not really. He was talking about the first time he’d seen himself as a man capable of sex. “Uncertain. He’ll take the lead a little bit, but you’ll need to be strong.”
“I can do that. I’m learning from the best.”
With a small snort, he shoved me back but kept a grip on my shoulder and used it to pull himself forward until we were almost kissing. His lips were a breath away from mine. “You learn well, sweetheart.”
That last word was a dagger to my heart. I was lost now. I was going to bleed out—painfully slow, dead before he walked away. But it was welcome.
Because in that single moment, for the first time that I could remember, I was truly happy.