Chapter 10 #2
“Right, the aim of this exercise is to imagine you are complete strangers but tonight you’ll be on a first date.
How do you strike up a conversation? What do you say?
What do you tell a stranger about yourself?
Right, you have half an hour to plan your conversation on your own, then we’ll have coffee, and then two hours to learn as much as you can about your new partner and then, with all this new knowledge, you must introduce your new partner to the group.
I’ll give you a little clue, gentlemen: the key to this exercise is listening.
There’s a reason we evolved with two ears but only one mouth. ”
Each new couple pulled their chairs out of the group to sit together and work through the exercise. It afforded the opportunity for Ben to drag a chair behind Nikolas. Nikolas was staring at the carpet, lips pursed. Samuel was thinking deeply, making vague notes on the paper he’d been issued.
Ben hissed in Danish, not really caring anymore if anyone questioned their shared knowledge of this slightly obscure language. “Not once you’ve let me watch. Not fucking once.”
“So you’re not upset I let him but that I don’t let you?”
“Yes! Fucking hell, yes. Was he that much more special to you?”
“Ack, how can you…?” Nikolas twisted around in his seat, straddling it, back to Samuel.
Ben did the same, much to James’s obvious consternation.
Their foreheads were almost touching “I— Damn it. It’s not that he meant more to me—the opposite.
I want you to respect me. I want you to look up to me.
I didn’t care what Gregory thought of me, because he’d already seen me at my very worst.” He raised his eyes.
“When he found me, I was eating someone. I’m sorry.
I didn’t particularly want to tell you that either. ”
Ben lowered his head. If it appeared that he was praying to Nikolas, he didn’t care. Perhaps he was. He whispered to the floor,
“How do you do this to me every time?” He raised his eyes. “All your bullshit, all your lies…and then there it is, the tiny moment of honesty…that second when you’re vulnerable…” He lifted his face fully. “I didn’t think I could love you more, but I do right now.”
Nikolas’s eyes widened. “I should have maybe tried a little honesty before this. Do you…feel in need of a cigarette? Please say yes.”
Ben smirked and glanced back at Fergus who was observing Mark with Lester. “Do you think he’ll let us?”
“What? Are we in kindergarten? Come.”
* * *
Obviously, Nikolas hadn’t forgotten Natasha.
He was just currently more concentrated on Ben’s confession that he loved him, and wanted to take full advantage of it before Ben’s imagination dwelt too much on the details of just how and when he’d let Gregory watch him—and from how close up, come to that.
They headed straight back to the garage, shut the door, fastening it as best they could, and before Ben could speak, Nikolas had him pressed, back to the wall, indulging in his second favourite occupation with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen.
Then, when he’d kissed him thoroughly, he turned him face to the wall and indulged his first.
They hadn’t had sex for what seemed like weeks.
It always did when they’d missed even one day.
Nikolas took his time savouring the sight of Ben utterly dishevelled, hovering uneasily between his two personas.
Ben’s eyes again now, Justin’s hair, Ben stubble, Justin’s blond beard—and the tattoo, which was as much Ben as Justin.
But lower down, he was all Ben. His backside—hard, tanned, smooth—was entirely Benjamin.
Parted, what lay between was entirely his, though, and Nikolas entered with a sense of coming home, of finding himself, of being entirely broken down into his base ingredients.
He watched as his cock slid slowly through the accepting ring of tight flesh, pausing to savour the sound of Ben’s discomfort, which they both enjoyed, for it heralded the coming of pleasure.
Standing was always good because the angle was so perfect, their fit so right, the illicitness of fucking a man like this from behind still so seductive, even after all these years.
He wrapped his arms tightly around Ben’s chest, feeling his heartbeat strong and vital beneath his grubby shirt.
He slid his hands in under the material to slide on the warm, muscular torso, fastening onto Ben’s nipples and twisting them for him, making Ben fling his head back from the intensity of the stabbing sensation.
So in tune were they Nikolas knew the moment the head would come back, and he dodged it, fastening his lips onto Ben’s stretched neck, sucking the salty skin, biting him, adding another tiny source of pain.
Nikolas was close now. He needed Ben to come with him, wanted that affirmation.
Ben braced himself on the wall, bending, spreading his legs.
Nikolas swore softly at the position and in his mind began to frisk Ben, seeing it play out—an illegal stop and search, orders given over the barrel of a gun, a vicious rape which was asked for and welcome—illicit contradiction that could exist only in the imagination…
His hands strayed to Ben’s hair before he remembered there was nothing to hold.
He grabbed his shoulders instead and rode hard into the offered hole.
He heard Ben grunt, knew what it meant and forced himself to the top of the long climb.
The freefall after that was exquisite. It was the only time in Nikolas’s existence when he was entirely vulnerable.
Even in sleep, he was more able to defend himself than at the moments when he orgasmed inside Ben.
He didn’t want to rouse from this blissful moment of peace.
He was exhausted and grubby and deep inside his favourite place—but they were snatching happiness when they had a job to do.
The temptation to close his eyes and rest on Ben’s back, stay embedded, was almost beyond his power to resist. But defy it he did.
He stood up, wincing at the usual consequences of sex in clothes during the day.
Ben was doing the same, and with a private, shared smile they attempted to tidy each other.
Ben sighed and glanced at the lowered door.
“We should go. Half an hour must be up. I want to speak with this coffee man about Squeezy.”
Nikolas snagged Ben’s shirt. Just a tiny pinch of cloth, but it was enough to hold him prisoner. “Natasha?”
Ben closed his eyes. “How upset are you going to be about this?”
“How upset do I need to be?”
“It was once, Nik. I was drunk. I passed out. When I came round, she was sucking me off.”
“And you let her?”
“What would you have done?”
Nikolas narrowed his eyes. It was a fair point.
He pulled Ben closer with a tug on his shirt.
Ben came slightly reluctantly. Suddenly, Nikolas pushed him against the wall, his hand around Ben’s throat.
He lowered his face closer and kissed him slowly.
Ben was frozen, neither responding nor rejecting.
When Nikolas had made Ben’s lips red and swollen from his rough stubble and grinding kiss, he pulled away.
“Take it as an indication of just how much you mean to me that I let this go.”
Ben swallowed then very pointedly broke Nikolas’s hold, swinging his arm up, batting his hand away.
Before Nikolas could process this audacity, Ben had him back to the wall and his forearm lying over Nikolas’s throat—a far more powerful and effective restraint.
“I don’t think you’re entirely getting with the programme here, Nikolas.
I was drunk. I didn’t initiate it. You did the one thing I trusted you not to do. ”
Nikolas’s thoughts were entirely veiled, but he countered carefully, “You said you forgave me…”
Ben nodded. “I have. That’s my point. You don’t get to hold my mistake over me. You don’t get to say you let it go as if you were some magnanimous ruler. You either forgive me and forget it, or you and Gregory are going to be a real problem for me. I’ll unforgive you.”
“That’s not a real word.”
“Who didn’t have to learn his English, Nikolas? Who speaks it naturally? Me—so shut the fuck up.”
“Don’t—”
Ben laid his finger across Nikolas’s lips, pressing harder with his forearm. “So, Natasha?”
Nikolas blinked then pouted a little. Ben shook his head. “Not working. Sympathy vote all used up with your horrible cannibal story. I can’t see you beating that for a while.”
“I bet I could.”
Ben apparently tried not to smile, but he failed miserably.
Nikolas smirked. “All right. I’m sorry. I forgive you—although obviously you did nothing that needs forgiving. There, have I covered all bases?”
Ben released him but swatted his hair. Nikolas pushed off the wall, feeling very happy with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. “Come. We must go. I’m a quiver to know all Samuel’s secrets. God forbid I’m late for that.” He glanced down at the hold Ben had upon his shirt. Ben forced him to look back up.
“You’re not finished. I want to watch. Now.”
Nikolas’s blood ran cold. He turned his face away. “That’s not fair, Ben. Could you? Would you? Here, just like that?”
“If you wanted me to.”
“Well I don’t.”
“But I do. Fucking hell, Nikolas, him but not me!”
“You still don’t get it do you! I jerked off with him watching because it was as if he wasn’t there!
” He took hold of Ben’s hand, twisted loose the grip on his shirt and brought the fingers to his lips.
“Please.” He flicked his gaze up through long eyelashes—not a tactic he employed very often, as commanding and bullying Ben usually worked well enough and was more fun.
“I’ve been putting on shows with my body for men since I was ten years old.
Please. I’ve never had to for you. Do you understand how special that makes you to me? ”
Nikolas watched as Ben’s anger melted—again. Ben was a hopeless sap for him—had been for eight years. Ben seized him and pulled him in for a tight hug. “Bloody hell. I’m so sorry, Nik. I’m so sorry.”
Nikolas swelled with pleasure in the tight, loving hug, but murmured dryly, “Told you I could beat the cannibal story.”
* * *