Chapter 20 - Ben #2
Alex made a sound—soft, a little like a whimper, the kind of noise that bypassed thought and went straight to the base of my spine. His fingers curled into the front of my flannel shirt, not pulling, just holding and anchoring himself. Anchoring us both.
I cradled the back of his head, feeling the shape of his skull beneath my palm, the silk of his hair between my fingers. He tasted faintly of Holly's tea and the peppermint someone had pressed into his hand backstage hours ago.
The kiss deepened. His tongue slid against mine, and I forgot about the fire, forgot about the cold beyond the windows, and forgot about everything except how he was pressing into me like he couldn't get close enough.
A log shifted in the grate, sending up a shower of sparks. Alex pulled back just enough to laugh against my mouth, breathless and bright.
"The house has opinions," he murmured.
"The house can wait."
I kissed him again, harder this time. He responded in kind, his hand sliding from my shirt to the nape of my neck, fingertips pressing against my skin.
We turned into a tangle of angles on the old rug—knees bumping, elbows finding new arrangements, and neither of us willing to break contact long enough to figure out a more comfortable position.
His thigh pushed between mine, and the friction pulled a groan from somewhere deep in my chest. Alex swallowed the sound, kissing me deeper, his hips rolling forward.
When we finally came up for air, his chest was heaving beneath the thin henley he'd worn under the Santa padding. My flannel had come completely untucked, and his hands had found their way beneath it, palms flat against my stomach.
"Ben." His voice was low, husky, edged with want. "Take me upstairs."
Three words. That's all it took to undo whatever restraint I'd been following.
I rose and pulled him with me. He came easily, fitting against my side as if we'd been navigating doorways together for years instead of days. The stairs rising ahead of us into shadows.
We made it halfway to the landing before he pressed me against the banister and kissed me again—urgent, demanding, grinding against me. I gripped the hem of his shirt with one hand and slid the other beneath it, tracing his muscles and ribs.
He shivered and pressed closer, letting me feel the stiff shaft of his cock against my thigh.
Alex pulled away just far enough to look at me. His eyes had gone dark, hungry, and his breath came in short bursts.
"Second door on the right," he said. "The room that was always mine when I stayed here."
We raced up the rest of the stairs and down the hall.
The room was smaller than I expected—a narrow bed pushed against the far wall, a worn dresser with an oval mirror, and a quilt stitched in faded blues and silvers that caught the glow from the bedside lamp. Honey-warm light spread across everything.
Broadway posters lined the walls. Sondheim, Porter, Bernstein—names I recognized from cast recordings Alex's grandmother used to hum along with during my repair visits. I imagined a teenage Alex taping those up with care, planning an escape route that would take fifteen years to lead him back here.
He stood at the foot of the bed, watching me look around the room. Vulnerable in a way he hadn't been even during the hospital visits.
"I never brought anyone here," he said.
"Yes."
I crossed to him slowly, giving him time to change his mind, pull back, and remember all the reasons we might be going too fast. He didn't move. Just watched me.
When I reached him, I stepped between his knees where he'd sunk onto the mattress edge. His hands rested on my hips, fingers curling into the denim.
"We don't have to—"
"I want to." His thumbs pressed more firmly into my hip bones, sending sparks along my nerve endings. "I want all of it. With you."
I bent and kissed him, cradling his jaw in both hands. He sighed into my mouth and fell backward, pulling me down with him onto the narrow bed and its constellation quilt.
What came next surprised us both, I think.
Not the desire—that had been building for days, a slow accumulation of almost-touches and interrupted moments.
What surprised me was the laughter. Alex fumbled with the buttons on my flannel, got one stuck in the buttonhole, and, instead of frustration, dissolved into giggles against my throat, his whole body shaking with it.
I started laughing too, forehead pressed to his shoulder, and for a long moment we lay there, tangled together, laughing while the old bed creaked beneath us.
"Very smooth," he managed. "Very seductive."
"Shut up and help me with this."
He did, finally freeing the button and pushing the shirt off my shoulders. His laughter faded as his hands spread across my chest, fingers tracing the lines of muscle. When he looked up at me, the humor had transformed into something more deliberate.
"You're gorgeous," he said. "You know that, right? All this time in your workshop, sawdust in your hair, looking like some lumberjack fantasy, and I kept thinking—" He shook his head. "I kept thinking I didn't deserve this."
"And now?"
"Now I'm going to take what I want."
He flipped us.
I hadn't expected that either—the sudden shift, his thighs straddling mine, his weight settling against my hips in a way that made my vision blur at the edges.
He pulled his henley over his head in one fluid motion, and the lamp bathed him in gold and shadow: the flat stomach, the definition in his arms from years of dance, and the faint trail of hair leading down from his navel.
"Alex—"
"Shhh." He leaned down and kissed me, slow and thorough, while his hands worked at my belt. "Let me."
I didn't interrupt.
He undressed me—unhurried, absorbing every response. When he wrapped his hand around my cock, I made a sound halfway between a groan and a plea. His answering smile held an edge of wonder, like he couldn't quite believe he was allowed to touch me that way.
"I want—" His voice caught. He tried again. "I want to feel you. Inside me. Can we—"
"Yes." The word came out ragged. "God, yes."
The next few minutes were a blur of logistics—supplies retrieved from the nightstand (he'd planned this, I realized, or at least hoped for it), and the careful work of preparation, sheathing a cock, that he insisted on directing.
"Slower," he breathed at one point as I began to thrust, his back arching off the mattress. "Just—there. There."
When I finally sank into him, we both froze.
The sensation was overwhelming—heat and pressure and the impossible intimacy of being joined completely.
Alex's eyes fluttered closed, his lips parted, and his fingers curled tight into the quilt on either side of his head.
He looked like someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life learning how to take apart.
"Move." His voice cracked on the word. "Ben, please—"
I started slow, watching his face for any sign of discomfort, but what I found there was hunger. His legs wrapped around my waist, heels digging into my lower back, urging me deeper. He gripped my shoulders and pulled me down until we were chest to chest, breath to breath.
"Harder," he gasped against my ear. "I won't break."
I gave him harder. Gave him everything I'd been holding back for two weeks of almost moments and interrupted touches.
The bed frame knocked against the wall in a rhythm that would have embarrassed me if I'd had room left for embarrassment.
Alex met every thrust, his hips rising to connect with mine, his voice breaking around sounds that weren't quite words.
"Ben—I'm close—"
I shifted my angle, searched for the spot that had made him cry out earlier, and found it.
His whole body seized, his fingers dug into my back hard enough to leave marks.
I watched his face as he came—the way his expression cracked open, defenseless and transcendent—and that was what finally pushed me over the edge.
I shuddered as waves of orgasm washed over me. I collapsed, trembling in the aftermath.
At first, we didn't move. I was still inside him, both of us breathing hard as the sweat began to cool on our skin. Then Alex started to laugh again—quietly this time.
"What?" I managed.
"I just—" He shook his head against the pillow. "That was..."
"Yeah?"
"I've had sex before. Obviously, but that was—" He stared into my eyes. "I think that was the first time I've ever made love."
I kissed him—gentle and tender—then carefully pulled out, settling beside him on the narrow mattress. He turned immediately, pressing his face into the curve of my neck, one leg thrown over mine.
"Stay," he mumbled against my skin. "Just... stay."
"Couldn't make me leave," I said. And meant it.
Alex's head on my chest rose and fell with my breathing. His body had gone heavy against mine. His fingers traced patterns across my ribs, slow and aimless.
The quilt had twisted around our legs. Neither of us moved to fix it.
Then Alex spoke in a hushed tone. "I'm ready to read her letter, Grandma's."
I'd wondered about that letter since he first mentioned it—the envelope his grandmother had left with her will, still sealed. He'd told me he couldn't face it. He worried that the weight of her final words would be too much to carry.
I shifted, starting to untangle myself. "I'll give you privacy."
"Stay," he requested. "You're part of this now."
I settled back against the pillows. He remained pressed against my side, his heartbeat a steady rhythm.
Alex reached toward the nightstand, pulling open the small drawer with a scrape of wood against wood.
The envelope had been waiting there the whole time—cream-colored, slightly bent at one corner, his name written across the front in the looping script I recognized from margin notes and Christmas cards and decades of correspondence with a woman who'd believed in him.
He held it for a long moment. Just looking.
Then his thumb slid beneath the seal.