Chapter Fifteen #2
He wanted all those things, and he wanted them with Ben wearing the ring Phil had given him. Not to save Charlie from having to return to Utah, not to validate Ben’s living situation to CPS, and not because Phil was confused or angry or any of the other feelings Ben had accused him of.
Phil didn’t go around proposing to people to help them out.
He’d dated Camille for three years before even thinking about ring shopping.
If he didn’t actually, intensely want to be married to Ben, he would have come up with a less stupid way to convince Ms. Rodriguez and CPS that Charlie had a secure living situation.
Phil wasn’t just tentatively bi and somewhat into his live-in coach turned friend, lover, and guardian to the coolest kid he’d ever met. Phil was definitely extremely bi and in love with a man.
“I’ve gotta get some air,” he mumbled around suddenly numb lips. He grabbed a steak strip on a stick for moral support and slipped out a side door.
So. He was in love with Ben. Christ, couldn’t he have realized it a week ago? He would have put much more effort into giving Ben the rings. Guilt about shoving them at Ben in the kitchen when they’d been drinking and fighting churned in his gut. He should have been romantic.
Phil took a deep breath.
It was fine. This was fine. His timing sucked, and the complicating factors of Ben’s fake identity and the ticking clock of Charlie’s guardianship hearing didn’t make things easier.
But Ben hadn’t rejected the rings point blank.
He hadn’t even rejected Phil’s proposal outright.
He’d only listed a bunch of reasons why it would be complicated and treated them as a rejection.
That, more than anything, meant Phil could hope.
He took another deep breath and ate his steak strip.
A salty herb blend coated the outside, making the whole thing tangy. Might be chimichurri.
Maybe Phil could talk Ben into letting him barbecue if they got married.
It was the middle of winter, but the grill stood under the patio roof, and a wedding deserved good food.
They wouldn’t be making a fuss of it, not least because, for all intents and purposes, Ben was his coach.
The less eyes on their nuptials the better for the team, who were headed for a massive amount of pressure sooner rather than later when the truth about Ben, Trout, and Van Giesing came out.
Still. If Phil got married again, he wanted to pick the menu this time.
Phil licked the last of the herbs from his teeth. He couldn’t get too carried away in daydreams. Ben had said he needed the marriage to be real, but that didn’t mean he had feelings for Phil. He might mean he couldn’t marry Phil at all.
Then again, Ben had believed Phil actually thought he was straight up until last week. Maybe he needed time to adapt.
Maybe Ben needed more than domesticity and sloppy hand jobs.
Maybe Phil needed to put his money where his mouth was and prove he could be worth sticking around for.
“Phil?” Ben peered through the side door. “There you are.” He stepped out fully. He’d lost his tie, now a rolled-up bundle in his pocket. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, his neck and cheeks flushed from the heat in the venue.
Phil wanted to do so many things to this man that he’d never before considered doing to another human.
He wanted to bite into the soft swell of Ben’s belly.
He wanted to lay himself out and let Ben do whatever he wanted to Phil’s body.
He wanted to make Ben tea and give him painkillers when he got headaches from hockey arenas.
He wanted to put his head in Ben’s lap and let Ben massage his temples.
He wanted to take care and let himself be taken care of in a way he’d never conceived of in any previous relationship—wanted to let all the parts of himself be seen that he’d previously believed to be things he had to protect his partner from.
Phil summoned a weak smile. “What are you doing here? I thought you were getting an in with the illegal betting pool.”
“I am extremely efficient. I can do two things at one party.” Ben stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Also, I can’t hang out with them all night, trying to get more information. They’ll notice.”
Phil had met the owner of the club twice.
Once when he got traded to the team and then again at one of these parties.
He didn’t think the man had ever “hung out” in his life.
But this was the most Ben had told him about his efforts in uncovering the betting conspiracy, so Phil hung on to every word.
“You okay?” Ben asked, studying him.
Phil considered. “I think so. Come with me.”
He took Ben by the hand and pulled him down the hallway.
PR had decked out the whole building for the party but nowhere quite as much as the front entrance, where someone had unrolled a teal carpet for them to walk down as they came in. It was the team color, but Phil did not want to see a carpet in it.
The hallways were more sedate, with low lights and streamers in the doorways. A bag of sparklers beckoned from a basket attached to the PR office door, probably in hope everyone would grab one for some photo opportunities.
Whoever had decorated hadn’t made it to Ben’s office.
That was good. It meant they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Phil tugged Ben inside and locked the door behind them.
Belatedly, he remembered his knee would be a problem for what he had planned and looked around for ideas.
He smiled when he spotted the high-backed leather chair behind the desk.
It contributed at least 30 percent to Ben’s air of authority.
He was the most mild-mannered guy Phil knew, but everyone looked a little bossy in a leather chair.
Phil sat in it and pulled Ben closer by the waist.
“Phil?” Ben asked.
“Yeah,” Phil said hoarsely. He reached for the button of Ben’s suit pants.
“Phil.”
“Yeah.”
“You said I had to let you in,” Ben said. “Before we did this again.”
“Actually, I think that last part was more implied,” Phil said.
“Phil.”
Phil sighed. He rested his forehead against Ben’s abdomen.
“I don’t want to pressure you. I meant what I said the other night.
What I’m offering you isn’t for show. Maybe I wouldn’t move this fast if not for Charlie, but I want to marry you.
To have you. To hold you. All those things.
But I shouldn’t have said it in anger. So this is me asking again nicely. ”
“With a blow job.” Ben’s tone was flat, skeptical even.
But Phil found, to his own great satisfaction, that he knew Ben in an intimate, personal way that had nothing to do with his real job, his real feelings about hockey, even his real last name.
He could see the humor in the wry quirk at the corner of Ben’s lips, and he knew he had Ben halfway convinced.
“You don’t strike me as a flowers and chocolates kind of guy.” Phil traced his fingers up the outside of Ben’s thighs.
“I like flowers.”
“Noted. Do you like blow jobs?”
Finally, the laugh Phil had been waiting for fell reluctantly out of Ben’s mouth. “Yeah, Phil, of course I like blow jobs.”
“So let me show you how good this could be.”
One hesitant hand settled at the back of Phil’s neck. Phil resisted the urge to pump his fist in victory.
Then, he opened up Ben’s pants and pulled them down until they fell around his ankles. He pressed a kiss to the swell of Ben’s cock before pulling down his briefs as well.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he reminded Ben before opening his mouth and taking the head of Ben’s cock into it.
“Thought you were supposed to be showing me how good—oh, fuck.”
Gotcha, Phil thought, and if he felt smug about it, well, he wanted Ben to know that about him too. Getting a lover going deserved a little smugness.
There was no point in comparing it to going down on a woman. Beyond Phil being on his knees for someone (figuratively, it would be a while before he could get on his knees literally), the two acts had little in common. Instead, Phil focused on what he knew about Ben.
He knew Ben liked it a little rough, liked when it hurt.
He tried grazing his teeth along the shaft as he pulled away, and Ben rewarded him with a shocked intake of breath.
He knew Ben enjoyed sharp friction, so he kept his mouth tight and let the head of Ben’s cock rub against the inside of his cheek.
He kept up a slow and steady rhythm as he got used to it.
Above him, Ben said, “Phil,” and “keep going,” and “like that,” so he must be on the right track.
He couldn’t take it all in his throat the way Ben could, but once he knew how to coordinate his mouth and his tongue, he wrapped his hand around the base of Ben’s cock and stroked in time.
It required a lot of coordination, sure, but Phil had spent years learning to coordinate different body parts to move in unison.
Who knew hockey had such transferable skills for cocksucking?
His favorite part was how Ben’s hand slid up from the back of Phil’s neck to the base of his head.
He didn’t touch Phil’s hair, just the shaved part where the skin felt thin and sensitive.
And he didn’t push or pull; he simply left his hand there as if to ground both of them.
But that firm touch made Phil feel tethered, held down, and kept.
Ben held such power over him, though he chose not to use it, and Phil found he loved knowing Ben could take anything he wanted.
Eventually, Phil’s jaw got sore, and he pulled off to continue with his hand.
Ben looked down at him with an expression of such open fondness it bowled Phil over.
Whatever else happened, in this moment, he truly cared for Phil, and Phil treasured that knowledge.
A thin string of saliva stretched between Phil’s lips and the head of Ben’s cock.
As Phil watched, a bead of precome welled at the top. Without a thought, he licked it off.
It didn’t taste particularly good, but Ben said, “Oh my God,” all in one breath, winded and overwhelmed, and Phil realized abruptly he’d gotten hard.
His cock pressed tight to the inseam of his suit pants, and his pulse pounded throughout his body. He licked his lips as he continued to stroke Ben, and Ben made another hurt, plaintive noise.
Phil reached out and grabbed his ass in both hands, gripping tight till his fingernails sank into the soft give of flesh, and dragged Ben forward to take him into his mouth again.
“Phil,” Ben said urgently. “Phil, I won’t last.”
He was going to come. He was going to come in Phil’s mouth because Phil made him feel good. Sweat beaded on the back of Phil’s neck, and his cock twitched, trapped tight between his thigh and pants.
“Phil,” Ben warned again.
Phil scraped his teeth carefully, delicately along the unprotected head of Ben’s cock.
Ben fell utterly silent as he came, shooting across Phil’s tongue in pulse after pulse. When he finished and pulled in a shuddering, heaving breath, Phil realized Ben had been holding still so he wouldn’t choke Phil. The consideration made him leave a sticky kiss on Ben’s hip.
“How was I?” Phil asked.
Ben laughed tightly. “It’s a good thing you already proposed, or I might.”
Phil grinned up at him and then licked his lips. Definitely an acquired taste, but he’d gotten used to whiskey, which tasted objectively worse.
“What can I do for you?” Ben asked, trailing his eyes down to the thick line of Phil’s cock.
Phil shook his head.
“But—”
“Later,” Phil said. “This was for you.”
He tried not to read into Ben’s tremulous smile or soft kiss, but it was a lost cause. No matter what scraps Ben gave him, so long as he didn’t fully reject what Phil had offered him, Phil would keep hoping for more.